width="7650" height="228">
Is God that powerful after all? I came across a reading which says The Problem of Evil can't be solved because God did not want to put a stop to evil.
According to John Hick, evils can be categorised into either "Natural" or "Moral" Evil.
Natural evil: The apparent malfunctioning of the human world, e.g. diseases and natural disasters.
Moral evil: The result of human immorality, e.g. genocide.
The monotheistic (people who believe in monotheism believe there is only one God) of Christianity, Judaism and Islam assumes the divine qualities of omnipotence, omniscience and omni benevolence. However, the existence of evil and suffering provides a challenge to the loving God of classical theism.
Augustine, in his book 'Confessions,' recognised this problem:
"Either God is not able to abolish evil or not willing; if he is not able then he is not all-powerful, if he is not willing then he is not all-good."
The Problem of Evil can be viewed as an inconsistent triad:
The three are logically inconsistent. If God is omnipotent, he is aware of the existing evil and suffering and knows how to put a stop to it. If God is omni benevolent he will want to put a stop to it. Yet evil and suffering does exist.
David Hume argued that only three possibilities exist:
1. God is not omnipotent
2. God is not omni benevolent
3. Evil does not exist
Since we have sufficient direct experience to support the existence of evil, if God exists he is either an impotent God or a malicious God; not the God of classical theism. Hume concluded that God therefore does not exist.
However, Augustine reasoned that all humans are worthy of the punishment of evil and suffering because "we are seminally present in the loins of Adam" deserving of the punishment from original sin. This is biologically inaccurate based on my opinion because a question can be raised: Is God really justified in allowing punishment of one human being for the sin of another human being?Augustine's theodicy argues that God created the world and it was perfect, without the existence of evil or suffering. But if the world was perfect and there was no knowledge of good and evil, how could Adam and Eve have the freedom to disobey God if goodness and evil were as yet unknown? The disobedience of Adam and Eve and the angels in the Garden of Eden implies that there already was knowledge of good and evil. As such, Augustine's theodicy is therefore questionable.
But since I am so free as to 'blog' the above entries during office hours, does it suggest that the world is perfect because I can do whatever I want? However, there is no perfection because if perfection really exists, I would not be in the office in the first place.
