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The nature of free will
The nature of free will
The nature of free will
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Gregory Boyd in “Is God to Blame” talked about how God limits His own power by giving humans freedom of choice meaning God can not foresee some of events (Boyd 72). From reading the book, I felt that Boyd’s theodicy is open theism because throughout the book he tells stories about real life suffering events and how it impacts their life which can show that God allows evil things to happen because of a hidden purpose (Boyd 185). This is another example of a good theodicy because it shows that suffering does happen from freedom of choice like the women who rushed into having a child without really praying and waiting for God’s answer (Boyd 13). I plan to create my own theodicy by looking at my own past experience involving suffering, my religion and how God helped me through bad times. I …show more content…
Today, we see evil everywhere like murder, rape, stealing, injustice is all shown daily on the news. Philip Yancey in “Where is God When It Hurts,” shows throughout the book evil, what evil does to people and the world. For example, evil caused Donna to have leukemia (Yancey 250). Theodicy was created to defend others when people say that ‘God causes evil’ but in realitic God does not cause the evil that happen in the world it humans that causes evil.
In class discussion, we came to the conclusion that God created the world to be perfect and good but freedom of choice is what caused the world to be destroyed. God’s original plan was for humans to live like Genesis 1, sinfree and perfect harmony with God, animals and with each other (NIV). For example, God said ‘it was very good’ which shows that God created earth to be good for humans espeically for Adam and Eve but because of sin and freedom of choice the earth became evil (NIV). The causes of evil is freedom of choice which is shown through Philip Yancey’s
In his essay, "The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: a Theodicy," Peter van Inwagen alleges a set of reasons that God may have for allowing evil to exist on earth. Inwagen proposes the following story – throughout which there is an implicit assumption that God is all-good (perfectly benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient) and deserving of all our love. God created humans in his own likeness and fit for His love. In order to enable humans to return this love, He had to give them the ability to freely choose. That is, Inwagen holds that the ability to love implies free will. By giving humans free will, God was taking a risk. As Inwagen argues, not even an omnipotent being can ensure that "a creature who has a free choice between x and y choose x rather than y" (197)1. (X in Inwagen’s story is ‘to turn its love to God’ and y is ‘to turn its love away from God,’ towards itself or other things.) So it happened that humans did in fact rebel and turn away from God. The first instance of this turning away is referred to as "the Fall." The ruin of the Fall was inherited by all humans to follow and is the source of evil in the world. But God did not leave humans without hope. He has a plan "whose working will one day eventuate in the Atonement (at-one-ment) of His human creatures with Himself," or at least some of His human creatures (198). This plan somehow involves humans realizing the wretchedness of a world without God and turning to God for help.
In the beginning, according to Ishmael, God created Man to live peacefully on Earth, sustained by the fruitful bounties of Earth and subject to God's control. That is, until Man ate of the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden Of Eden, and conveniently forgot all the rules God had so graciously placed in front of him. From that point on, the Caucasian race, full of vanity and pride for having seen so clearly what was good on the Earth and what was not, decided to subjugate the Earth to its will. During this turn of events, totalitarian agriculture was born. And God just shook his head.
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
A foundational belief in Christianity is the idea that God is perfectly good. God is unable to do anything evil and all his actions are motives are completely pure. This principle, however, leads to many questions concerning the apparent suffering and wrong-doing that is prevalent in the world that this perfect being created. Where did evil come from? Also, how can evil exist when the only eternal entity is the perfect, sinless, ultimately good God? This question with the principle of God's sovereignty leads to even more difficult problems, including human responsibility and free will. These problems are not limited to our setting, as church fathers and Christian philosophers are the ones who proposed some of the solutions people believe today. As Christianity begins to spread and establish itself across Europe in the centuries after Jesus' resurrection, Augustine and Boethius provide answers, although wordy and complex, to this problem of evil and exactly how humans are responsible in the midst of God's sovereignty and Providence.
The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued believers since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words “theos,” or God, and “dike,” or justice (Knox 1981, 1). Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a world filled with suffering.
