Existence of God the Debate Essay

In most religious texts, "God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and all-good (righteous, loving, benevolent)" (Wolf 2011). According to this view, apart from being the source of all that is good, God has the ability to know and do everything -- including stamping out all evil. However, there still exists so much suffering and evil in the world. Calamities of every nature do occur occasionally leading to death, displacement and suffering of thousands of human beings. Further, human beings continue to suffer as a result of diseases, death and wars. If God is truly loving, why does he allow those he has created to experience pain, despair and other forms of suffering? Further, if God is all powerful, why does he not stop the occurrence of pain, despair or any kind of suffering from taking place? In general terms, how does evil and an all loving and powerful God coexist. This is the gist of the Problem of Evil.

In our quest to seek an understanding of God and his very nature, we are often dogged by these and many other questions. However, the Problem of Evil need not deem our view of the existence, nature and purpose of God. In my opinion, God chose to give us something of tremendous value without which evil could have been absent. This which God chose to give us is free will. Free will allows us to think as we like, to act as we like and to pursue whatever we deem fit. Hence should I decide to hurt another person, there is nothing to stop me from doing so. In a way, there is no way God can eliminate the evil that exists in the world without denying us free will. Hence it can be noted that evil in the world exists as a result of the human being's move to abuse free will. In the final analysis, it is the creature's freedom to choose evil that brings about evil in the world and not the failure on the creator's part to avert the same.

It is important to note that the greater good concept does bring to question the existence of natural evils.In this case, natural evils include but are not limited to earthquakes, diseases as well as floods that in one way or another also bring about great suffering to the masses. However, most of these disasters are triggered by natural laws whose operations are independent. In this case, it is important for natural laws to operate independently so as to allow the existence of free agents.

Further, yet another view which can be used to resolve the problem of evil is the limited knowledge of humanity. In this case, it can be argued that it is impossible for us to fully comprehend the ultimate plan of God in regard to the existence of evil. Hence just as a small child cannot comprehend the ultimate plan of its parent when taken to a hospital for vaccination against a certain disease; we may not be able to understand the ultimate plan of God in regard to the presence of evil in the world.

Conclusion

In my view and in the light of readings from other texts, God does exist. This assertion can be deduced from various arguments, some of which have already been highlighted above. However, it can be noted that in some cases, the existence of God is complicated by other dissenting arguments including the Problem of Evil. However, regarding the Problem of Evil as I have already pointed out in the text above, the need for free will and the limited knowledge of humanity explains the presence of evil in the world.

References

Wolf, R.P. (2011). About….....