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Recommended: Idea of good vs evil
Most people will agree with the fact that there is a distinction between good and evil. While movies may exaggerate this and make it seem that the distinction is quite obvious and easy to differentiate, morality has a more important distinction in monotheistic religions.The distinction is readily made through the concept of Heaven and Hell, If there was no evil, then there wouldn't be a purpose for Hell. Hell is explicitly stated in the bible and people today condemn people to hell all the time, therefore evil must exist. However, evil existing in actuality creates a problem to monotheistic religions. I will state what the problem of evil and what the soul-building theodicy is; additionally I will attempt to discuss another problem may arise due to this theodicy. …show more content…
We have an all-powerful, perfect God and yet he created imperfection, a force that might work against his power (the force of evil) and that seems illogical to many people. But what we do know is that there is definite evil in the world, we know people sin. The two logically don’t seem to be able to exist at the same time. Therefore, if there is evil in the world, that proves that a perfect God doesn't exist because a perfect wouldn't create evil. The soul-building theodicy is an explanation to why the existence of evil doesn't contradict the existence of God. The theodicy shows this by stating that God gave us evil in order to make us better people and to learn. Knowledge is good and is considered a virtue. If the purpose of evil is make us more knowledgable by understanding what wasn't gods plan, then by consequence the existence of evil can be seen as a virtue leading to evil not contradicting God …show more content…
Given these points, the existence of evil may seem to contradict God, but in reality it is there for us to learn, the reality is that there is so much to learn that there will always be more evil than one logically think we
When reading about the institution of slavery in the United States, it is easy to focus on life for the slaves on the plantations—the places where the millions of people purchased to serve as slaves in the United States lived, made families, and eventually died. Most of the information we seek is about what daily life was like for these people, and what went “wrong” in our country’s collective psyche that allowed us to normalize the practice of keeping human beings as property, no more or less valuable than the machines in the factories which bolstered industrialized economies at the time. Many of us want to find information that assuages our own personal feelings of discomfort or even guilt over the practice which kept Southern life moving
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 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.
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.
There is evil. 3. So, God does not exist”. Since there is evil, then that means God does not exist. So there is no loving and powerful God. However, if there is a God then he is not all loving and powerful. Daniel Howard-Snyder states in his article “God, Evil, And Suffering,”: “We would have to say God lacks power and knowledge to such an extent that He can 't prevent evil. And there lies the trouble. 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? Suppose he had a reason to permit evil, a reason that was compatible with his never doing wrong and his being perfect in love, what I 'll call a justifying reason. For example, suppose that if he prevented evil completely, then we would miss out on a greater good, a good whose goodness was so great that it far surpassed the badness of evil. In that case, he might not prevent evil as far as he can, for he would have a justifying reason to permit it” (5). Even if God had a reason to allow evil, he who is all loving and powerful would want the least amount of people to suffer and feel pain. Since God knows
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.
What is good and evil and where did it come from? Everything in the world was created from the one God. The God theory infused all things in the world and that live beyond it. From this viewpoint good and evil both derived from the God law. They have both lived since the construction of the world. Yet, evil was in a dormant form at that juncture. Evil is in our mind, not inside our aspiring heart (http://www.srichinmoy.org/spirituality/spirituality/good_and_evil).
Since God is perfect, he could not have created evil. Rather, the origins of evil date back to Adam and Eve. Satan, a fallen angel, managed to tempt Eve into eating the forbidden fruit; thus introducing evil into the world. One may wonder why God, whom is omnipotent, decided not to eradicate evil from the world. The answer is straightforward. When God created man, he gave him free will due to his immeasurable love. As a result, the introduction of evil into the world gave man a choice; to follow God and pursue righteousness, or pursue evil and henceforth separate oneself from
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
Humans come to understand experiences through the basic functions of the mind. The word "experience" refers not only to personal involvement in certain events, but also to anything that can be detected through the senses, ie: people, inanimate objects, and feelings. The ability to define, categorize, extend knowledge onto other things, and compare are the most fundamental functions. Without these functions, we could not gather knowledge from our experiences, nor could we arrive at any conclusions about their significance. The physical world would ultimately be unintelligible. This leads to the question of how we can understand things that are not in the physical world, like God. Our senses cannot directly experience things outside of this world, therefore we are drastically limited in our ability to know and understand God. The best possible solution is for us to combine our belief in God and our earthly experiences to create a better understanding of God and his qualities. Our experiences of evil are key in the understanding and appreciation of God. Although it is commonly claimed that the existence of evil weakens the assertion that God is omnibenevolent, this is contrary to the truth. Through our ability to extend knowledge to arrive at new truths and our ability to compare experiences, our minds can use the existence of evil to further understand and appreciate God and his omnibenevolence.
“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.
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
This is the understanding of a God which includes moral perfection; a God that simply created the universe and left is not whole enough for most theists (for if this were the real God religious morality would have an unsupportable foundation) (Blackburn, 2001: 169). This is the God of the Abrahamic religions. A God that is all knowing (omniscient) all powerful (omnipotent) and, as emphasized above, all caring or omnibenevolent (Blackburn, 2001: 169). Thus the Problem of Evil arises, as formalised below.
mankind and that in his all-knowing mind knew we would fall into the hands of sin, so there is a truth in the fact that if evil did not exist then there would be no need for a perfect God to exist. … God could maintain a world without evil by continual divine intervention. An atheist will often fight for the idea that a perfect God should never have permitted evil to exist.