If God does exist then how come evil exist as well? The overall view of God is that he is a theistic 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 the theistic God is both good and omnipotent then he would be able to eliminate evil as a whole, yet it is evident that there is still evil in the world. The argument of evil and omnipotence attempts to explain this better which is why I agree with this argument.
The Problem of evil is divided into hree parts the first is that God is omnipotent the second is that God is wholly good and the final part of the problem of evil is that evil does exist. Since it is not really possible that there is a God that is good and omnipotent but still lets evil exist then there has to be other solutions. This is one of the parts in which I start to agree more with the argument of evil and omnipotence.
One of these solutions is that one of the three things has to be taken out either God is both good and omnipotent and there is no evil but I do not agree with this due o the fact that it is not true because as said before it is evident that evil does exist. Another solution which I agree with more than I disagree with is that God is not all good but is omnipotent therefore there should only be partial evil. The next possible solution is that God is not completely omnipotent but is good so there still is only partial evil.
I agree with the third solution more because God might not be totally omnipotent even though, if he was not totally omnipotent he would not fit the idea that the majority people have for the theistic god. Although many people ave different opinions for what the word omnipotent means in this case omnipotent means infinite power. There are however other solutions for the problem of evil such as “good cannot exist without evil” or “evil is necessary as a counterpart to good”. Evil is a necessary part in order for the purpose of good to exist because the two sort of need each other in order to exist.
I agree with this because good and evil are much like big and small, because without one of them the other could not exist. This solution is basically saying that it is impossible for good to xist without evil, in the event that this is true then in other words it is stating that God does have limit to his power because in order to create good he has to create evil as well. This solution is very similar to other solutions such as that ” Evil is necessary as a means to good”. Essentially this is saying Evil needs to exist for some parts of good to exist.
Which is very similar to the previous solution because in both of the solutions you need good and bad. Granting those are not the only solutions to the problem of evil there are other such as “the orld is better with some evil in it rather than if here were not evil”. This is the solution that I agree with the most because Evil helps balance out the good, therefore having SOME evil is good for the world as a whole. If there was not evil then there would be no good because there would be nothing to compare the other to.
Also an important part of this solution is that certain “evil” things along the lines of pain and disease help promote other good things such as benevolence and heroism. For example there is different types of evil and good there is first rder evil or evil (1) which are things such as sadness and misery first order good or Good (1) which are things such as happiness which go together because if there was no sadness then there would be no happiness. There is second order good or good (2) which are things like benevolence.
Some second order goods try to maximize first order good and minimize first order bad. But God is not this instead he tries to maximize good (2) however there can also be second order evil which is things like malevolence and cruelty. Although those are not the only types of good and bad there is also third order evil. This is something that god would definitely want to eliminate so if he were omnipotent and wholly good he would have eliminated evil such as cruelty but we can clearly see that this type of evil and others still exist.
Lastly there is one more solution which is that ” evil is due to human free will”. This could be very possible for the reason that maybe evil is not caused by means of god but by the people when god gave us free will. So could it be possible that second order evils are just a cause of our freedom. Although if god did give us free will then why would he make man so that hey could potentially make a decision that could be good or could possibly be bad? Why not make it so all decisions were good?
Despite this whole thing what if evil does not exist and is only a part of something bigger that we in the moment cannot see and something evil could lead to something being good as a whole. Granting all of this, this solution leads to many questions such as, what if we do not have free will and our lives are already planned for us? If this is possible then that would mean that god is omnipotent and that we do not actually have free will and that is is possibly just an illusion.
Another possibility concerning free will is that god at one point was omnipotent but gave up some of his “power” in order for us to have free will which means that he is not omnipotent anymore. I think this could be very possible because I myself believe in God so I do think that he is good and omnipotent but maybe he was omnipotent at one point and decided to give us the gift of free will and to do that he might have had to give up some of his power. I think he gave us free will so that we could experience one of the most important things in life which is real love.
Without free wilI I do not think that we would be able to experience real true love because we would not be able to choose who we love and we would just simply have to love the person chosen for us. Epicurus one said “If god is willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? ” Even though this quote is mainly questions it has helped me better understand the topic of evil and omnipotence and what the the problem of evil is talking bout and it summarizes this very well.
In conclusion of the solutions that were discussed none are fully valid because none of them can be true without hurting one of the points in the ” Problem of Evil”. They all take away either that God is good or that he is omnipotent which would then make them untrue. Of course the solutions discussed are not the only solution possible. OverallI very much agree with the argument of evil and omnipotence because in spite of the fact that it is mainly just trying to find solutions many of these solutions are very well-founded.