There is a question and conclusion that everyone has either said, heard, or thought to themselves. The question people have often asked is, “How could there be a God with all of the bad things that happen in the world? The conclusion some people have given to the question is, “Because there are bad things in the world, there must be no God.” They are powerful thoughts and certainly merit some investigation.
I have two different answers to the challenge of a Divine being in the world. The first one I will give here, and the second will be in my next blog entry. I am not very creative so I need to squeeze as many posts out of one topic as I can. They are fairly deep answers so I have also included an outline version to each response that may be easier to follow and beneficial for the Cliff Notes/Digg/StumbleUpon crowds. So if you have issues with the outline or think it is interesting, make sure you read the whole article before arguing with my points or writing me off as a nutjob.
The Outline version of argument one:
Problem: Bad things are in the world, therefore a good God cannot exist.
Response:
1) But good things are in the world, so therefore a good God must exist.
2) God cannot both exist and not exist.
3) Since there are both good and bad things in the world, and since God cannot both exist and not exist, than the presence of bad things cannot disprove God's existence, nor can good things prove his existence.
4) Bad things actually prove God's existence. This will be covered in the next entry!
My first response to this is fairly simple. If someone were to ask me the question I would respond by saying, “Well, could you not also argue that because there are good things in the world, there must be a God?” If bad things are enough to disprove His existence, than you must also say that good things are enough to prove His existence. People can be really screwed up, and we have seen what evils our species is capable of doing. If we did not have a good God, than things could be far worse! Perhaps the only reason there are still things in the world that are not yet broken is because there is a God.
This first response should get people thinking, but I admit it is not a strong enough argument to convince the skeptic that God exists. There is good stuff and bad stuff, and what happens in your life is just luck of the draw. Just because there are good things in the world will not prove to most people that there is a God. There are plenty of other explanations they could give you. Proving God’s existence, however, is not the point of my first argument. It is simply to show that the existence of bad things is not enough to disprove God’s existence. For bad things to disprove His existence, good things would have to be allowed to prove his existence. God cannot both exist and not exist, so we simply cannot argue that God does not exist because of the bad things in the world, nor can we say that God exists because there are good things in the world. In my next entry, I will go in a different direction and attempt to show that it is actually the existence of bad things that prove God’s existence. So I hope you will check back in after a few days and see why.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
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2 comments:
Something I noticed that we talked about in my Philosophy class that'd be something to think about:
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Possible response to Premise 2 -- God cannot both exist and not exist.
The three characteristics of "God" are omniscience, omnibenevolence, and omnipotence, right? Let's focus on omnipotence -- if God is omnipotent, would it not be possible for him to make himself both exist and not exist at the same time?
Conclusion: If God cannot perform the above question, then God is not Omnipotent. Therefore, there is no "God" according to the definition of a "God".
(Just pointing out something to think about. I totally love God, I just thought it would be interesting and wasn't sure if you had thought about it)
Hey John, that is something to think about. But your philosopher teacher is running into a definitional problem. God cannot both exist and not exist because to not exist means you "do not exist." And to exist means you "do not not exist." If your professor still insists that an omnipotent God should be able to exist and not exist, than you need to clarify what he or she means by omnipotence. If it means God can do whatever He wants within the laws of logic (the law of non-contradiction in this case), than God is still omnipotent even if he cannot exist and not exist at the same time. If, however, omnipotence means God can do anything, including breaking the laws of logic, than the answer is yes, God can both exist and not exist at the same time. We may not understand it, but that is because we are not as powerful as God and lack the ability to see past logic. Either way you define omnipotence, the question does not really work in refuting God's existence. Hope that helps!
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