The Cosmological Argument: This argument begins with the tenet that for the Universe to exist something outside the universe must have created it. Also refereed to as the First Cause or the Uncaused Cause theory, here God exists as the prime mover that brought the universe into existence. The universe is a series of events, which began with God who must exist apart from the universe, outside of time and

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

Evil The free will defense suggests that God permits, but does not cause evil. Therefore, it is possible to live in a universe in which good and evil continually coexist. Human beings are blessed with the ability to make a choice that can further the objectives of God and good, or to promote the interests of evil. Although this view is logically coherent, there are clear objections to it. One objection is

Once again, the theist can simply point out that human knowledge -- either our own, or in the collective sense -- is not only incomplete but not even necessarily close to complete. Furthermore, inference from incomplete evidence is dangerous; before Columbus, European philosophers would have felt themselves on firm "rational ground" to suppose that no edible starchy tuber existed, and yet the potato would have proved them wrong. Attempts to

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

If all falls are "lucky," then we truly live in the best of all possible worlds. While we may avoid accusations of Candidean naivete by announcing that "God" must not exist, this all-or-nothing stance lacks rigor. The persistence of evil is incompatible with certain ideas of God, but in itself this only indicates that our ideas are imperfectly refined. At its best, this approach deepens our definitions of the divine