God Essay, Research Paper
?God is all-good, God is all-powerful, and yet evil exists.? (Mackie, 90) The stated are three premises that are true. Truth lies in the explanation for why evil exists. The origin of sin is the explanation for the evil and suffering that people and nature bring on mankind. Once cannot doubt the existence of God based on principles that He has permitted to exist in mankind. The existence of an all-good, all-powerful, God is not incompatible with the evil of Adolf Hitler or hurricanes.
When God created the universe, he created man with free will. God created man as a person that can think, initiate, and control, his own actions. I would say that God granted mankind this characteristic. God?s created a world that is in a constant state of journey, and journey to perfection. Man was created with free will so that he could, at his own choice, pursue his Creator and attempt to attain his own perfection. One must understand what God?s granted freedom implies. Mankind, with granted freedom, lives at their own expense. He is free to make decisions and perform actions that he wishes. He is his own responsibility, free to shape his life and live as he wishes. What accompanies freedom is the manner in which path one chooses to follow. Man must decide between good and evil, therefore denoting whether he will grow through the Lord, or fail and become a sinner. Acts of freedom directed toward God are the stones on the road to perfection. As I see it, the true objective is to further your height freedom by taking the granted freedom and doing more good with it, therefore attaining more freedom. In the case of those who don?t attempt to gain more freedom, they enter a false freedom, such as Adolof Hitler, where their sin blinds them to think that they are truthfully free.
God created a world in a state journeying that would lead to perfection. Progress in the world though calls for changes. Due to The Original Sin, man now faces death. However, God?s plan calls for individuals to disappear, replaced by others, some being more perfect, while others remain less perfect. The existence of physical good within the world must be countered by the existence of physical evil. Forces of nature are also an aspect of God?s plan. Those that are both constructive and destructive, such as a hurricane, exist only to advance God?s plan to perfection.
The criticism to this argument could be bluntly stated, why did God not create a world so perfect that evil did not exist in it? Something that is omnipotent and all good could give what explanation? Furthermore, if all sin is to blame on the first sin, why did God not prevent it from occurring? If God were truly omnipotent, he could prevent all and every evil. If he were wholly good, he?d prevent all and every evil that he could prevent. So if God was omnipotent and wholly good, he?d prevent every evil, hence there?d be no evil. But in reality, evil does exist.