Richard Swinburne's "The Problem of Evil": God's Existence
Philosophers have looked for ways to explain God's existence for centuries.
One such argment that the believer must justify in order to maintain the possibility of God's existence is the problem of evil. In his essay, "The
Problem of Evil," by Richard Swinburne, the author attempts to explain how evil can exist in a world created by an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent Being, namely God. Swinburne uses to free-will defense and says that God gave us a choice between doing good and doing evil. If someone chooses to do good over evil, then that Good is greater than if one had no choice at all but to do good.
This is a weak argument and in order to clarify those weaknesses one can look at Steven M. Cahn's essay entitled "Cacodaemony." This essay parallels
Swineburne's, but states that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnimalevolent Demon created the world. By looking at how weak the argument for cacodaemony is, one can see how unlikely it is that the Demon exists and then can see that the existence of God is just as unlikely.
In "The Problem of Evil", Swinburne says that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent Being created the world. If this were true, how can evil exist in this world? If God consciously knew He was creating a world in which there is evil, then He would not be omnibenevolent. If God did not know He was creating a world in which evil exists, then He would not be omniscient. If God is omnipotent then He would be able to stop any evil from occurring. Either way,
God would not be what Christianity makes him out to be. Swinburne argues that the theodicist, one who believes that it is not wrong for God to create a world in which there is evil, can logically explain the existence of evil in the world.
The main argument that the theodicist uses is the free-will defense, which claims that God gave humans the freedom to choose between doing acts of good and acts of evil. The theodicist argues that the good person could do is greater if it is chosen instead of doing evil. It is better to choose to walk an elderly person across the road instead of deciding to push the elderly person in front of an oncoming car. The theodicist believes that it is better for a person to have that choice, though nearly everyone would naturally choose to help the person acro...
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... everyone just fought and hated each other, just like this world would be a better place if everyone was peaceful and happy. This Demon could not exist because there is too much good in the world, and that good does not get an adequate explanation. Since the arguments for Cacodaemony is disproved, so is the one for the theodicist, since these two arguments are equally likely and equally weak.
By looking at Cahn's "Cacodaemony," one can see how improbably it is that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnimalevolent Demon created the world. Cahn's argument, however, exactly parallels Swinburne's in "The Problem of Evil." Both use the free-will defense to attempt to explain how evil or goodness could exist in a world created by God or a Demon. Both arguments have the same strength, as
Cahn notes, and both are very weak arguments. If it seems unlikely that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnimalevolent Demon created the world, then it is just as unlikely that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being created the world. It is likely that neither God nor the Demon exists, and the problem of evil and the problem of goodness wind up supporting the position of the atheist.
An Analysis of Peter van Inwagen’s The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: a Theodicy
The philosopher J.L. Mackie wrote a very convincing piece on the problem of evil called “Evil and Omnipotence,” in which he attempts to show that one of the following premises must be false in order for them to be consistent with each other.
is not evil and has no desire to harm anyone, he is not willing to
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.
I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me. I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgment.
The cause of how people have chosen evil has been a conceptual issue for thousands of years on many different perspectives. People from a religious point of view believe that the underlining cause of evil is sin and temptation. Half of the time humans can choose good over evil in situations based off the legal system and the moral standards of society. "The interest of work in the common would not hold it together, instinctual ...
For how could God have enough power and knowledge to create and sustain the physical universe if He can 't even prevent evil? How could He be the providential governor of the world if He is unable to do what even we frequently do, namely prevent evil?” (5). This statement argues that God is not all powerful because he is unable to prevent evil in the world. Daniel Howard-Snyder then argues that: “Would a perfectly good being always prevent evil as far as he can?
...y in question is able to do anything that it chooses to do. The second point is that the idea that God cannot create a world with free beings that never choose to do evil is contradictory if we consider the existence of Heaven, which allegedly is an evil-free place where beings are free to exercise their will and apparently never choose to do evil. But I will address this issue later on. First of all, the definition of omnipotence that I provided, of course, might be rejected by theologians who object that “being able to do anything that one chooses to do,” for example, does not include “creating a world with free beings that never turn away from the good and never choose to do evil.” But the problem is that if God is omnipotent but there is one thing he cannot do, it follows that omnipotence is not one of God’s attributes or omnipotence in this case is a misnomer.
this evil was occurring. If He was all-powerful, He would have the power to stop
In order to understand The Problem of Evil, we must first understand the concept of God. The God that this problem addresses is what we call a PKM god. This god is accepted in multiple religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Over half of the world population claims to be followers of any of
It is perhaps the most difficult intellectual challenge to a Christian how God and evil can both exist. Many of the greatest minds of the Christian church and intellects such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas spent their entire lives trying to solve this problem, and were unsuccessful (Erickson, 2009, p.439). However, this dilemma is not only an intellectual challenge, but it is emotional. Man feels it, lives it. Failing to identify the religious form of the problem of evil will appear insensitive; failure to address the theological form will seem intellectually insulting. This conundrum will never be completely met during our earthly life, but there are many biblical and philosophical resources that help mitigate it.
A theodicy is a response to the problem of evil by proving that God exists, that he is perfect, and that he lets evil exist. Leibniz does this by saying that “the best plan is not always that which seeks to avoid evil, since it may happen that the evil is accompanied by a greater good” (Leibniz 89). He is saying that sometimes evil existing is for the better; it is followed by something better. The world is perfect because of its imperfections. Leibniz later goes on to say that without Adam’s sin, Jesus would not have come down to earth to die for our sins, and then resurrect three days later to forgive us of our sins. Leibniz then concludes that “this universe must be in reality better than every possible universe” (Leibniz 90). His response to the problem of evil shows readers that God is perfect because he has our best interests in mind, even when it does not seem that
thereby attempts in the Appendix to argue on the following crucial points: 1) The reason
The belief that morality requires God remains a widely held moral maxim. In particular, it serves as the basic assumption of the Christian fundamentalist's social theory. Fundamentalists claim that all of society's troubles - everything from AIDS to out-of-wedlock pregnancies - are the result of a breakdown in morality and that this breakdown is due to a decline in the belief of God. This paper will look at different examples of how a god could be a bad thing and show that humans can create rules and morals all on their own. It will also touch upon the fact that doing good for the wrong reasons can also be a bad thing for the person.
“Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other” (Burdon). The concept of good and evil is similar to the existence of god since there also has to be the existence of evil. The existence of God and evil has been discussed by philosophers and people for years over whether they are compatible. The debate is based on how a person interprets the existence of God and evil. In the excerpt, Surprise! It’s Judgment Day from Basic Problems of Philosophy, it involves God and Martin at the gates of heaven and Martin is furious about how God forces people to suffer, but God could require people not to suffer. The debate turns into a theory if God could not create the existence of evil. I was able to determine that the existence