This turns out to be a logical contradiction, as stated previously, evil does exist in this world in many different forms, so this being of which no greater can be conceived must not exist. Epicurus’ questions or paradox, as it has come to be known, goes as follows, “If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to? Then he is not omnipotent. If He is able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Aquinas’ 3 ways make far too many leaps and assumptions. For Example, in the 2nd way – from Cause, the argument clearly states that everything has a cause, that cause must too have a cause, there cannot be an infinite number of causes therefore there must be an uncaused cause. The logic in this argument is sound however, when Aquinas makes the leap from there being an uncaused cause to that uncaused cause being God this is where I feel it falls. This leap is unjustified and therefore I don’t feel it is sufficient to be convincing as proof to the existence of God. Bertrand Russell would argue against the 2nd way with fallacy of composition.
He also has some strong opinion on the solutions that the theists have on the resolution to the problem of evil. He states that "If we use the cosmological argument at all, all we are entitled to infer is the existence of a cause commensurate with the effect to be explained, the universe, and this does not entitle us to postulate an all powerful, all perfect, uncaused cause." He also states that theists come up with what he believes is "unintelligent" instances of how we find reasons to believe in God and how he can exist in a world that has evil involved in people's lives. These instances of how evil can exist while GOd can to at the same time include, being punishment for people's wrongs or the consequence of having free will. But here I would like to put in my own opinion much like McCloskey has throughout his article.
The first premise states that “If there is evil, God either isn’t willing or isn’t able to prevent it.” The idea of a God who is neither willing nor able to do something is almost immediately equating to no God. Without even delving further into the argument, we can already see where these premises are leading. The second premise states that “If God is all powerful, he can prevent it” and the third states that “If God is perfectly good, God will prevent it if God can.” There is no denying that the Judeo-Christian possibly Islamic God is supposed to be both all powerful and perfectly good (as stated in the fourth premise of the argument). However, Laurence also mentions that perhaps it just does not make sense for there to be a world without evil, bringing to light the validity of the second and third premises. He speaks of how a world with humans is better than a world without, and because of this it is just does not make sense to have a world without evil.
An omnipotent God would be able to prevent evil if he wanted to. A God both omnipotent and omnibenevolent would both want to and be able to prevent evil. P2 states that evil and suffering do exist, making it apparent that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good Gods existence would be almost impossible. If a tri-omni god existed, then evil would not be able to exist The biggest weakness of the argument will be P1 that if an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God exists, then evil and suffering would not exist. If God is all knowing and all powerful and all good, therefore god would not want us to suffer and not put evil on earth.
On one hand you have the philosophers who believe you can speak and write about God, because God is reality. On the other hand, are the Logical Positivists who claim that statements about God have no meaning because they don’t relate to anything that is real. There are a number of philosophers who claimed to have proven conclusively that religious language is meaningful, for example Aquinas’ theory of analogy. An analogy is an attempt to explain the meaning of something which is difficult to understand and forming relations through attributes or relations that are similar. Aquinas rejected univocal and equivocal language when talking about God.
There are situations in which God would have to compromise in terms of his attributes in order to be all-knowing. The first difficulty is that there are some things that are impossible for God to do. For example, Can God know lust? As we know, God is, and has to be morally perfect and morally right. If God breaks this, then he is not being omnibenevolent (all good), which is another of his attributes.
Through explanation and analysis of his position, this paper will set out his belief on the existence of God, the importance of this argument to his overall position, and to discuss several of the problems in his reasoning. The first proof Descartes considers God is the in the third meditation. By this point, Descartes has already concluded that the only thing thus far that he can be sure of is that he exists as some sort of thinking thing. He has considered the existence of a malevolent spirit that has set out specifically to deceive him at every turn, which has the effect of rendering any other belief spurious at best. In the face of the possibility that something is deliberately setting out to deceive him, he is left only with the knowledge that he is a thinking thing.
The heart of Leibniz’s argument was that there must be a cause for the whole which explains the whole. Frederick Copleston would have disagreed with this statement because he believed that there has to be a necessary being which explains the contingent beings and this necessary being should contain within itself the reason for its own existence. Copleston would go on to say that this necessary being is God and God is therefore the explanation of the universe and how it came into existence. Hume would have agreed with this statement because he questioned the idea that everything has a cause. He claimed that
Anselm’s Ontological Argument states that one understands that God, as a being, cannot be conceived a greater. Anselm uses this psychology that if we conceive of such a being’s existence only in the understanding, a greater being could be conceived and also exists in reality (Anselm, p.169). He also goes on to say that it’s contradictory because we cannot conceive a greater being than God that it must exist (Anselm, p.169). Anselm then moves on to the admission that since one understands the concept of a being that cannot conceive a greater; God cannot be understood not to exist (Anselm, p.169). One example that Anselm used to back up his argument was a painter.