Once I read Lisa McMann’s book ‘The Unwanteds’ I thought it was a great story for two main reasons. First the way Lisa McMann described the setting was amazing. She used vivid details that helped the reader visualize the setting clearly. Second, she created some pretty fascinating characters with interesting backstories. Alex, for example. was separated from his brother who was basically the only person he cared about. Then he got transferred over to another world which was the complete opposite of Quill. These two main things combined make for an compelling storyline.…
Evil, how did it happen and why is it still here on this earth? There is this belief that the Christian God is good and all-powerful. He has the power to create worlds and beings, yet there is still evil in the world. Both Pierre Bayle and Voltaire address these questions in their works “Paulicians” and Candide (respectively). They both believe the Manichean philosophy as a more rational thought process than the contemporaneous Christian view. This belief is that there is not one, but two gods in the world; a god of good and a god of evil. I myself believe in a world of balance and like the two authors listed above, accept this as more rational thought than a single omnipotent god. My reasoning is that without evil, there is no concept of good,…
The explanation for why someone or something is evil can not be easily defined, as the answer may vary based on a person’s psychological thought process or intellectual reasoning. The justification of this paper is to discuss Peter Van Inwagen and his philosophical response to the argument from evil, as well as his free will defense theory for the answer to this complication. I will carefully evaluate the two standard objections to his solution and offer my personal opinion of rather or not he offers a successful resolution for this universal problem.…
Reading Journal #4 The book I am reading is called “From Bad To Cursed”, by Katie Alender. The genre of this book is Horror Fiction. It is the second book in the “Bad Girls Don’t Die” series In the first book, “Bad Girls Don’t Die”, Alexis’s little sister, Kasey, becomes obsessed with an antique doll. Alexis thinks it’s just another phase her sister is going through, but her life is slowly becoming something straight out of a horror movie.…
In Their Eyes Were Watching God a novel by African American writer Zora Neale Hurston from the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston shows the development of the character Janie Crawford throughout the story influenced by her marriages. Janie was raised by her grandmother, as she gets older she wants Janie to be happy so she marries her off to Logan. After Nanny's death Janie runs away with Joe thinking he would treat her with more respect. But, finds out that he is very controlling and possessive of her. Once Joe dies she finds her true love Tea Cake with whom she realizes her identity. Throughout the novel Janie changes from being a teenage girl and becomes, a strong independant women, in which her marriage plays a major role.…
The proposed solution to be discussed and Mackie’s response to it is the claim that ‘evil is due to human free will’ and as such it cannot be attributed to God. Evil should instead be attributed to the free actions of individuals, the power of which has been endowed upon them by God. While it is acknowledged that there exists evil in the world, as a result of some human free will, it is claimed that freedom of will is a more valuable good than any resultant evil. Through God allowing such freedom, He has satisfied His ‘wholly good’ requirement.…
The article “Singing a Subversive Song of Hope” by Lydia Neufeld Harder focuses on the different definitions of service and draws on how service that is inclusive has strong connections with a feminist reading of the Bible. The ideal definition of service is “something a person does for someone else, thus at least temporarily preferring the other’s good to one’s own (Harder, 14). For Harder, service strays away from this ideal model when there becomes ambiguity where love for oneself and love for others overlaps.…
Summary: James Rachels addresses the conflicts of evil in his book “Problems from Philosophy” by providing various forms of logical problems. The author points out the different possible explanations to why evil would exist. The first major idea Rachels makes is that perhaps pain is essential to caution people of danger. He goes on to suggest that this would not account for why some people are born with deadly diseases. Another idea he makes is that evil helps people appreciate the good in life. One would not be able to distinguish the good in life if evil did not exist. However, this does not explain why the world needs so much evil to exist, instead of letting a few bad things happen occasionally. The third idea the author makes questions why bad things happen to good people. Rachels suggests maybe those bad things that occur in life are…
In Jonathan Kozol's book, The Shame Of The Nation, he presents the idea that the racial segregation and isolation of schools across America causes harmful effects to the children immersed in segregated schools. Throughout the first chapter, "Dishonoring The Dead," Kozol masterfully draws the reader in to listen to his message using the stories of real people and the shocking facts and figures that he has collected in his experience in the schools in our nation. He is persistent in his efforts to educate his audience about the horrors that exist in urban schools across America.…
The problem of evil is a significant and enduring philosophical and theological debate. A question is often raised and discussed: if God is both all-loving and all-powerful, then how can evils-including natural evil and moral evil---exist in our world? In response to the charge that the evils of the world are incompatible with God's omnipotence and perfect goodness, the word"theodicy" is coined to deal with the problem of evil. Usually it is an attempt to show that it is possible to affirm the omnipotence of God, the love of God, and the reality of evil without contradiction. Two of the most well-known and most frequently discussed theodicies are the Augustinian theodicy and the Irenaean theodicy.…
The problem of evil refers to the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil with an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God.…
As I mentioned before religiously I was told the free will defense although I didn’t know it was a philosophy idea as well. There are many different ideas trying to show that both statements are true: There is an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. And there is evil (Jensen 312). One explanation is that God is limited (Jensen 312). Another is his ways cannot be scrutinized (Jensen 313). Leibniz proposed that a perfect world is not logically possible (Jensen 314). Tennant said that evils are a necessary by-product of nature (Jensen 314). Another idea is that evil is a way to grow as a person a sort of therapy (Jensen 323). Some like John Stuart Mill proposed “radical surgery” by saying that God is not omnipotent (Jensen 311). Alvin Plantinga defended God from being responsible for evil by saying that for moral good to be present humans must be capable of moral evil as well (Jensen 321). My favorite thought in this chapter is from John Hick and his writings on Irenaeus a Christian theologian. Hick suggests that man was created imperfect and immature creature who needed to go through a moral development and growth before his final stage of perfection that was intended for him by the creator. I love this idea because the Bible makes man a sinner who destroyed his perfection and then plunged into sin and misery for the remainder of his existence (Jensen…
To present the topic of “the problem with evil,” without acknowledging there is a God can be confusing. I think one of the best questions that you could ask is, why does God allow evil being a perfect and loving God (Elwell, pg 413…
The Argument From Evil By Peter Van Inwagen Olga Berdnikova 1000784430 PHL 105 Professor Bernard Katz TA: Andre February 23, 2014 Word Count: 1396 The article “The Argument from Evil” by Peter Van Inwagen analyses the existence of evil within the world and its relation to God.…
Many people dispute the true intentions of God, himself, since the beginning of mankind. Opposing and concurring arguments can be just as primitive. Regardless of personal perspective on any indefinite theory, it is undeniable that the controversy between good and evil will inevitably exist. Two dominant philosophers discussed in “The Problem of Evil” are Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and David Hume. Both of these authors discuss interesting motives from both sides of the issue: why and why not God should allow evil.…