Friday, November 5, 2010
Evil? No Problem
In sections X and Xi, Philo and Demea catalogue human misery and Philo uses this evidence to prove that either God does NOT exist or He is NOT benevolent. Is this argument sound? If not, where does the argument fail? What about the possibility that suffering is part of some great good like free will or character development (a theodicy)?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Many Religions, especially those that subscribe to the Judeo-Christian belief system, base themselves off of the notion that god is perfect. For this idea to be true, god must be all powerful and all kind. The mere fact that the world is filled with evil, is enough to show that this god does not exist and that this god is either not that powerful, not all good, or the god simply does not exist.
ReplyDeleteSome would counter that evil in the world is a form of benevolence from god. These people state that god cannot truly bring out the good in human beings if he does not test the free will of these people. Free will is best brought out in the face of adversity and a choice between right and wrong. Many people state that a world without free will is one in which the value of life is lost, because people do not truly live, instead people just become actors playing out the script of life. This argument could work whenever the adversity faced is a natural disaster or something that is not caused by other humans, but the argument is greatly flawed when applied to the evils that are caused by humanity.
All these religions believe that humans were created in god’s image and that humans are the closest to perfect that anything on this earth can get to. However the majority of suffering and the worst suffering in the world stem from the actions of humanity. If god were to use the evil of one person in order to test the will of others, then it would mean that he is planning for one person to commit evil and is bringing out evil and thus creating a test for people by manipulating others into creating evil. Thus god is taking away the free will of some people. If the evil in the world is planned by god, then that makes humanity purposefully evil and considering humanity is supposedly in gods’ image thus god is evil.
The argument that an omnipresent benevolent god would allow evil in the world is a stretch and pretty weak at its base. Thus it is safe to assume that either god is not perfect, or god doesn’t exist. It is impossible to know for certain, but the notion of an imperfect god seems relatively unreasonable, thus it leaves the conclusion that there probably is no god.
To me, the problem of evil is the best argument against God, and I have yet to see a good argument that gets out of it. The premise is simple- if God is perfect, the world should be perfect. There should be no suffering. It fact, the world must be perfect, because if we take God to be the three omni's, then the world would have to be perfect. But the simple fact is the would is not perfect- there is so much suffereing in the world, both caused by humans and not. Anyone has to agree with this, even the very religious.
ReplyDeleteSo if there is so much suffering in the world, what does this say about God? The argument does not necessarily prove that God does not exist, but it does prove that our view of God is completely off. If our view of God was correct, he would not allow suffering to happen, and even if it did happen, would surley stop it. And yet, he hasent. Why not? Well, either he wants to but can't, or can but does not want to. If he wants to but can't, he is not omnipowerful. And if he can but does not want to, he is not omnibenevelnt. Either way, what are we doing worshiping this being? Its like a man who enters a burning building and saves one person, but not another. Maybe he tried but failed to save them, maybe he simply did not want to. Either way, people hail this man as a hero, ignoring the fact that he failed to save a life. In this way, once one accepts the problem of evil, their view of God must change, to an imperfect being. And who wants to praise an imperfect being?
Many have tried to get out of the problem of evil, with no sucsess. The main argument is that the world is full of evil because of some greater good. Perhaps there is evil so we can learn to be couragous, or so we can have a better life. I say, tell that to the guy who was walking down the street and was killed by a stray bullet. Tell that to the people a a Nebraska Mall christmas shopping who were gunned down by a deranged man (true story). What about those people, how are they benefiting, how are they part of the greater good? How is their character developing? Those people died for no reason, so, even if God exists, he is definetly not the omniperfect being we think he is. I see know reason why God can justify these horrible things that happen to people, and thats why the problem of evil works.
Essentially, Philo raises the problem of evil in order to disprove God’s existence or that God is not benevolent. The argument goes as follows: As conventionally defined God is benevolent and all-powerful, suffering and evil exist in our world, which was presumably created by God. This concept implies that either God is willing to stop evil but cannot, meaning he is not all-powerful, or God can prevent evil but is not willing to, meaning he is not benevolent. This argument implies that the God, as conventionally described or understood, does not exist. This argument, in my opinion is sound, however a possible objection is that the possibility of evil preserves free will. In a world where there is true free will humans have the ability to choose their actions without restrictions. This idea means that humans must be allowed or able to commit evil acts, which means there inevitably is evil in the world. Understanding this, God created a world in which people can exercise free will even though it allows for suffering because the benefit of freewill out weighs the cost of suffering. Although this objection deals fairly well with moral evil, evil resulting from human free will, it over looks natural evil, evil resulting from natural disasters, disease, and wild animals like tigers. A tsunami that kills a thousand people and brings suffering to many more is not the result of human free will, which means that the objection does not account for it. The problem of natural evil still disproves God’s existence.
