Theist Approach To The Problem Of Evil
The Problem of Evil
Lyndsey Emry
PHIL 1381-17 Introduction to Philosophy
Professor Bannister
The problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of the evil in the world with the existence of an omniscient God because if God were all-knowing, it seems that God would know about all of the horrible things that happen in our world. The problem of evil also brings up the problem with an omnipotent God because if God were all-powerful, God would be able to stop all of the evil and suffering in the world. Furthermore, the problem of evil also challenges an omnibenevolent God because if God were morally perfect, then surely God would want to do something about it. Lastly, the problem of evil questions the omnipresent God …show more content…
because if God was able to be everywhere all of the time then we would not have people questioning where their God is at. With all these threats stemming from the problem of evil the existence of evil and suffering in our world seems to pose a serious challenge to the belief in the existence of a perfect God. These facts about evil and suffering seem to conflict with the orthodox theist claim that there exists a perfectly good God.
There has been countless multitudes that suffer the ravages of the unfortunate everyday life tragedies. From events such as cults killing an abundant of people because that is their belief and mindset of what is right, to events such as tornadoes and hurricanes wiping out hundreds of people, all is lost in whatever situation he or she is in. Both of these situations represent a category of evil. The first category is moral evil. Moral evil refers to an evil of self –interest. If one were to choose to commit something then the action was committed because of his or her moral beliefs or what he or she feels is ok. For example, Adolf Hitler felt that it was normal to commit mass murders in order to create a utopia that was perfect to him. It would seem fair to say that Adolf Hitler should have suffered because of how much evil he brought throughout the world, but sadly that is not the case. As it is, however, thousands of good-hearted, innocent people experience the ravages of violent crime and other evils brought upon by someone else’s own doing. The problem of evil is involved with one’s own morals. Richard Swinburne was a professor at the University of Hull, the University of Keele and at the University of Oxford before his retirement in 1985. He contributed to a great influence in the Christianity religion. In Swinburne’s paper, “Why God Allows Evil,” Swinburne argues that there is a moral evil. This moral evil is all the evil caused or permitted by human beings, whether intentionally or through negligence. For example one may choose to commit crimes such as murder, theft, and other heinous crimes. Just as stated before, Adolf Hitler became a crazed cult leader who got men to murder other men, and Swinburne came to conclusion that these are evils acted by our humanistic selves. Swinburne also argues in his essay, “Why God Allows Evil,” the reason why God allows moral evil. Swinburne believes that moral evil cannot be prevented once God gives us the goods of significant freedom and responsibility. If God gives us significant freedom, this it is logically impossible for God to know what we will do in advance, his omniscience does not include knowledge of our future free acts due to our ability of having free will. Swinburne also explains the explanation of moral evil by exclaiming, “If God gives us significant freedom, then it is logically impossible for God to step in and prevent the bad consequences of our bad actions!” While Swinburne believes in moral evil, Swinburne also believes in natural evil as well. There seems to always be a natural disaster that is alerting our phones. A headline that reports how many lives have been lost due to a hurricane or a tornado. A recent natural disaster included a devastating earthquake in Haiti. Haiti lost 160,000 lives in January of 2010. This natural disaster meant that there was some physical force that we as humans cannot prevent in harming us. Swinburne states this evil as natural evil as being all of the rest: evil not caused or permitted by human beings. For example, thousands of people suffering from hurricanes, forest fires, or diseases is something that cannot be caused or permitted by another human being. A human being cannot create a hurricane or a volcano in order to bring harm upon other human beings. Swinburne argues that the reason why natural evil exists is because a world with easily discoverable laws of nature, a world in which causes regularly produce certain types of predictable effects, is the best way to give persons a knowledge of the consequences of their actions without hindering their freedom. If God were to intervene whenever suffering would occur as a result of the operation of the laws of nature, then we no longer have a world that operates in a way that we can predict. If this were to happen, then we lose much of the significant freedom and responsibility for which God created an orderly and predictable world in the first place. Similar to Swinburne’s thoughts are that of John Locke’s. Locke, being an empiricist, believed in the Tabula Rasa. The Tabula Rasa by terms, means blank slate. In other words, it is the idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that therefore all knowledges comes from experience or perception. The Tabula Rasa theory also states that we are free to develop our own self but we are also limited to our human nature. Since we are limited to this being of nature, Locke and Swinburne both agreed upon the idea that natural evil is inevitable and shapes the way we think and our actions.