While traditional theology has characterized God as being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good, we all have seen instances of evil in the world, from the genocide currently occurring in Darfur to the mass torture seen in the Spanish Inquisition, where people have been forced to suffer at the hands of others for millennia. Mackie’s argument is that an omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good God has the means, knowledge and desire to prevent such instances of evil from occurring, and yet evil clearly exists. Mackie argues that the removal of any one of the ascribed characteristics would solve the problem of evil; however few theologians have been prepared to accept this as the only solution. (Mackie, 1955)
God is the source of evil. He created natural evil, and gave humans the ability to do moral evil by giving them a free will. However, had he not given people free will, then their actions would not be good or evil; nor could God reward or punish man for his actions since they had no choice in what to do. Therefore, by giving humans choice and free will, God allowed humanity to decide whether to reward themselves with temporary physical goods, and suffer in the long run from unhappiness, or forsake bodily pleasures for eternal happiness.
Although God does not know the future he is still all knowing, which helps keep him more divine than humans. This does not mean God does not intervene. “Taking Jesus Christ as our standpoint, we can’t avoid concluding that God intervenes in the world” (Pg.109). No matter what a person decides to do with their free will God is able to work in every situation. God is so sovereign that he is able to work in the midst of mistakes and use them to relieve him and bring about his purpose. Prayer is an active tool in open theism! Prayer is God’s way of giving us the say- so on evil. We can’t God to respond the way we wish for every situation. It is not that God wishes to see hurt, pain, and suffering on his people. God just can’t always get his way. God is capable of eliminating all evil. The problem of that elimination is that he would also have to eliminate freewill and love. Lastly, something that makes open theism stand out is its view of hell. Boyd believes the depictions of hell as eternal torture is just symbolism. Instead, hell will be only real from the inside. Humans who come to hell will be completely alone and dammed to only themselves. Hell is not a creation of evil by God because people can choose to not go to
This is a significant problem to the revealed religions because they believe in a wholly good and omnipotent God. Why then, would this God allow evil? In this paper, I will provide, explain, and evaluate St. Augustine of Hippo’s solution to this question. Augustine feels that evil stems from choice and free will. He doesn’t see evil as its own being, rather it is the absence of good. Anything that is, since it came from God, is good, “The highest good, than which there is no higher, is God, and consequently He is unchangeable good, hence truly eternal and truly immortal. All other good things are only from Him, not of Him.” (Bourke 48). Evil is just a perversion of this good.
“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.
Following the United States’ catastrophic experience in Vietnam, the nation struggled with both its sense of strategic thought and conception of future war. Nuclear strategy had overwhelmed the national strategic discourse to the detriment of conventional weapons and missions. However, military thinkers emerged in the 1970s to counter the dominant thinking and return the study of war to the realm of human interaction, political calculus, and the underpinning of chance. One such theorist was Air Force pilot, aircraft designer, and strategist John Boyd.
The story of Genesis begins where it discusses how God created “the heavens and the earth” and made it fruitful (Genesis 1:1). It continues and the bible discusses the creation of Adam and Eve. God created a garden, a few rivers, and humanity. He placed humanity in the garden and said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:16-17). Although He tells humanity not to eat from the tree of knowledge, humanity still has a choice whether he will or not. This is the ability of free will, voluntarily choosing between right and wrong. God created us with this ability which is part of God’s image; the ability to reason, love and create. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Although we have the power to “subdue” the earth, this comes with a great deal of
Peterson, Michael. “Toward a Theodicy for Our Day.” Evil and the Christian God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1982.
In order for John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost to fulfill its promise to “justify the ways of God to man,” Milton must prove that man is responsible for his fall from Eden. Throughout the epic, God argues against his culpability in the fall of humanity and insists that Adam and Eve both possess absolute free will. Essentially, the evidence for this idea that his creations held free will concentrates on a connection between reason and the freedom to make informed, correct decisions. This Arminian notion that Man must be responsible for his decision to either accept or refuse to follow God’s instruction because Adam possesses reason and, by extension from this, free will, fails to recognize other factors at play which detract from his ability to exercise his supposedly free will. As an omnipotent being, God would be fully aware of the limitations, desires, and flaws of humanity. Therefore, God’s structuring his creations with potent failings such as