Abstract
The Question I did was “Does the Problem of evil prove that god doesn’t exist?” I choose this question because it is interesting to see the theodicies and how they are sometimes contradicting themselves and how they are used to find solutions to the problem of evil.
In order to investigate I used a wide range of resources such as Websites, books and C-D’s and sorted the information in for and against so that I could easily find the for and against points.
In conclusion, the problem of evil proves that god doesn’t exist as no theodicy has been able to prove gods existence.
Essay
In the world evil happens almost every day, from earthquakes to murder. People go through suffering and pain every day. A lot of people believe that there is a god but how could there be a god when there is so much evil in this world. If god was there he would be omniscient (all knowing), omnipotent (all powerful) and Omni-benevolent (all good), and morally perfect, which would mean that there should not be any evil, but the problem is that there is evil in this world. Does the problem of evil prove that god doesn’t exist? No solution has been put forward that has been able to prove why god created evil when he wants to get rid of evil and he has the power to do so, therefore god doesn’t exist.
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Peer Reviews
Here's what a star student thought of this essay
Quality of writing
Good use of technical words such as 'omniscient' which have been defined in the essay. However the punctuation seems to weaken during the use of these technical words; the student seems confused whether to capitalise the word 'omni-benevolent' or not. Also use of short sentences for an essay should be avoided- ruins the rhythm of the argument.
Level of analysis
The student has identified each of the 'theodicies' and explained it in detail. One weakness is that the concept of God is 'the God of Classical Theism'- this could've been made more clear to avoid confusion between the religious God and the God of theism in general.
Response to question
Well written and strong essay; the student has clearly evaluated both sides of the argument well. Each point has been discussed in detail always relating back to the question which keeps the essay well focused. A range of references have been used and cited properly- couldn't have expected more of a GCSE student. Essay is structured nicely into paragraphs which makes the argument easy to follow.