ReplyDeleteI HAVE NO IDEA WHY IT SAYS TED ABOVE?! REALLY WEIRD BUT I SIGNED OUT AND THEN BACK IN AND RE-POSTED IT, AND NOW IT HAS THE CORRECT NAME...?
ReplyDeleteEssentially, Philo raises the problem of evil in order to disprove God’s existence or that God is not benevolent. The argument goes as follows: As conventionally defined God is benevolent and all-powerful, suffering and evil exist in our world, which was presumably created by God. This concept implies that either God is willing to stop evil but cannot, meaning he is not all-powerful, or God can prevent evil but is not willing to, meaning he is not benevolent. This argument implies that the God, as conventionally described or understood, does not exist. This argument, in my opinion is sound, however a possible objection is that the possibility of evil preserves free will. In a world where there is true free will humans have the ability to choose their actions without restrictions. This idea means that humans must be allowed or able to commit evil acts, which means there inevitably is evil in the world. Understanding this, God created a world in which people can exercise free will even though it allows for suffering because the benefit of freewill out weighs the cost of suffering. Although this objection deals fairly well with moral evil, evil resulting from human free will, it over looks natural evil, evil resulting from natural disasters, disease, and wild animals like tigers. A tsunami that kills a thousand people and brings suffering to many more is not the result of human free will, which means that the objection does not account for it. The problem of natural evil still disproves God’s existence.
As someone who has grown up with religion all her life and believes that their is a God questions like this are hard for me to answer. I believe in God based on this faith that I have and I've never felt the need to prove that God exist to anyone because in my mind and in my heart he does and no one has to agree with me in that regard. However, I do belive that this argument is a good one in the mind of someone who doesn't believe in God to begin with but at the end of the day I believe that the argument fails. I've always learned and believed that God created everyone and everything in his image and in his likeness. God does no wrong in that he saved us from the penatly of our wrong doings (died on the cross for the sins of man). I don't understand why God has to be the creator of evil? What actually defines evil? You can say that a million things in this world are evil and bad but at the end of the day are they really? No I am not saying that bad things don't happen in the world and I'm not saying that evil doesn't exist but I am saying that everyone draws that line a different point. In addition as I stated before why does God have to be the creator of evil? Why couldn't man be? Yes God created man but that's all he did. How the individual choses to live is a whole other subject. It's just like they always say that a mother's job is simply to give you life but what you do with that life afterwards is your own buisness. The same concept I think applies here.
ReplyDeleteWith the whole idea that suffering, I think it is a good and valid point. I think that the rough times are when we learn the most. We learn about ourselves and we build up a certain kind of strength that is meant to help us thorughout out lives. I think that suffering also builds up our mindset and most definitely effects our beliefs and our views. i think that it is one of the things that shapes up into the individuals that we become. Just think of how boring the world would be if everyone was always happy and everyone was just so nice to each other and loved each other for who they were. How can know what good feels like if you've never had bad? That's life and I believe without a doubt that suffering is one of the many ways that we learn how to live. I think it's a good thing.
This is definitely a legitimate objection to the belief in an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. If suffering exists, either God is unwilling to stop it (and is therefore not omnibenevolent), or God is unable to stop it (and is therefore not omnipotent). Since suffering exists, God must not have the qualities we traditionally describe him with. One argument against that is that most suffering comes from humans, and God would have to restrain our free will to end suffering caused by humans. However, this is not the case. If God were to give us bodies that could not die or feel pain, the possibility of a human committing evil would be nonexistent. The other objection is that, without suffering, humans would not be able to be courageous or contain other qualities that we typically describe as good. However, we only value these qualities because they are necessary to combat suffering; they are not virtuous qualities in and of themselves. In a world without suffering, we would not be worse off because no one is courageous enough to combat suffering. This also doesn't explain why so much suffering exists. Some forms of suffering, such as falling off a mountain cliff and starving to death without ever being found, do not contribute to character because you're going to die anyways.
ReplyDeleteThe argument of the problem of evil begins with the fact that the world is not perfect. There is suffering, pain, unhappiness, and death. If God were a benevolent God, then he would naturally want to get rid of these things. However, suffering exists. Therefore, our idea of God is flawed. God could not care about the suffering in the world. Or, God could not have the power to change the world. Or, God could have the power and the will to change the world, but lacks the knowledge how. In any case, this means that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient God is impossible. In my opinion, I believe this a sound argument against the Judeo-Christian views of a God.
ReplyDeleteThe most common argument against this is a theodicy. Suffering is a necessary component in order for us to have free will. I believe this argument has a few flaws. First, if free will is the ability for us to choose between options, then I don’t see why having a limited amount of options affects our free will. Or, if free will is dependent on the number of options we can possibly choose, then the world and its laws of physics already limit our options and therefore our free will. Limiting it further by eliminating the possibility of evil seems like a logical extension.
