Dear readers, I welcome you to my blog.
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Now,
To start with the topic I would like to categorize evil basically into two type.
i.e; Moral Evil = Evil done by humans towards other human beings eg,Murders, and Natural Evil = Evil done by nature onto human beings. eg, Earthquake.
Existence of these two constitute a problem for theist believing in Judeo Christian gods for centuries.
In other words, we know God to be all loving all powerful and all knowing being. If that is the case, why is there evil. If God really loved us, he would not let humans suffer. If he knew every thing, he would certainly know all the evil that exists, and if he is all powerful he can certainly stop it, so the problem is, why is there evil in the first place?
To solve this problem of evil to exist, we could try Augustinian theodicy which states that;
God did created a perfect world. The exact world a benevolent omnipotent and omnipresent God would make. God does not created evil rather evil is the privation of goodness, just like darkness is the privation of light. Evil is not something that is created it is just the absence of something else. Augustine also refers to the Bible; as in Book of Genesis. A perfect world where humans were given free will. As we saw in the story of Adam and Eve. God loves the humans and want those humans to accept him. So by giving them free will he allows humans of either accept or reject God. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve rejected the God by eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. Once Adam and Eve committed the original sin the world became distant from God and his goodness therefore evil flourished. They turned their back on gods benevolence and as a punishment brought upon the evils we face today in our world. Moral evil occurs because of mans disobedience and bad choices. Natural evil occurs because the nature is trying to punish man for rejecting the God. As we all are descendants of Adam and Eve we must all suffer and live with evil as our punishment. The only way to get accepted in heaven(place free of evil) is by follow the path Jesus Christ took and accepting him as our sole saviour.
If we accept Augustinian theodicy we can see God does loves us and he surely created a perfect world where he wanted us to love him back and accept him. However, it was humans free will that let to the original sin meaning it was humans who brought about the evil in our world not the God and every human must deal with it. This statement thus allows existence of a benevolent God along with evil in the world.
Again there seems to be a lot of problems with Augustinian theodicy, like it seems contrary for a God to create a perfect world yet it was possible for evil to exist. How can this be possible, if the world is perfect it would be impossible for evil to ever exist no matter what the situation is. It is a logical contradiction on its own. Either the world was never perfect to begin with or if it was perfect it means God deliberately created evil which Augustine said he didn't. Anyhow, it doesn't sound something all loving God would do. Why should I be punished for something very first humans had done and again this whole theodicy relies heavily on Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve as a fact which makes this argument inconsistent with the scientific evidence on evolution of human beings which certainly puts the whole thing into doubt and does not help to solve the problem of evil argument.
It is also important to know that there is yet another argument named Irenean Theodicy. According to this theodicy; God did infact created the possibility of evil only for soul making purpose. In order for good to exist, evil has to exist. If humans only lived in the world of good we would never be able to recognize it. We can only recognize short if we know what it means to be tall and similarly, hot if we know what cold is. So we can only recognize good when we know what evil is which is necessary to appreciate the good. This soul making theory thus claims that God did not made humans perfect rather he purposefully made them imperfect in order for humans to reach perfection through their own free choices and right decisions. Likewise, for there to be good choices it means there must be bad choices too and these bad choices which some people chooses is what cause evil making existence of evil necessary in path to achieve moral perfection. It helps us grow and make our soul, this then shows that evil can exist and God can still be all loving and all powerful.
The problem that we face with this soul making theory is that it only accounts for moral evil. We can see with free will man must be free to choose evil but the question stands, why does the natural world have to be so evil?, why does there have to be earthquakes, tsunamis and diseases?. This causes so much suffering why did God have to create such a harsh planet for us to live on?. This does not seems like something all loving God would do.
Even if we are just focusing on moral evil, then why is it so unbalanced? like, there are people in life who go through life and have had happened really bad stuff happening to them while there are also others who have never really suffered at all. If evil is necessary for making everyone's soul then why does everyone not experience it in the same amounts. Personally, I don't think soul making theory is sufficient enough to solve the problem of evil at all.
If you have read this far you may have noticed a common thing which emerges from both theodicies that is free will, both theodicies tries to shift the blame on free will of people rather than onto God itself. We can see how evil is the result of bad human choices which still makes God benevolent and wanting people to do good. God is still omnipotent, he just can not intervene as soon as God intervenes it no longer becomes free will and God is therefore controlling what humans do.
This free will defence argument is also not sufficient to justify the problem with evil as again it only explains moral evil it does not explain natural evil. Furthermore, there is a logical contradiction in having humans who freely choose but only choose good. If we think about it we have humans now who are faced with choices and are free to choose good. God have no problem in creating humans like this all the time. In case God is all powerful we would all have the freedom to choose wrong but we never make that choice. If he is all loving he would certainly do this and lastly God's omniscience poses a threat to free will in general. To elaborate my last point, if God knows everything then he knows the future too and if he knows the future he knows about how an event is going to turn out long before it happens. Then if he know how an event is going to turn out then it sort of means it is predetermined or destined.
With this knowledge, if we take a review on Augustinian theodicy. If God is all knowing and can see into the future he would have known that Adam and Eve is going to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge before he even created them. Meaning their sin was established long before they were even created. How then? Were they even free to choose to what they chose in the end. It seems God knowingly created Adam and Eve with an intended destiny to commit the original sin which definitely not make him benevolent or Adam and Eve did freely chose to sin and God had no idea it was going to happen, then he is not omniscient or omnipotent.