The Problem Of Evil: Against The Existence Of God Analysis
In this paper I will evaluate The Problem of Evil: Against the Existence of God.
I believe that the following argument is unsound because there is a premise missing. If the addition of this premise was present, I believe that the structure of the argument from premise 3 and down would change. This change would allow the argument to be both valid and sound. I feel as though it is missing the point where humans were given free will. In doing so, humans would be allowed to choose between doing good or doing evil. Therefore, premise 3 would be false. There would be evil in the world; however, the evil would have been a choice made by humans not God himself. So, God is not held responsible for evil in the world.
To further explain, it is said that …show more content…
Why would evil be an option? I feel like if we asked for less evil and suffering, it would be like having a babysitter watching us our whole lives. We would always be protected, and if we are always being watched, then how would we ever learn or experience things on our own. We technically would no longer have free will. Also, even if God were to get rid of evil, we would eventually find something else that bother us which would be perceived as evil. The question that comes into play here is where would we draw the line as to what is too much evil or too much of anything unpleasant? Our understanding of evil and suffering is only relative to our own …show more content…
But now we have seen that—alter the universe as you wish—it does not affect the problem. It therefore does not arise in the first place”. I believe that he is right. I think that there is a misunderstanding of what omnipotence means. I think it means that God cannot be more powerful than he currently is because his power is already perfect. I believe that the answer to the problem of evil is that God gave us free will, because freedom is inherently good. Free will means the possibility of doing what is different than God’s will (better known as evil). So, evil exists because of human’s choices/actions, rather than because of God. Therefore, God does
I believe that the following argument is unsound because there is a premise missing. If the addition of this premise was present, I believe that the structure of the argument from premise 3 and down would change. This change would allow the argument to be both valid and sound. I feel as though it is missing the point where humans were given free will. In doing so, humans would be allowed to choose between doing good or doing evil. Therefore, premise 3 would be false. There would be evil in the world; however, the evil would have been a choice made by humans not God himself. So, God is not held responsible for evil in the world.
To further explain, it is said that …show more content…
Why would evil be an option? I feel like if we asked for less evil and suffering, it would be like having a babysitter watching us our whole lives. We would always be protected, and if we are always being watched, then how would we ever learn or experience things on our own. We technically would no longer have free will. Also, even if God were to get rid of evil, we would eventually find something else that bother us which would be perceived as evil. The question that comes into play here is where would we draw the line as to what is too much evil or too much of anything unpleasant? Our understanding of evil and suffering is only relative to our own …show more content…
But now we have seen that—alter the universe as you wish—it does not affect the problem. It therefore does not arise in the first place”. I believe that he is right. I think that there is a misunderstanding of what omnipotence means. I think it means that God cannot be more powerful than he currently is because his power is already perfect. I believe that the answer to the problem of evil is that God gave us free will, because freedom is inherently good. Free will means the possibility of doing what is different than God’s will (better known as evil). So, evil exists because of human’s choices/actions, rather than because of God. Therefore, God does