If there’s to be a world of free human agents then it must be possible for them to bring about moral evil. If thwarted in doing so they wouldn’t be really free. But then the atheist can point out that a being that is free to choose only good could have been created. However, a being that is free to choose only good is the same as a being that is forced to choose only good - where then is the freedom? What purpose could there be for God to direct people to be good - none. Although it wouldn’t rebut God’s omnipotence it wouldn’t make it fair. Could it be that freedom to choose good or evil is a test by God so we humans can reap the ultimate rewards for choosing good over evil without God’s direct assistance?
The Atheist may well argue that we beings didn’t choose for God to inflict harm upon us, so is it right for a morally good God to do so without our consent for the greater good of another being? Maybe not , but the situation is that God had no humans to ask, as our creator he had to make that choice independently of us. He chose for us to suffer in the face of evil so that we could reach goodness. As our creator he has certain rights over us. This right is his power to choose to have evil in this world co-existing with our freedom of choice, so that we could eventually find our own way to him like loyal children.
The relationship between God’s omnipotence and the existence of evil, makes it possible for the atheist to dismiss the power of God and so his existence. However, the free will defense for the theists tips the scales to favour their arguments even though unlike the atheist they don’t have solid proof that exists outside the human mind, which we can see.
BENEVOLENCE
Back to the discussion. The atheist may reply that accepting God as the creator of free agents one can trace back the actions of these free agents to god as a cause of moral evil. This is incompatible with a wholly good, loving God, making that very goodness improbable.
However, theists have reacted by saying that god couldn’t be responsible for the moral evil in the world. This is because they say that this moral evil is moral failure on the part of us humans and it is unreal. This is because we perform or refrain from performing certain actions; so there is an absence of action, and God cannot be responsible for something that ought to be there but is not. God is responsible they say for what is real.
I disagree at this point with the theist line of argument. God gave humans free will, they make choices and reject others which according to God they should have made. By actively making that certain choice/action even though we shouldn’t have acted in this particular way, leads to our moral failure which is very real as the choice we made to act a certain way is very real. God then it follows isn’t bad because he is responsible for creating us free human agents that carry out actions of various kinds. The reason God gave humans freedom is so they can make their own choices and so be responsible for their own actions and no-one else’s but their own. It is a good God that isn’t deterministic. For humans to make these free choices is very important to God or else he wouldn’t have created the human perfectly to do so. Maybe the free will of the human is part of a bigger design of a good God to ‘test’ us to see whether we will choose good over evil without him directing us in the casual sense of the word.
This is a possibility. If logically argued anything could be a possibility. But the atheist might then ask that if God created such perfect humans and then they choose, is this not incompatible with the notion of the perfect human? And do not perfect humans always freely choose the better choice?
I myself would think that there is no inconsistency here and that perfect humans don’t always make the better choice. What constitutes the perfect human here is not one who makes the better choice all the time, (of course God would prefer this) but perfect is used in the sense of design. In that God made us and designed us so that we are capable of making the choices we want. He has given us the freedom to come to him - this is what is perfect. Then it seems God is taking a risk on his own part, i.e. in knowing that if he gave us free choice and evil, there would be those that would be led astray with temptation and wouldn’t follow and believe in his existence. He made a sacrifice so we could realize our own goodness and reap the ultimate rewards for this goodness , because he’s morally good and fair.
OMNISCIENCE.
Traditional theism holds that god is omniscient, that he is all knowing. Then it follows that God should know the amount of evil man can and will create. Should not then he want to prevent it? Also if we have free will then do we not make our own futures. So knowing the future is incompatible withfree will.
The theist reply would be, if God was to know the consequences of evil he permitted, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he would want to prevent it. for example take a man who knows that the consequence of a lifetime of smoking cigerettes will most likely be lung cancer and early death, and yet he continues to smoke. this is true of milliuons in this world.
Although, logiaclly it seems so, knowledge of consequence doesn’t necessarily lead therefore to the prevention of that specific act which will cause the consequence. the difference between God and this man is that God accepts the consequences for an ulterioir good. It’s a common argument that the existence of evil is the necessary mean to some good. John Hick rightly argues that the existence of evil is necessary for the perfect development of human beings because: ‘moral and spiritual growth comes through response to challenges’. We see that evil is a necessary counterpart to good. without facing the evil we cannot face the good. Although an omniscient God may have seen the consequences of evil, he as any of us do add greater value to good that has overcome evil.
