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¶ … theodicies and explains the problem of evil, focusing on the merits and the faults of this theodicy. The paper seeks to explain why sin exists among humankind and why bad things happen in nature. The paper also answers the question of why theodicy must be internally consistent, it concludes with a brief explanation of how evil can affect ones relationship with God.
The Problem of Evil
The world is filled with numerous occurrences of evil manifested in calamities such as earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, diseases, and many others. Philosophers and theologians have categorized these evil occurrences into two categories, moral and natural evil. According to Nash (1988), moral evil is a consequence of human beings actions and natural evil occur naturally, this involve such occurrences as earthquakes, floods that happen with little explanation or no direct human action. Some people have resolved to a common belief that God is neither omnibenevolent nor omnipotent, while others get perplexed at theses occurrences, which cannot be attributed to any action of human beings.
Moral Evil and Natural Evil
Moral evil is a major barrier for those who doubt God's existence. God exist and He is omnibenevolent, He has revealed His nature as well as His ways to human beings, but has also allowed free will. Human beings use free will in making...
The choices that human beings can make are limited to two options, good or evil. Sin is evil, and Satan is the author of sin.[footnoteRef:1] Satan continues to cause problems in many people's lives today. [footnoteRef:2] Most of evil that happens to human beings are because of the choices they make. The bible says, "I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death."[footnoteRef:3] Moreover, that "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge."[footnoteRef:4] Human beings freely inflict evil on themselves such as murder, deceit, adultery and so on. Human beings have the option of participating in divine nature to escape the ways of the world corrupted by evil desires. [1: 2 Cor. 11:3] [2: Luk. 22:31] [3: Jer. 21:8] [4: Hos. 4:6]
Nonetheless, the issue of natural evil correlates existence of evil with existence of God; it questions why God permits evil to exist. While it is possible that certain occurrences such as degradation are a consequence of creation order, the bible shows that some natural repercussions of the fall of human beings. According to Bratcher (2001), the issue of natural evil is based on human beings assumption of what they expect God to be. He claims that human beings believe that God should make the world a better place since He is all-powerful. Based on these assumptions or beliefs, human beings define God…
Bibliography
Bratcher, Dennis. "The Problem of Natural Evil." www.crivoice.org. 2001.
http://www.crivoice.org/evil.html (accessed March 23, 2012).
Magee, Joseph. "Aquinas and the Necessity of Natural Evils." www.aquinasonline.com. August 27, 1999. http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/probevil.html (accessed March 23, 2012).
Nash, Ronald H. aith and Reason: Searching for a Rational Faith . Grand Rapids: Zondervan
Peacock, Joshua. "The Problem of Evil: A Brief Look at Theodicy." www.s4ts.org. September 27, 2011. http://www.s4ts.org/2011/09/brief-look-at-theodicy.html (accessed March 23, 2012).
Even before one gets to Rowe's argument, however, one may disregard Hick's argument because it depends on imagining an infinite number of possibilities to explain away evil, rather than accounting for it. Instead of actually explaining how a benevolent and omnipotent god can allow evil to exist, Hick's argument simply states that this evil is not really evil, although with no evidence to back this up other than the convenient
" (16) In other words, since God is not completely benevolent, one must protest against God for allowing that which is not just or that which is evil to exist. In an illustration of this strategy, Roth refers to the work of Elie Wiesel, who "shows that life in a post-Holocaust world can be more troublesome with God than without him" (9). In his works, Wiesel looks at different forms of
Personal Theodicy Apologetics The problem of evil is something everyone has to face sooner or later. As Schlesinger points out, philosophers want to understand “why there is any suffering in the world at all.”[footnoteRef:2] The problem with a philosophical approach to suffering is that it does not reveal the whole story or the whole picture of why suffering (evil) exists. Religion, on the other hand, does provide that whole story—and depending
Theodicy The problem of Sam the neighbor is not something new in the spiritual evaluation of the human condition. The presence of discomfort, fear and violence leads the casual observer to believe that if there is a God, he or she or whatever it is, has a desire to see people suffer in pain and confusion. There is little doubt that the human experience is filled with disappointment, failure, death and
Evil and Suffering The logical problem of evil is that if God is all-good then evil should not exist. Perhaps one can argue, then, that evil is a creation of man and that God cannot not prevent that, but God being Omnipotent, and, therefore, by definition able to accomplish all should be capable of preventing if not destructing evil. Either then God is not all good, or he is not all
" Defenses against it may be equally inconclusive, but in their fertility they at least promise a solution some day. Bibliography Adams, Marilyn McCord. Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Belliotti, Raymond a. Roman Philosophy and the Good Life. Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2009. DeRose, Keith. "Plantinga, Presumption, Possibility, and the Problem of Evil," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (1991), 497-512. Draper, Paul. "Probabilistic Arguments from Evil," Religious Studies 28