Paste your essay in here…What is the problem of evil, and how compelling is it as an argument for God’s nonexistence? God is by definition all-powerful and all good. God is omnipotent and unflawed, if so then why is there evil? If God is good, and he exists then why does he allow evil to dominate? The following essay describes the problem of evil in relation to God, examines responses to the problem, and attempts to conclude that the existence of God and the existence of evil are fully compatible.
At the heart of this dilemma, is the question if God exists how to does evil? The logical problem of evil can be refuted by merely disproving its claim that the existence of God depends upon whether or not the rationality of God’s existence depends not on its probability in relation to the presence of evil: it depends on the likelihood of God’s existence regarding all available evidence. When the claim is made that God is omnipotent, all-powerful and all good and therefore would not allow evil to exist if he could help it, the problem of evil hinges on the premise that God desires to prevent evil. What if there is no reason to accept this claim, for example, do not assume that God has a desire to prevent evil. What if God allows evil to enable virtues to flourish this may be the reason that God has to permit evil. That is, God may permit evil to bring about a greater good, such as allowing the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor to force the United States to enter and eventually help end World War II, thus stopping Hitler and the Nazi’s mass genocide of Europe’s Jewish people. In this example, God would be morally justified in allowing evil. And while this reasoning does not irrefutably defend every instance of evil, it does allow for the possibility of the coexistence of God and evil, like this refuting the problem of evil. Moving deeper into offensive arguments, we can show positive support for why an all-knowing, all-powerful, good God would permit the existence of evil. Decisive evidence to overwhelm the problem with the evil question is the freewill defense. This defense claims the following: If God creates human beings with genuine, morally significant free will where humans can freely decide to act in ways that advance goodness in the world or cause evil in the world against self, or others, it is possible that God cannot get that kind of world without significant amounts of moral badness as well. Since God has given humans free will inevitability that freedom will lead to evil deeds, God has in fact given people free will, and the moral state of the world is left up to the decisions and actions of humans, not God. The freewill defense then makes God and evil logically compatible, perhaps even logically unavoidable. In either case, the problem with evil has been successfully refuted. However, the evidential problem of evil remains. It is a fact that there are gratuitous evils; why then if God exists, there should be no pointless evils; therefore, God doesn’t exist. The evidential problem of evil turns on the existence of pointless evil. Proponents agree that while God can use evil to bring about a greater good, how do we reconcile evil that seems to serve no higher purpose?
Gratuitous evil finds origins in natural evil, apart from the misuses of free will by humans. Applying the human epistemological limitation defense here seems relevant. There is no way that cognitively limited beings, human beings, can imagine goods whose difficulties exceed our capacity for knowing, such as living in multiple dimensions as opposed to four. In other words, it is possible that goods exist which could satisfy the reason for God permitting evils which appear gratuitous, we just do not know what those goods are. Now not only are the existence of God and the existence of evil per se compatible but so is the existence of God with particular evidence of evil.With the problem of evil in relation to God described and the responses to the problem examined, I have shown to be justified in the competence and sufficiency of my answers to the problem.
For most, God is all good, all-knowing, and all-powerful. We believe this with all our heart. However, we live in a world with real evil. Our belief in God is matched by logic in our minds, and both tell us that God coexists with evil. But our philosophy doesn’t stop there. We say God does not merely coexist with evil but has a plan for the pain; evil exists for a purpose.
God is all-powerful, and he allows evil to exist and thrive, perhaps great acts of charity, heroism, and compassion are only necessary with the presence of evil. As we have learned, there are significant sayings, “Death gives life meaning” and “Without fear there would be no courage.” Some evils are the enablers which allow these noble qualities to flourish in humans. It is true the world is overrun with pointless evil deeds, which seem to serve no purpose what so ever. In fact, I cannot imagine how most of these horrendous acts of violence, war, genocide, killing in the name of religion and torture can have any positive meaning for anyone or anything. However, I am not God; my perspective is extremely limited compared to the deity and only through my faith in God, and learned logic am I able to reconcile the disgusting acts being carried out today and throughout history. Hopefully, the suffering and torment is serving a full purpose, and maybe after researching the questions of what is the problem of evil, and how compelling is it as an argument for God’s nonexistence? If you believe that God exists; then there can be no gratuitous evils; therefore, there are no gratuitous evils. We may be able to come to the conclusion that maybe there is not evil at all.