Theism and Evil
Atheists hold many claims about God and why he cannot exist because of evil present in the world. Some of their arguments for this include that God could prevent evil actions and preserve human freedom of will if he wanted, God could maintain a world without evil by continual divine intervention, the existence of evil proves it is logically impossible for a Perfect Being to exist, and the existence of evil proves we do not need God to find meaning and purpose in life. These can be disproven from the theistic viewpoint. When broken down, the atheistic claim that because evil exists God is not real is proven to be false.
Prevention of Evil Actions and Preservation of Freedom of Will
One of the first arguments that atheists have …show more content…
This brings about the idea of free will again. When God gives human kind free will, it is because he desires true, real love from his creation. That kind of love comes not out of robot-like humans, but people who choose to love him out of their own desire. The necessary evil of this, however, is that some people choose not to love God and act out their evil desires. C.S. Lewis (2002) says, “try to exclude the possibility of suffering which is the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself” (pg. 565). If there was no free will, there would be no choice, no life. God “could” stop evil from occurring, because like many argue and as Scripture says, “with God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26, NIV). However, some things are intrinsically impossible. C.S Lewis (2002) defines this as having “no unless clause attached to it. It is impossible under all conditions and in all worlds and for all agents” (p. 561). God is able to do all that is intrinsically possible (Lewis, 1940). There are on occasion miracles that occur, which are when something intrinsically impossible happens. This is something that needs to be rare because if life were an entire miracle of God preventing evil, one would be left with no life or free will, as asserted earlier. If one takes this knowledge of God being able to do anything, that is within the realm of intrinsic possibility he created, and applies it back to the idea of free will, one can see that God could not intervene and prevent evil on a regular basis. Otherwise, the entire world would be completely different and free will would
Atheists hold many claims about God and why he cannot exist because of evil present in the world. Some of their arguments for this include that God could prevent evil actions and preserve human freedom of will if he wanted, God could maintain a world without evil by continual divine intervention, the existence of evil proves it is logically impossible for a Perfect Being to exist, and the existence of evil proves we do not need God to find meaning and purpose in life. These can be disproven from the theistic viewpoint. When broken down, the atheistic claim that because evil exists God is not real is proven to be false.
Prevention of Evil Actions and Preservation of Freedom of Will
One of the first arguments that atheists have …show more content…
This brings about the idea of free will again. When God gives human kind free will, it is because he desires true, real love from his creation. That kind of love comes not out of robot-like humans, but people who choose to love him out of their own desire. The necessary evil of this, however, is that some people choose not to love God and act out their evil desires. C.S. Lewis (2002) says, “try to exclude the possibility of suffering which is the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself” (pg. 565). If there was no free will, there would be no choice, no life. God “could” stop evil from occurring, because like many argue and as Scripture says, “with God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26, NIV). However, some things are intrinsically impossible. C.S Lewis (2002) defines this as having “no unless clause attached to it. It is impossible under all conditions and in all worlds and for all agents” (p. 561). God is able to do all that is intrinsically possible (Lewis, 1940). There are on occasion miracles that occur, which are when something intrinsically impossible happens. This is something that needs to be rare because if life were an entire miracle of God preventing evil, one would be left with no life or free will, as asserted earlier. If one takes this knowledge of God being able to do anything, that is within the realm of intrinsic possibility he created, and applies it back to the idea of free will, one can see that God could not intervene and prevent evil on a regular basis. Otherwise, the entire world would be completely different and free will would