Argumentative Essay: The Problem Of Evil

In life some feel the need to prove something to others. That they are better, stronger, or even more intelligent. Whatever the case may be people will go through extreme measures to prove themselves. But who do we really need to prove anything to? Is it our parents?

In Julia Driver’s 2007 piece, “God and Human Nature”, theories are discussed in order to convey a better understanding of morality and how it is determined. The theory to be discussed is the “Divine Command Theory” and Driver discusses the role of God in assessing morality. The Divine Command Theory is an example of a system that is used to define what is right or wrong, moral or immoral. Essentially, according to this theory, what is right and wrong is “completely a matter of God’s will” (Driver 2007, 23).

The Lucifer Effect by Phillip Zimbardo aims to provide psychological explanations in occurrences of evil. The book provides a framework to examine ordinary human transformations from good to evil. Zimbardo makes the point of stating that people should be held responsible for the actions they make, however, both situational and systemic factors should be observed. In this book review, I will use points of analytical framework to analyze the main points of Zimbardo’s text. To start, Zimbardo defines evil as “intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent others – or using one’s authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf” (5).

JL Mackie was persuasive in his argument by showing that belief in an almighty God is not rational. He proves this by posing the problem of evil. According to JL Mackie, if God exists and is omniscient, omnipotent, and good then evil would not exist. However, evil exists in this world, sometimes in the form of undeserved suffering (diseases that affect humans, earthquakes, famines ...) and others perpetrated by man (murders, wars ...). If God exists and has the capability to be powerful, good, omniscient and omnipotent, why would he let evil be perpetrated?

The existence of God has been presented by a multitude of philosophers. However, this has led to profound criticism and arguments of God’s inexistence. The strongest argument in contradiction to God’s existence is the Problem of Evil, presented by J.L Mackie. In this paper, I aim to describe the problem of evil, analyse the objection of the Paradox of Omnipotence and provide rebuttals to this objection. Thus, highlighting my support for Mackie’s Problem of evil.

Finally, I argue Swinburne’s solution to the Problem of Evil is persuasive. First, I begin with Swinburne’s views on the kinds of evils. According to him, there are two kinds of evil: moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil refers to all evil caused deliberately by humans doing what they ought not to do and also the evil constituted by such deliberate actions or negligent failure

The use of God as a shield works on believers, but not on nonbelievers. The question “why bad things happening to good people” still cannot be answered for the nonbelievers, a common critique of religion itself. Regardless of the problem of theodicy, however, religion has worked really well to create and maintain the reality. Berger explains that it is because religion legitimates effectively. “Religion has been the historically most widespread and effective instrumentality of legitimation….

(Wijze 218) Here, the “Great Harms” is a reference to the ideas that people consider to be evil based on their own beliefs. Consequently, condition C Is “The action or project which seeks to annihilate the “moral landscape.” (Wijze 218) The three conditions help us understand why evil

In theory, he thinks that if God exists then evil should not, but it does. So he creates and argues a theodicy to show that God and evil can exist at the same time. He comes up with the “Free Will Theodicy” which states that humans are the cause of evil, not God. The Free Will Theodicy discusses two kinds of evil: moral evil and natural evil.

The question that is asked time and time again is whether or not god exists. It is evident that people hold different beliefs. It is evident that through some of the beliefs of J.L. Mackie that it could be argued that God does not actually exist. I find this argument to be more agreeable. In Mackie’s Evil and Omnipotence, he argues many points to support why it should be believed that god does not exist.

It took just forty five days for United States citizens to acquiesce their rights to freedom and privacy for the sake of safety following the events of September 11, 2001. Forty five days is how long it took the United States Congress to pass a law that gave up the very concept of liberty upon which this country is founded. The morning sky was a brilliant shade of blue with not a cloud in sight in New York on that fateful day of September. That all changed at 8:45 AM when a Boeing 767 jet plane tore into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Eighteen minutes later, a second Boeing 767 bit into the sixtieth floor of the south tower.

The Blank Slate and Paul Bloom’s Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, this essay will analyze the opinions advanced by both sides of the theories. In

He describes the objection as, “all men desire the apparent good, but have no control over the appearance, but the end appears to each man in a form answering to his character” (1114b).   This view argues that all people pursue that which seems good, but some people cannot see the true good, which is out of their control.   The immediate implication of this objection, if it is indeed true, suggests that “no one is responsible for his own evildoing” (1114b).

Evil is a simple word that we learn at a young age and that we understand is bad. However, our youth and innocence prevents us from knowing the weight the word holds. As our understanding of evil develops, we begin to see evil all around us. Although we hold common societal definitions of evil, each person is bound to view evil slightly different from others. Someone might consider alcoholism evil, while others consider it normal: someone might believe racism is evil, while others believe it is natural.

If the Devil itself is demonic, runs away, with reciting verses, but in the face of a human, it runs away only with the gun. If the Devil itself is demonic, runs away, with reciting verses, but in the face of a human, it runs away only with the gun. If the Devil itself is demonic, runs away, with reciting verses, but in the face of a human, it runs away only with the gun.