Turning to the second arguement that free will is incompatible with Knowing the future. we have strongly established so far that humans are free agents, the actions they choose are not determined by God. We can say that God is Omniscient in light of the fact that religious scriptures from two of the worlds largest religions- Islam and Christainity claima judgement day to beckon. God must be omniscient to know that evil will reach to great heights - enough so to cause chaos so that he has tointervene.
Then there’s the problem with the idea that if God is omniscient he must know every single choice every human on earth will and is to make. Then it follows there would be no point of a judgement day, if God already knoew what would happen then he could still asssess the situation. And further still he wouldn’t have had to create evil because he would have known every last little detail in the instance that he had created evil.
There are obvious contradictions but an attempt can be made to reconcile them. it could well be that God doesn’t know every little detail ie what choices human s will make, after all he did give us freedom of choice so we have some control over determinig some part of our future. God has knowledge of certain major events in one’s life which are unchangeable, events he knows are certain to occur becasue he planned them. This can be proved in that he knows that evil will grow so large that he at sometime wil have to intervene, in the form of say apocolypse and judgement day, as can be found in religious scriptures.
So God also determines part of our future, as we do our own. So what does God not know about your future - obviously the part wich you determine, that is the routes you decide to take to reach the events that God knows will happen and was marked out to exist. It is these routes that you decide to take that god is interested in as it is here that you freely shoose or reject evil.
Yet there are holes in this explanation. Atheists would say that God not knowing everything is a clear limitation of his power ans this cannot be so if he is almighty. then maybe the limitation on his omniscience is a sacrifice on his behalf so toallow us the freedom to control, choose and decide. And then the above limitation doesn’t necessarily have to be a limitation in the very sense of the word. It would be aloving sacrifice for the moral goodness of his people.
God maynot forsee moral evils because it’s ultimatley humans that create it through their choice as we have mentiond above but it seems that he forsees natural evil as humans do not create it. And it can neither be tied in with the free will defense.
There is a problem for naturally occuring evil for theists as it casts doubt on goodness of God as one cannot see the point of its suffering. Moral evil can said to be deserved by humans because we have created it, do we deserve all the natural evil in the world? As Davies questions in the case of Down’s Syndrome - has a newly born baby done anything to deserve such punishment? Logically we would have to say no. Atheists would use this to disprove God’s existence asking whther a good and loving God would be capable of creating such evil, and of making bad things happen to good people? Even the theist must admit this argument is very strong. what is the suggestion, that God is positively bad because this is an example of pointless suffering.
It suggests more ie to be evidence against God’s existence. However, Hick points out thatsome suffering is a consequence of a world which operates accordinng to physical laws rather than a series of miracles. This can be clarified if one argues that natural diaster and evila re two different things, as the latter involves a moral capacity. It’s been said thata valcano cannot be evil in its actions (eruptions). So, because of the Physical law of the earth there may be events which maybe painful and cause suffering but which are not inherently evil. But what does God mean by their existence? if he is the creator then he created the physical law of the earth.
I am in agreement with Swinburne that natural occuring evil is necessary if us humans are to have knowledge about evil and it’s prevention, so that we may know how to cause it or prevent it occuring. For example for us to gain knowledge of the effects of say rabies and how to prevent it, i’s absolutley necessary that someone must have suffered from it vefore us. It’s held that the closer we are to such evil experiences the more certain and justifies our knowledge is so as to make a more informed choice between good and evil. In a world without evil there would be no opportunity to be especially noble. This would explain why bad things seemingly happen to good people; because they learn form theirs and others’ experiences.
CONCLUSIONS
The fact is that if there was no evil in the world man would not have strong religious beliefs and would not believe in God’s existence.
In my analysis, explaining either side of the arguments wasn’t more difficult. If there is logic to the argument then it can be believable no matter the content.
Just because faith cannot produce intellectual defenses for its belief it doesn’t mean faith isn’t of the purest and most sincere kind. If religious belief is strong enough in someone then they will ignore atheist arguments however strong they may be in refuting the non-existence of God.
Two types of evil: Moral Evil that is caused by the free human agent, and Natural Evil that is not caused by humans e.g. earthquakes, volcanic eruptions etc
Davies, B., ‘An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion’, (1993, Oxford Uni Press, Oxford), p.35