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Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God
Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God
Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God
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Recommended: Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God
Evil and God The question “Does the fact of evil count against the proposition that God exist?” has already existed for a long time. In the past, a lot of loyal adherents and great philosophers felt confused about the question and even suspected their beliefs. They gave many reasons and logical analysis to explain why evil does exist.
At first, we should have a clear definition about god if we want to figure about whether the fact of evil count against the proposition that god exist. From the theory of Anselm and Aquinas, God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. God is the cause of being, and goodness, and of every perfection in all existing things (Fieser and Pojman, 205). In conclusion, god is perfect, all-good, omniscient, and omnipotent. If god is like Anselm and Aquinas described, the fact of evil is a good argument to count against the proposition that god exist. We can see evil in reality, but no one has ever seen god in reality. God did not create a world without evil, and god did not extinguish evil. In the world, we can see many people are suffering. Wars, disease, and nature disasters ruined a lot of people’s life. Many people are starving and homeless. There is no deny that evil does exist in reality. However, no one has ever seen god in reality.
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Evil can be seen and experienced in reality but god cannot be seen. Compared to god, evil is more specific. Besides, Evil itself can prove god is not all-good or god does not exist. Since god is believed as the highest degree of excellence and the greatest thing, god does not exist in reality. In the history, we can see a lot of great philosophers also felt confused about the relationship between god and evil. Some of them provide the theory of Deism, which changed the definition of god. It is a kind of compromise for evil and other things cannot be
if God truly existed, there would be no evil. Since evil does exist in the
The problem of evil is a difficult objection to contend with for theists. Indeed, major crises of faith can occur after observing or experiencing the wide variety and depths of suffering in the world. It also stands that these “evils” of suffering call into question the existence of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The “greater good defense” tries to account for some of the issues presented, but still has flaws of its own.
The problem of evil is inescapable in this fallen world. From worldwide terror like the Holocaust to individual evils like abuse, evil touches every life. However, evil is not a creation of God, nor was it in His perfect will. As Aleksandr
Throughout the world, most people believe in some type of god or gods, and the majority of them understand God as all-good, all-knowing (omniscient), and all-powerful (omnipotent). However, there is a major objection to the latter belief: the “problem of evil” (P.O.E.) argument. According to this theory, God’s existence is unlikely, if not illogical, because a good, omniscient, and omnipotent being would not allow unnecessary suffering, of which there are enormous amounts.
Shirley Jackson’s short story “ The Possibility of Evil” is about a little old lady named Miss Strangeworth. She thinks she’s in charge of the town and to make sure it’s free from all evil because her grandfather built the first house on Pleasant Street. At first Miss Strangeworth is a nice little old lady, worrying about people and wondering what others are up to. Then in the middle of the story she becomes a little rude to a few of the townspeople. In the end Miss Strangeworth thought she was getting rid of the evil in the town, but in reality she was causing evil in the town by showing her true colors and being extremely mean and cruel to others. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover because people aren’t always what they seem to be.
There is evil. 3. So, God does not exist”. Since there is evil, then that means God does not exist.
Even though evil is very real it has no existence of its own. Evil is an absence of something, it is not a “thing” itself. Evil is a lot like cold which is the absence of heat. So evil can be nothing without something.
The Problem of Evil assumes that all of these qualifications are true and valid. The Problem of Evil is as follows: 1. If God exists, then there is no evil. This assumes the opposite is true also; if evil exists, then there is no God. 2. Evil exists. Whether in the form of some other being, such a Satan, or the actions of other humans or living things, evil exists. People perform cruel, heinous, unnecessary actions. People murder other people. They kill animals; they lie, steal, and cheat. Evil is all around is. 3. Since evil exists, a PKM god does not
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (Lewis, 1994, p. 91). Throughout history man has had to struggle with the problem of evil. It is one of the greatest problems of the world. Unquestionably, there is no greater challenge to man’s faith then the existence of evil and a suffering world. The problem can be stated simply: If God is an all-knowing and all-loving God, how can He allow evil? If God is so good, how can He allow such bad things to happen?Why does He allow bad things to happen to good people? These are fundamental questions that many Christians and non-Christians set out to answer.
According to Augustine, there is no such thing as evil. It is simply the privation of good. In Augustine’s book, On Free Choice of the Will, he talks through Evodius, who presents God as one with absolute goodness. Everything that He created is good; therefore, humanity as body and soul combined is good (Augustine). Evodius holds the position: “The existence of a good, all knowing (omniscient), and all-powerful (omnipotent) God is contradicted by our experience of evil in the world. It makes sense to conclude that God does not exist.” (Bwanali). As a response, Augustine asserts that the evil that we experience is just a lack of goodn...
Evil and God have been topics that people put together and discuss about. Many think that evil cannot exist if God exists, but others think that God still exists even with evil in the world. The problem of evil has been debated by many people, and one of these people is Gottfried Leibniz, with whom I agree with.
Evil exists. This bizarre conundrum has perplexed philosophers since the dawn of civilization, and remains in hot debate today because of the theological implications inherent in the statement. To many on this planet, the source of life is an all-loving, all-powerful, omniscient god who created the universe – and all the laws therein – in seven days, as described in the Bible. And yet still, evil exists. How can these two premises be simultaneously true? Surely, an all-loving god would want to do something about this problem, and an all-powerful god could absolutely remedy a situation if it so desired. It seems as though the common perception of the Bible’s god is inaccurate. However, it could be argued that the Bible’s god is accurate, and that said perception is somewhat skewed, considering that on numerous occasions, God claims responsibility for evil. “I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7). The Greek philosopher Epicurus put the Good God’s Evil puzzle in a very clear logical progression:
If there is truly a God and the maker of this universe did create human beings, then in this perfect world that this perfect God made, I do not just see God’s wholly good but also the bad and ugly. God must not be omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent then and the definition of God is false and the existence of God
So God does exist because we have free will to choose our own actions, and we have moral codes that we follow determining what is evil and what is good. If there was no evil at all in the world, we would almost be like robots, fake human beings. You can say things would be perfect, and in the beginning they were intended to be perfect, that is until Eve was deceived by evil, and God took that away from us as punishment. With no evil in this world, how could one be free and have free will, to be able to do what they please to do, or eat what they want to eat, or see who they want to see? The whole point behind this is that God wants to find his true followers.
Evil 's beginning can be found in Genesis chapter three when the serpent begins to tempt Eve. Evil can be anything of God 's creation that man has put a twisted spin on in order for it to be pleasurable or satisfying. Because humans find pleaure in evil, it begins to diminish the relationship to God, and blinds man from the truth of the gospel. Because of evil, some have tried to pin the point of evil onto God since He is the creator of everything, thus creating problems between God and evil by trying to draw distinctions between the two. The problem with evil is that it takes different forms, according to Erickson one form is that of religion when "some particular aspect of one 's experience has had the effect of calling into question the greatness or goodness of God, and hence threatens the relationship between the believer and God." 11 The next form is theological saying that "it is not a question of how a specific concrete situation can exist of light of God 's being what and who he is, but of how any such problem could possibly exist." 12 By identifying these different types of problems with evil, the soultion will be realized. One way of solving this debate is to leave the idea of God 's omnipotence. This approach is called finitism, which says that there are two principles within the universe, "God and the power of evil" 13