Yeah, well that's a good argument and one people have used for a long time.
It's a classic question in theology that asks how can a loving, yet omnipotent God permit evil and suffering in the world? The argument goes as follows: A God that allows suffering to continue is either a) not all-powerful (not omnipotent) and is thus unable to prevent the suffering; b) not loving because this God has the power to prevent suffering but is unwilling to do so; and/or c) not all-knowing (not omniscient) because God only is aware of the suffering after it has already occurred and it’s too late to prevent it. This problem of evil and God’s inability or unwillingness to do anything about it is known in theology as “theodicy.”
Two of the most common answers to this question are that God’s ways are “mysterious” or that God has an overarching plan that we cannot know. Put simply, His ways are above ours and our own finite understanding of life.
I find it fascinating that
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God does not permit anything other than the creative state of being, which by its very nature includes freedom. Freedom is what leads to sin and consequently evil. Freedom also leads to growth and life itself. We can thus read the story of the forbidden fruit in Genesis as a metaphorical explanation of the inherent freedom within the world and our knowledge and experience of this freedom as the ultimate cause of suffering.
God, when understood as Paul Tillich’s “ground of being,” rather than a supernatural being who intervenes occasionally in the universe, allows for a power that supports all existence as its creative ground but does not make a choice as to which unfortunate events to intervene to change. The nature of existence (as grounded in God) is such that humankind is free. To be free, we must have the ability to do evil, to turn away from God, the true ground of who we are. Thus, the possibility (and reality) of sin is built into the very fabric of
owe to prove his thesis about the problems of evil and atheism, Rowe asks three fundamental questions. The first question, “is there an argument for atheism based on the problem of evil that could rationally justify atheism?” Supporting his question, Rowe by uses the idea of human and animal suffering.is it reasonable for omnipotent, omniscient being(s) to permits its creation to suffer by extinguish each other for their own personal benefits. If there is such a thing as an omnibenevolent, omnipotent holy being how come the ultimate and unescapable suffering is this world has no vanish. How good is a god(s) that permits humanity to suffer greatly? In religious Christian Bible study, Jesus, many times referred to as god, vanish evil from
The existence of pain and suffering in a world created by a good and almighty God is a fundamental theological dilemma and may be the most serious objection to the Christian religion. In the book, The Problem Of Pain , author C.S. Lewis addresses the issue of pain as a mere problem that demands a solution; he formulates it and goes about solving it. "If God were good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both" (p. 16). According to Lewis, this is the problem of pain in its simplest form. In his attempt to solve the problem of pain Lewis evaluates the past and the origin of religion, he
One of the oldest dilemmas in philosophy is also one of the greatest threats to Christian theology. The problem of evil simultaneously perplexes the world’s greatest minds and yet remains palpably close to the hearts of the most common people. If God is good, then why is there evil? The following essay describes the problem of evil in relation to God, examines Christian responses to the problem, and concludes the existence of God and the existence of evil are fully compatible.
Why does an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God allow natural and moral evil to happen without any restrictions? John Hick, a proponent of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s theodicy defense, answered: “in order that human beings, as free responsible agents, may use this world as a place of “soul making,” which involves the spiritual perfection of our character and persons” (Pojman 74). According to Hick, creation has not been finished its work, it is still undergoing a process, that is, the lives of individual human beings. Hick believed that God is omnibenevolent because he is allowing us to learn how to be perfect on our own.
Why Does God allow suffering? This question is probably as old as religion itself. It is a stumbling block for some of us, and for many more at given moments of tragedy. There are as many answers to this question as there are people who care to engage in theological dialogue. One understanding is that yes, God allows "bad" things to happen; God does not cause them to happen.