H.J. McCloskey once wrote, “Evil is a problem, for the theist, in that a contradiction is involved in the fact of evil on the one hand and belief in the omnipotence and omniscience of God on the other” (1960, p.97). I believe the problem of evil is a logical problem rather than an irrational problem. Because of my belief I would have to completely agree with McCloskey. God cannot be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent all at once. It is impossible for all four of these statements to be true at the same time. Any two or three of them could be true at the same time, but there is no way that all of them could be true. In other words, God being all powerful (omnipotent) through God being all good (omnibenevolent) form a logical inconsistency set. A set of statements is logically inconsistent if and only if one statement does not add up to another statement; or a direct contradiction can be deduced from that set. Although none of the statements, God being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, does not directly contradict each other, one can deduce a contradiction from it. This contradiction can easily be deduced from these ideas of God once we think through the implications of the divine attributes. If God is omnipotent, he would be able to prevent all of the evil and suffering in the world despite the type of evil it might be. If God is omniscient, he would know about all of the evil and suffering in the world and would know how to eliminate or prevent it. If God is perfectly good, he would want to prevent all of the evil and suffering in the world. These three statements jointly imply that if the perfect God of theism really existed, there would not be any evil or suffering. However, the world is filled with a staggering amount of evil and suffering.
While this idea God not being all four aspects may seem troubling for the average person, to a theist it can really hinder their belief in his or hers religion.
A theist is a person who believes in an all-powerful God. The idea of evil is a huge issue for the theist because it raises the questions what is evil and why does is occur. A theistic view of God is that He is in fact perfect in every way despite the logical inconsistencies. A theist believes that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient all at the same time. The problem of a theist’s point of view is that why a God would allow evil in the world. Evil raises many question about the existence and nature of a God. If God is omnipotent (all powerful), why would he allow evil to occur. Couldn’t God create a world without evil. If a God is omnibenevolent (all good), why would he allow evil and suffering in the world. All people suffer from evil both the categories of moral and natural evil many times throughout their lives. These issues lead many people to believe that a God might not be all powerful or all good because of the inconsistency between all four ideas of God being perfect. If one believes that God is not all powerful then that is a logical fallacy. This supports that evil is reconcilable and that God cannot be all four aspects at the same time because “God is not all powerful, and there are limits as to what He can do in his efforts to establish a righteous order in the universe” (Nagel 253). If God is not omnibenevolent (all good) then evil is reconcilable because if God is not all good he would allow evil. Arguments against the existence of an all good and caring God claim that an omnibenevolent God would not allow natural evil to occur or allow innocent people to suffer. If a God is simply omnipresent (all present) then evil could exist as well. If this God is omniscient (all knowing) perhaps he knows evil exists and isn’t powerful enough to stop it or just
doesn’t care.
If we reflect upon these statements in light of the fact of evil and suffering in our world, we should be led to the following conclusions. If God knows about all of the evil and suffering in the world, and knows how to eliminate it, is powerful enough to prevent it, and yet does not, he must not be perfectly good. If God knows about all of the evil and suffering, knows and wants to prevent, but does not, he must not be all-powerful. If God is powerful enough to prevent all of the evil in the world, wants to do so, and yet does not, he must not know about all of the suffering or how to eliminate it, that is, he must not be all-knowing. From this, we can infer that if evil and suffering exists, then God is either not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, or omnibenevolent. In conclusion, since evil and suffering do exist, God is either not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, or omnibenevolent at the same time.
Work Cited
"Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
Küng, Hans. 1976. On Being a Christian, trans. Edward Quinn. Garden City, New York: Doubleday.
McCloskey, H. J. 1960. "God and Evil." Philosophical Quarterly 10: 97-114.
