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Why Is There Evil Do Humans Have Free Will Analysis

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Why Is There Evil Do Humans Have Free Will Analysis
Renick’s chapter titled “Why Is There Evil? Do Human Have Free Will? (and Other Questions You’re Better Off Not Asking)” from his book Aquinas for Armchair Theologians seeks to provide the reader an answer, from the viewpoint of Aquinas, to the following often debated questions:
Why is there evil in the world?
How can Christians rationally account for the existence of Satan and Evil in the world?
Why does evil persist?
Why would God make evil in the first place?
Who or what causes the removal of good from one of God’s creations (also known as the privation of the good)?
Is God not the source of the decay in good things?
Do humans (and angels) have free choice?
Why is there evil in the world?
Many of us know the story of Adam and Eve living …show more content…
Instead, Aquinas (influenced by both Plato and Augustine) makes the argument that God only makes good things and that evil is the “privation of the good”. The author provides his readers with a great example of this. He asks his readers to think of a daisy. In its materialism, the daisy is all good. Its beauty, the pedals, the stem are all good things. But as time passes, the pedals tend to wither away and even turn a brown color. Although the daisy has changes, its fundamental being has not shifted. Aquinas argues that all of what we as humans call evil is like the example of the daisy. He defends the idea that evil is not a thing. Evil is the absence of good. Despite this simple explanation, many wonder that if there is one creator of everything and anything in the world (which includes evil), then the creator must be the source of …show more content…
He argues that since God is ultimately the creator of all things and everyone in the world, then adversely, God is the creator of evil. The distinction however should be that God does not do evil.
Do humans (and angels) have free choice?
The final question addressed by the Aquinas was whether we have free choice. Aquinas and many theologians argue that we absolutely have free will. Some people believe that there exists a problem in believing in free choice. Some believe that for it to be true that God is all-knowing, knowing of everything happening before it happens then do we really have free will? Aquinas argues that of we did not have free will, and if God was a puppet master, meaning that he created all our actions, then it would be an injustice for Him to punish some and not others. This situation just does not make sense.
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