(Genesis 1:1)" Then the following part of this chapter describes how God created the world and how it was good in God's eyes. First, if God is all-powerful then He can do it, and if He is all-loving, then He wants to do it. He supports his argument by critiquing the theist believes that God is wholly good and omnipotent. God never forces people to love, serve or choose him. If O-God existed then He would want to eliminate all evil. Then why call him God? As with the attributes of omniscience and omnipresence, it follows that, if God is infinite, and if He is sovereign, which we know He is, then He must also be omnipotent. Many skeptics assume that instant creation demonstrates the power of God more decisively than creation over a period of time. Omniscient only means all-knowing. From 1& 2. One problem with this assumption is that the element of time is irrelevant to God. By definition, an omnipotent being must be able to do . Then He is not omnipotent. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false." (Mackie, 1955) The resulting logical contradiction theoretically disproves the existence of . According to atheists, if God is omnipotent, then he. If God can not immediately perfect morally and logically free creatures, then he is not omnipotent. These premise's are: (A) God is not omnipotent and cannot make evil good. There are three reasons why I believe God might allow evil and suffering to occur: 1. The problem of evil, also known as the Riddle of Epicurus , states: If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to. Then he is not omnipotent. The understood reasoning is that an all-good God would desire to eliminate all evil as far as he can; an all-powerful God . One suggestion, based on Plato's Timaeus, is that the world was not created by this God . His very nature as an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being demands that evil will be vanquished. Everything is happening just as He planned, proving him worthy of glory, honor, and power (Rev. Epicurean Paradox. Another attribute of God is His justice. Neither possibility is appealing, and both give . He cannot do desire to do that which is logically impossible, i.e., create a round triangle, since the transcendent laws of logic reflect His nature (See The Transcendental Argument for the existence of God . Since well before Hume's time, the problem has been the basis of a positive argument for atheism: If God exists, then he is omnipotent and perfectly good; a perfectly good being would eliminate evil as far as it could; there is no limit to what an omnipotent being can do; therefore, if God exists, there would be no evil in the world; there is . Then why call him God? Secondly, it is used for circumstances and . So, in order to really understand the concept of theodicy, one has to carefully define his terms and then stick to those definitions. He has all power over all things at all times and in all ways. If God is good, he is not God. According to Mackie, if God is truly omnipotent, evil should be nonexistent because God would use his power to eliminate it. The problem is with God being sovereign, one of his assumed traits, that creates a problem. One of the principal challenges to the belief in God is the problem of evil. Then why call him God? The final solution proclaims humans free will as the root of evil. "If God's desire is soul-making …" The logical problem of evil (LPE), in contemporary analytic philosophy, has been taken as the attempt to show that an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good being cannot possibly exist with instances of evil in the world. In doing so, they created evil. Sovereign 3. Then why call him God?". There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true, the third would be false. Richard Swinburne definition of omnipotence If he is omnipotent and omniscient, he knows it is happening and he has the power to stop it, therefore, not doing so means that he is not omnibenevolent. He asks whether God has the power to prevent evil. It is not true that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God must always and at all times remove all evil. The basis for his argument is that ' a good thing always eliminates . Evil exists. It was popularized by David Hume. If He can prevent evil but does not, then he is not good. I just recently read a lengthy thread on another forum where an atheist and many of his fellow atheists blamed the God of 4 Minutes The argument for the problem of evil assumes that God does not have any reason as to why evil and suffering should be permitted. Love requires freedom. God's omnipotence does not include the ability to violate logic; God's omnipotence include the ability to violate logic; If a god's omnipotence does not allow it to violate logic then it simply may not be able to be all-benevolent and all knowing at the same time as that god also prohibits evil. As an Irish person, there's even more. These causes, in Philo's opinion, disprove the existence of an omnipotent and infinitely good god, for if god was all-good and all-powerful, then these grounds would not exist in our universe. Did 6 million Jews die so that one man's choice (Hitler) to not be good could go forward unhampered. Yet evil exists. 4. But this would mean that he is not the God of the Bible since the God of the Bible does whatever he desires to do ( Eph. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. The often quoted argument goes: "if God is all good (all benevolent) then God has the desire to end suffering, and if God is all-powerful (omnipotent) then God has the ability to end suffering. He can create, alter, or destroy a universe and all that is in it. [4] But we might, nevertheless retain faith in a Non-omnipotent God. Evil, then, is the real object here. Then he is malevolent. God created the world and human beings. "Because the Lord our God is omnipotent, we can confidently trust Him in all things and with all things. Therefore if God does not end . What evil is, is "not". would not want evil to occur. This sounds like a malevolent God. Since the theistic God is omnipotent and wholly good then there should not be evil because of the fact that good tries to cancel out evil as much as it possibly can. If you decide option one is correct, THEN God IS responsible for the evil that is in His created world, just as much as He would be responsible for anything and everything in the world. A benevolent God would want to eradicate evil. God is omnipotent but He has created us with free will, enabling us to choose either to love and serve, or to disobey and be selfish. However, if we have free will, then some will argue that this means that things happen which . But Cleanthes resolves the matter by lessening the attributes of God. If God was somehow unable to stop evil, that would certainly mean that he is not omnipotent (all-powerful). God chooses to restrict His own omnipotence in a way. If he is omnipotent and omnibenevolent,. tags: atheism , god , religion. Since the theistic God is omnipotent and wholly good then there should not be evil because of the fact that good tries to cancel out evil as much as it possibly can. If O-God existed then He could eliminate all evil. And whatever He can and wants to do, He will do (Psalm 135:6). Is he both able and willing? Then he is not omnipotent. and. At the beginning of the article, Mackie states that the initial issue with God's existence is that, "God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists" (Mackie, Paragraph 3). God is omnipotent in the sense that he is infinitely powerful and has the ability to use that power in complex ways. Since Jehovah God gave his intelligent creations free will, if one decides to reject his directions, it is his choice. Rowe defines God as O-God. Epicurus. "If God is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good, whence evil? If so, is God still omnipotent? Yes. The biggest hurdle in discussing theodicy is a tendency to waffle on the definitions of certain words. Evil at it's most basic level is a deviation from a standard of good. Part XI begins with Philo's breakdown of what are, in his perspective, the four causes of natural evil. 3 Therefore, God is not bound by time, so that six days, six . July 08, 2019. That does not compute because there is no reason why God should prevent evil. Though He sets limits on all of creation, He Himself is limitless in strength, wisdom, love, holiness, and the ability to perform His sovereign will. God permitted His creatures, men and angels, to exercise free will and disobey Him. God has the power to eliminate evil but doesn't. If God were both benevolent and omnipotent then evil would not exist. Omnipotence simply means "all powerful.". I know i haven't written anything about the problem of evil yet but it's been hard to find the time. 254, April, 1955). "If we abandon all analogy to humanity, then we retain no conception of the great object of our adoration. There is a problem of evil, but only from our experience, not from God's perspective. From the definition of O-God, specifically, Omnibenevolent. If God caused it, then He is evil or "not good" (alluding to the OMNIBENEVOLENCE or "all-goodness . 3. 3. If O-god existed then evil would not exist. Besides the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is . If He is both able and willing. Evil does exist. Upon observing the world as it is, it seems reasonable to me that love is the supreme ethic. (B) God is omnipotent, but cannot make evil good. But if we preserve human analogy then we cannot reconcile the evil in the world with infinite attribute. Then He is malevolent. First of all, if God is willing to prevent evil but not able, then it would be true that he is not omnipotent. These attributes are part of what make God, God. If He is able, but not willing. The first statement that showcases that God is omnipotent, God is wholly . First, if God is all-powerful then He can do it, and if He is all-loving, then He wants to do it. The "Problem of Evil" states that if God really is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent, then there should not be any evil or suffering in the world. If God decrees something, then if he is sovereign, what he decrees will be done. And whatever He can and wants to do, He will do ( Psalm 135:6 ). God permitted evil to occur, but is not the primary source of causation. Then whence cometh evil? Omnipotence 2. The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. If God allows evil to exist, then He is not all-good. These are our only two options. the atheistic accusation, "If evil, then no God!" simply cannot fly; it does not even leave the . 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