Peterson, Michael L. 1998. God and Evil: An Introduction to the Issues. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Peterson, Michael L., ed. 1992. The Problem of Evil: Selected Readings. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Lyndsey Emry
PHIL 1381-17 Introduction to Philosophy
Professor Bannister
The problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of the evil in the world with the existence of an omniscient God because if God were all-knowing, it seems that God would know about all of the horrible things that happen in our world. The problem of evil also brings up the problem with an omnipotent God because if God were all-powerful, God would be able to stop all of the evil and suffering in the world. Furthermore, the problem of evil also challenges an omnibenevolent God because if God were morally perfect, then surely God would want to do something about it. Lastly, the problem of evil questions the omnipresent God …show more content…
because if God was able to be everywhere all of the time then we would not have people questioning where their God is at. With all these threats stemming from the problem of evil the existence of evil and suffering in our world seems to pose a serious challenge to the belief in the existence of a perfect God. These facts about evil and suffering seem to conflict with the orthodox theist claim that there exists a perfectly good God.
There has been countless multitudes that suffer the ravages of the unfortunate everyday life tragedies. From events such as cults killing an abundant of people because that is their belief and mindset of what is right, to events such as tornadoes and hurricanes wiping out hundreds of people, all is lost in whatever situation he or she is in. Both of these situations represent a category of evil. The first category is moral evil. Moral evil refers to an evil of self –interest. If one were to choose to commit something then the action was committed because of his or her moral beliefs or what he or she feels is ok. For example, Adolf Hitler felt that it was normal to commit mass murders in order to create a utopia that was perfect to him. It would seem fair to say that Adolf Hitler should have suffered because of how much evil he brought throughout the world, but sadly that is not the case. As it is, however, thousands of good-hearted, innocent people experience the ravages of violent crime and other evils brought upon by someone else’s own doing. The problem of evil is involved with one’s own morals. Richard Swinburne was a professor at the University of Hull, the University of Keele and at the University of Oxford before his retirement in 1985. He contributed to a great influence in the Christianity religion. In Swinburne’s paper, “Why God Allows Evil,” Swinburne argues that there is a moral evil. This moral evil is all the evil caused or permitted by human beings, whether intentionally or through negligence. For example one may choose to commit crimes such as murder, theft, and other heinous crimes. Just as stated before, Adolf Hitler became a crazed cult leader who got men to murder other men, and Swinburne came to conclusion that these are evils acted by our humanistic selves. Swinburne also argues in his essay, “Why God Allows Evil,” the reason why God allows moral evil. Swinburne believes that moral evil cannot be prevented once God gives us the goods of significant freedom and responsibility. If God gives us significant freedom, this it is logically impossible for God to know what we will do in advance, his omniscience does not include knowledge of our future free acts due to our ability of having free will. Swinburne also explains the explanation of moral evil by exclaiming, “If God gives us significant freedom, then it is logically impossible for God to step in and prevent the bad consequences of our bad actions!” While Swinburne believes in moral evil, Swinburne also believes in natural evil as well. There seems to always be a natural disaster that is alerting our phones. A headline that reports how many lives have been lost due to a hurricane or a tornado. A recent natural disaster included a devastating earthquake in Haiti. Haiti lost 160,000 lives in January of 2010. This natural disaster meant that there was some physical force that we as humans cannot prevent in harming us. Swinburne states this evil as natural evil as being all of the rest: evil not caused or permitted by human beings. For example, thousands of people suffering from hurricanes, forest fires, or diseases is something that cannot be caused or permitted by another human being. A human being cannot create a hurricane or a volcano in order to bring harm upon other human beings. Swinburne argues that the reason why natural evil exists is because a world with easily discoverable laws of nature, a world in which causes regularly produce certain types of predictable effects, is the best way to give persons a knowledge of the consequences of their actions without hindering their freedom. If God were to intervene whenever suffering would occur as a result of the operation of the laws of nature, then we no longer have a world that operates in a way that we can predict. If this were to happen, then we lose much of the significant freedom and responsibility for which God created an orderly and predictable world in the first place. Similar to Swinburne’s thoughts are that of John Locke’s. Locke, being an empiricist, believed in the Tabula Rasa. The Tabula Rasa by terms, means blank slate. In other words, it is the idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that therefore all knowledges comes from experience or perception. The Tabula Rasa theory also states that we are free to develop our own self but we are also limited to our human nature. Since we are limited to this being of nature, Locke and Swinburne both agreed upon the idea that natural evil is inevitable and shapes the way we think and our actions.
