In the “Roundtable Discussion on the Problem of Evil”, Meghan Sullivan, Trent Dougherty, and Sam Newlands discuss the Problem of Evil for theism. All three people do not take the side of a theist or an atheist, but instead discuss the problem from a mostly objective view. The Problem of Evil is also discussed by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and William Craig in God? A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist, where Sinnott-Armstrong argues from the atheist’s point of view and Craig argues from the theist’s. In this paper, I will discuss the points made in both sources to make my argument: God and evil can coexist because God may have reasons for evil existing, the main reason being to allow humans to have free will. Before I present my
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He gives the example of a pedophile that gets in contact with a young girl over the internet, then proceeds to meet and rape her. Sinnott-Armstrong argues that God could have made the pedophile’s computer crash right before he comes in to contact with her, which would not violate the pedophile’s free will. However, this does not change the pedophile’s intentions; he is still a horrible person that may just try again on a different computer with a different girl. God could allow these horrible people to exist so that they can learn through their mistakes later in life – perhaps when the pedophile gets arrested and put in jail – or so that other people can learn from their mistakes. It allows humans to learn for themselves what is immoral and what is moral; when the pedophile goes to trial, the people themselves will judge that he is has committed an evil deed and should be punished for it as such. In addition, Sinnott-Armstrong argues that suffering happens to people who do not get a chance to display higher virtues or to learn from their suffering, such as in natural disasters, so the Problem of Evil persists. As explained above, while it may not allow the person involved in the suffering to learn from their suffering, other people might. When an earthquake hit in Haiti in 2010, …show more content…
However, as I’ve mentioned earlier, the free will argument is a strong argument against the Problem of Evil, and there are other arguments theists have brought up, as I’ve briefly mentioned above. These arguments prove that there are explanations for the existence of some evils in the world, and so we must not assume that there are no reasons for the evils we do not yet have explanations for. As Dougherty suggests, we can apply the reasons for evils that we do know, and work on figuring out what we do not know, as we do for many other areas of knowledge, such as science (Dougherty 2012, 18:00). Even if the arguments were weak, we should not just rule out the possibility that there are reasons for evils just because it “seems unlikely”. Sinnott-Armstrong later points out that from an objective point of view, there is no reason to believe that there has to be a reason for evil at all, and that most arguments theists make against the Problem of Evil “begs the question” (Sinnott-Armstrong 2004, pp96-97). He does not, however, point out why we must believe there is no reason for the existence of evil. There is just as much reason to believe that there is a reason for the existence of evil, if not more, as there is to believe there is no reason. We have all learned from our and
He gives the example of a pedophile that gets in contact with a young girl over the internet, then proceeds to meet and rape her. Sinnott-Armstrong argues that God could have made the pedophile’s computer crash right before he comes in to contact with her, which would not violate the pedophile’s free will. However, this does not change the pedophile’s intentions; he is still a horrible person that may just try again on a different computer with a different girl. God could allow these horrible people to exist so that they can learn through their mistakes later in life – perhaps when the pedophile gets arrested and put in jail – or so that other people can learn from their mistakes. It allows humans to learn for themselves what is immoral and what is moral; when the pedophile goes to trial, the people themselves will judge that he is has committed an evil deed and should be punished for it as such. In addition, Sinnott-Armstrong argues that suffering happens to people who do not get a chance to display higher virtues or to learn from their suffering, such as in natural disasters, so the Problem of Evil persists. As explained above, while it may not allow the person involved in the suffering to learn from their suffering, other people might. When an earthquake hit in Haiti in 2010, …show more content…
However, as I’ve mentioned earlier, the free will argument is a strong argument against the Problem of Evil, and there are other arguments theists have brought up, as I’ve briefly mentioned above. These arguments prove that there are explanations for the existence of some evils in the world, and so we must not assume that there are no reasons for the evils we do not yet have explanations for. As Dougherty suggests, we can apply the reasons for evils that we do know, and work on figuring out what we do not know, as we do for many other areas of knowledge, such as science (Dougherty 2012, 18:00). Even if the arguments were weak, we should not just rule out the possibility that there are reasons for evils just because it “seems unlikely”. Sinnott-Armstrong later points out that from an objective point of view, there is no reason to believe that there has to be a reason for evil at all, and that most arguments theists make against the Problem of Evil “begs the question” (Sinnott-Armstrong 2004, pp96-97). He does not, however, point out why we must believe there is no reason for the existence of evil. There is just as much reason to believe that there is a reason for the existence of evil, if not more, as there is to believe there is no reason. We have all learned from our and