Second, there is a distinction between moral and natural evil. Moral evil is the evil that is caused by human actions. Natural evil is the evil caused by natural forces, like tornadoes or hurricanes. While limiting out moral evil may harm our free will, removing natural evil will not. Even if natural evil is in some part contributed by human actions, such as shoddy craftsmanship on the levees in hurricane Katrina, there will always remain some part that was not caused by humans. Therefore, not all of the evil we see is justified and the argument above still works.
Others state that evil is necessary for character development. The character traits we value such as courage only have meaning in the context of adversity. However, in a peaceful and completely good world, courage loses all importance because there is no need for it. We only value it because of the pain we experience, and without that suffering, we wouldn’t consider it important to have. Therefore, we shouldn’t prioritize gaining courage over having suffering.
In addition, its possible that evil can happen without any contact with a person. For example, a deer in an empty forest could hit its head on a tree and die a slow, painful death. No one is around to gain character development, and therefore its death is pointless and should not have happened. The argument of the problem of evil can then be applied here as well.
Once again i am going to have to agree with Stephanie for this argument. We both have grown up and been raised in Christian Baptist homes for 17-18 years so it is hard to argue against God's existance. I've always been taught that God knows best and that he created humans the exact way he wanted and there is no way for him to do evil or wrong becasue he already saved us from our sins and we are in debpt to him, that is why we are taught to fear no one but God becasue he is all powerful and knows everything.
ReplyDeleteI can see how this argument would work for non-believers because they believe that if God was perfect there would be no evil, like there would be no natural disasters or no unnatural deaths like murders or deaths from car accidents or suicides or anything like that. It is hard for atheists to understand why a God who is said to be perfect would have there be harm in the world. Even as a believer it is hard to understand why bad things happen because we are taught that God knows everything that does happen and everything that is going to happen, meaning he knows the future and it is hard to understand that if God knows someone is about to commit murder tomorrow, why wouldnt he stop it? The person that is going to get killed could have done absolutely nothing wrong in his entire life. This person goes to chrch every Sunday, is a true believer in christ but yet for some reason he is going to die tomorrow with no warning. Why does God want that? On the other hand there is a cancer pateint who is expected to live for at most one more week. Somehow overnight all the cancer cells are somehow removed from his body, no one can explain it, not even the doctors. Is that God's doing? I dont know and no one ever will.
I believe that God put suffering in the world so that people would not take things for granted. We need suffering in the world so that we do not get ahead of ourselves. Without suffering i think that things would certainly get out of hand because everything would be perfect.
Most religions tell its followers that god is a perfect being that is omni-benevolent, omni-present, omni-potent, and creates everything that is good in the world. They also say that god created the world in his image. Their arguments about human suffering and cruelty provides more than enough evidence to disprove a "perfect being"
ReplyDeleteIf god is omni-present and omni-benevolent, he can basically do whatever he wants, when ever he wants, but because he is a "perfect being" he will make the world a perfect society. However, because there is so much disaster in the world, whether it was made by man (murder, bombs etc) or not (tornadoes, earthquakes etc), it proves that either: 1) god just created the world and ignores what happens/doesnt care anymore, 2) is an evil being that purposefully created death and disaster, or 3) god doesnt exist and these events are just the forthcomings of the people and of nature.
However sound the argument is for the non-existance of god, you must put into effect the thoughts of if he did these things for a specific reason. In a perfect world, a person will have free will without crime, and have a society that has no fears. However, you must have balance in the world. Too much yin, and the world will be to emotional and be, essentially, so good that it is bad...too much yang and it will be nothing but chaos. The balance of chaos and free choice is what makes the world so good. It can be argued that god created death and suffering, simply to even out the world.
The traditional notion of God is that he is Omnicient (all knowing), Omnipotent (all powerfull), and Omni-Benevelent (all good). These qualities may be appealing to thiests, knowing that they have an all powerfull being constantly looking over them, and doing everything in the name of Good. Hume's argument proves that these qualities, at least in tandem, cannot account for the Evil that is in this world. the two taht conflict are All powerful, and all good. If he is both, he should be able to prevent Evil. Since he does not (and there is evil in the world) then one of those ideas must be false. (Either not omnipotnet, or not omnibenevolent) And if one is false, the otehrs could be flase as well. (A seperate argument aginst omnicience is the idea of free will, and if God knows how everthing is going to play out. If he does know everythin, then he has done nothing to prevent it.)
ReplyDeleteHume's argument does not completely disprove God's existence in its entiretey, but he solidly proves that the traditional Theist notion of God is.