H.J. McCloskey once wrote, “Evil is a problem, for the theist, in that a contradiction is involved in the fact of evil on the one hand and belief in the omnipotence and omniscience of God on the other” (1960, p.97). I believe the problem of evil is a logical problem rather than an irrational problem. Because of my belief I would have to completely agree with McCloskey. God cannot be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent all at once. It is impossible for all four of these statements to be true at the same time. Any two or three of them could be true at the same time, but there is no way that all of them could be true. In other words, God being all powerful (omnipotent) through God being all good (omnibenevolent) form a logical inconsistency set. A set of statements is logically inconsistent if and only if one statement does not add up to another statement; or a direct contradiction can be deduced from that set. Although none of the statements, God being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent, does not directly contradict each other, one can deduce a contradiction from it. This contradiction can easily be deduced from these ideas of God once we think through the implications of the divine attributes. If God is omnipotent, he would be able to prevent all of the evil and suffering in the world despite the type of evil it might be. If God is omniscient, he would know about all of the evil and suffering in the world and would know how to eliminate or prevent it. If God is perfectly good, he would want to prevent all of the evil and suffering in the world. These three statements jointly imply that if the perfect God of theism really existed, there would not be any evil or suffering. However, the world is filled with a staggering amount of evil and suffering.
While this idea God not being all four aspects may seem troubling for the average person, to a theist it can really hinder their belief in his or hers religion.
A theist is a person who believes in an all-powerful God. The idea of evil is a huge issue for the theist because it raises the questions what is evil and why does is occur. A theistic view of God is that He is in fact perfect in every way despite the logical inconsistencies. A theist believes that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient all at the same time. The problem of a theist’s point of view is that why a God would allow evil in the world. Evil raises many question about the existence and nature of a God. If God is omnipotent (all powerful), why would he allow evil to occur. Couldn’t God create a world without evil. If a God is omnibenevolent (all good), why would he allow evil and suffering in the world. All people suffer from evil both the categories of moral and natural evil many times throughout their lives. These issues lead many people to believe that a God might not be all powerful or all good because of the inconsistency between all four ideas of God being perfect. If one believes that God is not all powerful then that is a logical fallacy. This supports that evil is reconcilable and that God cannot be all four aspects at the same time because “God is not all powerful, and there are limits as to what He can do in his efforts to establish a righteous order in the universe” (Nagel 253). If God is not omnibenevolent (all good) then evil is reconcilable because if God is not all good he would allow evil. Arguments against the existence of an all good and caring God claim that an omnibenevolent God would not allow natural evil to occur or allow innocent people to suffer. If a God is simply omnipresent (all present) then evil could exist as well. If this God is omniscient (all knowing) perhaps he knows evil exists and isn’t powerful enough to stop it or just
doesn’t care.
If we reflect upon these statements in light of the fact of evil and suffering in our world, we should be led to the following conclusions. If God knows about all of the evil and suffering in the world, and knows how to eliminate it, is powerful enough to prevent it, and yet does not, he must not be perfectly good. If God knows about all of the evil and suffering, knows and wants to prevent, but does not, he must not be all-powerful. If God is powerful enough to prevent all of the evil in the world, wants to do so, and yet does not, he must not know about all of the suffering or how to eliminate it, that is, he must not be all-knowing. From this, we can infer that if evil and suffering exists, then God is either not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, or omnibenevolent. In conclusion, since evil and suffering do exist, God is either not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, or omnibenevolent at the same time.
Work Cited
"Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
Küng, Hans. 1976. On Being a Christian, trans. Edward Quinn. Garden City, New York: Doubleday.
McCloskey, H. J. 1960. "God and Evil." Philosophical Quarterly 10: 97-114.
Peterson, Michael L. 1998. God and Evil: An Introduction to the Issues. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Peterson, Michael L., ed. 1992. The Problem of Evil: Selected Readings. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.