with some evil in it. Better? Why would God being so good and concerned about
God does not hold Himself distant from His creation, but He embraces it; He walks with it. He engages with that which He created. The story of Creation shows that the author of it all is personal, intimate, and cares about what He created. Act one gives us a glimpse of how the world was supposed to be; a beautiful, intimate, God –in –the –midst life of perfect satisfaction with the absence of sin. However, this all crumbled in Act two when Adam and Eve decided to disobey God and take their lives into
This is a great blow against classic theology that describes God as all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, ect… However, the process theologians argue that God is the most-powerful being, the most-knowing being, and the most-good being that could exist. This slight change in thinking complete attacks the view of the classical theologian’s views in their perfect God. In process theology many arguments are made to fight the “all” standing of the classical Theologians. Arguments that point the inconsistency of an all-powerful and all-good God that allows evil to exist in the world. A popular response to the existence of evil is that God graced humanity with the gift of free will. However, the process theologians have asked how an all knowing God can allow free will, if he knows what everyone will choose. These two arguments against that “all” God have allowed the process to take a slightly weaker stance, the “most” God. This allows God to know the most possible, but not necessarily all future events. And therefore free will is plausible and evil can exist in a world where an extremely good and extremely powerful God also
William Rowe defines gratuitous evil as an instance of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.(Rowe 335) In a world with so much evil it raises the questions If God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, how can he allow bad things to happen to good people? Can God even exist in a world with so such gratuitous evil? These are questions that has afflicted humanity for a very long time and has been the question to engross theologians for centuries. The existence of evil has been the most influential and powerful reason to disprove the existence of God. It is believed among many theist that God is the creator and caretaker
Generally, God is known to be all good, to have complete control and power, and to be loving. Although, how come there is evil in the world with such an angelic God? If God cares and loves us- wouldnt he prevent the suffering if he could? Since he is all powerful, he should be able to eliminate the suffering that evil brings. It seems we only have two potential answers: either God is not loving and all powerful, or God does not exist. Although, I am going to try to give an alternative answer and possibly explain how God could coexist with evil.
The problem of evil has been around since the beginning. How could God allow such suffering of his “chosen people”? God is supposedly all loving (omni-benevolent) and all powerful (omnipotent) and yet He allows His creations to live in a world of danger and pain. Two philosophers this class has discussed pertaining to this problem is B.C. Johnson and John Hick. Johnson provides the theists’ defense of God and he argues them. These include free will, moral urgency, the laws of nature, and God’s “higher morality”. Hick examines two types of theodicies – the Augustinian position and the Irenaeus position. These positions also deal with free will, virtue (or moral urgency), and the laws of nature. Johnson
If God loves us, why does He allow us to suffer? The central question in Shadowlands challenges traditional religious and moral conventions. It is a question asked by many, with few satisfactory answers. Before attempting to answer the question, and explore its relationship to Shadowlands, let us first define the question, so its implications may be more clearly understood. At the heart of the question is a doubt in the goodness of God, "If God loves us". From the beginning it is clear that God is being judged and criticized by the question. Then the second phrase follows"Why does He allow us to suffer?". The assumption made in the second phrase is that God has enough control over the world to prevent suffering. If He can prevent
God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, which makes us wonder what kind of morally sufficient reason justifies God to allow evil. We know that evil exists in our world, but so does God, so would God be the source of evil as well as good? We have established that God is the omnipotent and benevolent free creator of the world, but suffering and evil exist. Is God unable to prevent evil? If so, he would not be omnipotent. Is He able to prevent the evil in our world but unwilling? If this were then case then he wouldn’t be benevolent. A Persian thinker, Mani, suggested that the answer to this question was a kind of duality between the good and evil. This pluralistic view of the good and evil in our world would suggest that God is
Yes most definitely, Christianity adequately can explain the existence of good and evil, pain and suffering because of the wisdom of God through the power of the Holy Spirit you have all answers because you can do all things. The problem of evil and suffering are the most difficult questions that people will ask all the time. However, both are indeed answered in Genesis, the book of the beginning. The problem of evil is explained and answered by the disobedience of Adam and Eve and what they have done that entered the world by Satan. The problem of pain is also answered in Genesis. There was a penalty that God demanded, which included death, pain, a cursing of the ground and painful toil (Genesis 3). But many always asked this questions, “If
For centuries predestination has been a meticulously discussed subject which causes many divides in opinion due to some verses in the Bible being potentially ambiguous or contradictory and it is therefore necessary to look at this ancient text as a whole in order to get an accurate understanding. Predestination is a significant topic as it brings into question the nature of the traditional Judeo-Christian God who has long been seen as omniscient (possessing universal and complete knowledge), omnibenevolent (infinitely good and all-loving), omnipotent (all-powerful) and immanent (permanently interacting with the universe). For some, the idea of having a supreme god and yet a sin-filled world is either impossible or simply means that this god is the ‘father of all evils’. Could it be that God is the alpha and the omega (the beginning and the end) but not the intermediate because he lacks the power, knowledge and love to regulate this world which has been spiralling out of control since the Fall of Man in Genesis 3? Another reason as to why it is significant is that it will reveal to us whether we are accountable for our actions or whether God’s sovereignty takes precedence over our culpability. The examination can be fragmented into two opposing perspectives, Calvinism and Arminianism, which both try to explain the predicament of predestination in regards to seven key areas: sovereignty, man’s depravity, election, Christ’s atonement, grace, man’s will and