Problem of Evil - Essay

Problem of Evil - Essay

The problem of evil is a major topic of debate among philosophers. We see examples of all types of evil in the news everyday; tornados killing hundreds of people, a serial killer taking the lives of innocent victims, people dying of agonizing illnesses, and those criminals that are able to get away with their terrible crimes. Many people question why God (I’m referring to the Christian God who is considered to have omnipotent and omniscience qualities) who is wholly good, would allow these types of evil to occur in the world. Some claim that the evil might allow for some greater good to occur, others claim that we cannot know what is “good” without being able to experience what is also “evil”, yet the strongest argument is that in order for God to give humans free will (which is sometimes considered the “greatest good”), he must allow for humans to do evil acts and experience evil events. This is usually called the Free Will Defense and one of the most famous defenders of it is Alvin Plantinga. He claims that “there may be a very different kind of good [free will] that God can’t bring about without permitting evil,” (Pojman and Rea 190). In order to weaken this idea, I turn to Jesus. Jesus was a human being who was both free in his actions and yet was still morally perfect in every aspect, yet he always chooses the “right thing”. This idea is one that is commonly held by most theists and is mentioned several times in the Bible including in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth,” when talking about Jesus. I will look at this idea as well as counter arguments that have been made against this idea in order to show a weakness in the Free Will Defense.
In order to make be able this argument, it will need to be shown that Jesus must be both a man and had free will. This will show that God is in fact capable of making humans that have both of these...

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