Assumption (1): God exists.
Assumption (1a): God is all-knowing.
Assumption (1b): God is all-powerful.
Assumption (1c): God is perfectly loving.
Assumption (1d): Any being that did not possess all three of the above properties would not be God.
Premise (2): Evil exists.
Premise (3): An all-knowing being would be aware of the existence of evil.
Premise (4): An all-powerful being would be able to eliminate evil.
Premise (5): A perfectly loving being would desire to eliminate evil.
Conclusion (6): Evil does not exist. (from (1),(3),(4),(5))
Contradiction: But evil does exist. (from (2))
Conclusion (7): There is no being that is all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly loving. (from (2),(3),(4),(5))
Conclusion (8): God does not exist. (from (7),(1d))The argument's logic is ironclad, and its simple but far-reaching conclusion is that the existence of evil in the world disproves the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly loving god. The only way to refute the problem of evil without surrendering the assumption that such a god exists is to deny one of its premises.
I like this argument as it doesn't completely deny God; but it relegates him to (in my view):
- A God that isn't Perfectly Loving; or
- A God that doesn't desire to eliminate evil.
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5 comments:
Reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantinga%27s_free_will_defense
"It is possible that God, even being omnipotent, could not create a world with free creatures who never choose evil."
This doesn't sound very omnipotent to me.
Interesting...I know some religions believe in free agency - that their God has a plan for each person, but people are free to choose their own path and go in whatever direction they want. I reckon I'd prefer a world with some evil if it means there is some choice. I don't really like the idea of 6 billion little puppets wandering around unquestioningly :D
So in conclusion - I really have no idea but I do think it's interesting!
http://www.sacred-texts.com/evil/index.htm
Some interesting tid bits there chimmay!
A few points:
* The issue of omnipotence is a tricky one in itself: you run into issues like "can got do logically impossible things?" To say that God is extremely powerful but not strictly omnipotent is still pretty consistent with most religions.
* Free creates who never choose evil aren't exactly free, are they?
* Focusing not on the world as a whole but on your own life, are you angry that God created you? (assuming for the moment that he exists) Do you feel like, in being given this existence, you have been given something so abhorrent that no one who loved you could have done this to you? I suspect not.
I think that omnipotent beings can do logically impossible things. I concede that we can redefine God to not be only logically-consistent-omnipotent, but thats a much less-poetent a being then the God outside of time and space that I imagine.
Your suggestion that we (creatures) need free will (and so the potential for evil) to be able to be good just seems like a shitty setup from God - I think he could have designed it better!
I'm not angry as I don't believe in a god with those 3 attributes - He either exists but doesn't care (the god-is-a-bastard theory) , or he doesnt exist. In either case he is not very relevant to me.
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