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Back when we were talking about Augustine’s City of God, we tackled the problem of evil. This is a difficult philosophical argument that may have roots all the way back to around the year 300 BC. The Greek philosopher Epicurus summed up the argument in the form of a riddle:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
If you remember from those lessons, we discussed a couple of answers to this riddle that have been posed by Christians over the years. An answer to the problem of evil is called a Theodicy.
This week, we will be looking at good and evil, specifically dealing with Angels and Demons, as well as the problem of evil and spiritual warfare.
Assignment
I would like you to write a fictional conversation between a non-believer who is struggling with belief in God, given the existence of evil in the world, and a believer who uses a theodicy to argue that despite the existence of evil, God is very real and very good. This is your one big assignment for this week that you will turn in on Friday. There will not be a comprehensive quiz this week. Please feel free to use our posts for the week to aid in building your conversation as well as other resources as you see fit.
Here are a few resources to help you see the argument from both sides. Note that many of these videos or articles are coming from a perspective of atheism and do not present both sides adequately. If you have thoughts or questions, please put them in the comments below.
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Evil is a part of our lives and we have to deal with it with the resources God gives us.
I learned that theodicy means that an attempt to show that the existence of evil doesn’t rule out the possibility of God’s existence.
the problem of evil is evidence for God’s existence. If there were no God, there would be no moral standard to hold anyone to. We can’t ever find a perfect theodicy because we can’t think like God. We do not know his plans or his ways.
I learned that sin will never go way. That is the “problem with sin”. We will always be tempted by satin to sin. But we have God in our side, so we can fight back against sin and satin.
Today, I learned that, Rational theism means that there is evidential reasons for believing in god. Arational thesim is the the belief in god without any evidence. There is so much evidence if you just look around, what could possibly make the beautiful colors and patterns of flowers and leaves and tree {etc.} other than God.
I would completely disagree with the argument that the lady in the video puts forward, but it is a good example of the rational argument for atheism. Nothing about Christianity is irrational or arational, we simply reject a different premise of the argument.
Yes I saw a very obvious flaw in her argument, that being, a dilemma fallacy. She said “Either the theist has to say there is no evil in the world, or the theist has to give up one of the attributes of their God. Those are your two options! And neither one of them are very appealing.” That i literally the DEFINITION of a dilemma. And that makes me very frustrated.
It is definitely a false dilemma, great logical observation!
I learned that fictional scenarios are hypothetical cases in which things might happen to teach people about the things that the authors are talking about.
i learned that the free will defense says that God can either cancel out evil or free will, and he holds our ability to make our own decisions over being safe but mindless sheep.
I learned that Epicurus believed that if god was not willing or able to prevent sin then he should not be called God.
I learned that this philosophical argument on evil dates back to the 300s! Evil and sin will always be on the earth until the Lord comes back.
The answer to the problem of evil is called a theodicy
God is all powerful and is testing us with this life to see if we are ready to go to heaven. We have to deal with all the sin in life and use what god has given us.
Crash course attributes that Theodicy back to a 20th century philosopher named John Hick, but he is really just rehashing a theodicy that was well established by Irenaeus way back in the second century.
rational theism is there are evidential reasons to believe in god