October 27, 2013

Introduction I will attempt to illustrate some of the philosophical significance of the presence of evil in our lives. In exploring how human beings question the existence of God when bad things happen to them, it seems that religion often comes into the equation; often separating the believers from the non-believers across many different denominations of religions and beliefs. Religion has its good and bad points. Although I think that it is a good thing for churches to encourage people to hear the word of God, believe it, and try to the best of their ability to apply the goodness of the doctrine of scripture to their daily lives; religion often confuses and dismay more people than not. I think that there is no better example hypocrisy than the church. History also shows that religion has caused more wars than any other disagreements between nations that go to war. When we analyze the core of religion, we discover that the most basic principles of religion are in fact good, because God is good right? Yes. Does God allow bad things to happen? Yes. Why? I believe it is so because God gave His promise of free will. I don’t believe that God makes bad things happen, people do. In Saint Augustine’s On Free choice of the Will (2010), the idea that God allows bad things to happen is presented in a conversation between himself and Evodius. In the text, Augustine states “Yet it perplexes the mind how God should not be indirectly responsible for these sins, if they come from those very souls that god created and if these souls are from God”. The entire concept of blaming God for bad things has always been hard for me to understand. Nevertheless, the text does clarify many points. God doesn’t snap his fingers and somewhere in the world another person is murdered. Murderers choose to put themselves in those situations. Does God allow that to happen? Yes. Why? God has to allow bad things to happen even when it seems that He is allowing bad things to happen to good people who have not brought harm to anyone (babies included) in order for Him to keep His promise of free will to everyone who is born. The whole concept of people blaming God for bad things, and for natural transitions such as the death of a human loved one has always been hard for me to understand thankfully the assigned reading in the text does clarify many points. The continuous element of evil is the most popular reason for skepticism about God in modern Western nations. The Irenaean Theodicy also suggests that humans were brought into existence as intelligent ‘animals’ equipped with the capacity to possess moral and spiritual development (Abel, 2010). The Irenaean Theodicy also suggests to me that the spiritual deposits God has equipped human beings with were intended for humans to exercise their intelligence and permissive free will to shorten the spiritual distance between the human spirit and God’s spirit; through learning from life’s challenges and growing spiritually along through the journey of life; and without any interference or persuasion from God to live in goodwill. It is written in the Holy Bible that the first two humans that God created, Adam and Eve; were the first humans to be