God's existence and the problem of evil

God's Existence And Evil Existence

God's existence and the existence of evil

When considering William Paley's Argument from Design, St. Thomas Aquinas's Cosmological Argument, and St. Anselm's Ontological Argument, one can only come to one conclusion. As superficial as this might seem for some believers, the conclusion is not that God exists. Sometimes it is better to be superficial, as this provides a person with the ability to see matters from a general perspective. Considering the complexity of things can lead to serious dilemmas, taking into account that as long as someone wants to believe that God exists, the respective individual can go through great efforts with the purpose to come up with a theory that can convince many to accept it. This is exactly what happened in the cases of Paley, Aquinas, and Anselm. These people devised ingenious theories that are hard to contradict by simply relating to the information they provide and that can thus make it difficult and almost impossible for someone to contradict the ideas they are meant to put across.

It would probably make a difference if an argument with regard to the existence of God would be beefed up -- this is practically a means to influence individuals to express more interest in it. By having people actively involved in interpreting and generally discussing with regard to it, such an argument would be effective. The main idea of a theological argument involves introducing a theory that influences individuals to question it, thus coming to a point where they feel that the argument itself is intriguing. Arguments regarding the existence of God influence individuals to indirectly abandon their principles with the purpose of debating it. The simple fact that they need to go through great efforts in order to combat it means that it works, taking into account that it got people to actually consider it as a hypothesis rather than a concept that is not valid.

Karma is a common concept in Hinduism, Buddhism, and a series of other Asian religions. Instead of providing a complex set of theories regarding how God exists and is responsible for everything that happens in the world, Karma promotes the idea that causality is what makes things happen in the first place. Good deeds lead to individuals experiencing good feedback from the world in general while bad things are likely to lead to a person going through bad experiences. Although this is a more interesting and simpler version of ideas like good and evil, it is still not enough to demonstrate that people should consider evil as a concept that is somehow caused by previous evil events.

Although it is not very different from an argument for the existence of God, karma is somewhat more satisfactory in bringing on the idea that there is actually a higher force controlling the world. This respective force apparently uses morality as a tool to differentiate between individuals and as a means to determine who should be provided with privileges and who should not (Herman 1993, p. 237). Taking this into account, it would be safe to say that the idea of karma is a better alternative to Christian arguments for the existence of God because it does not actually attempt to provide a definite explanation of a divine power. Even with this, the fact that it categorizes particular things as good and others as evil contributes to making it less general. This makes it seem that it is a concept characteristic to humans rather than an objective concept.

Although it is set in a Christian context, "The Book of Job" provides an interesting description of the divine. According to the book, the idea of God is one that people cannot simply understand or define. Instead, it is much more complex than anyone can possibly consider it to be and people are limited by their nature as they struggle to understand it. Even with the fact that the book puts across intriguing ideas, it is still not enough to demonstrate that a Christian God actually exists. It simply states something that is obvious -- that there is a supernatural power that somewhat controls things in the universe and that people are likely to never be able to comprehend its true complexity.