Defending the Position of Theism - Essay Example

?Arguments for and against the existence of God This is a paper defending theism position. Let us start by defining theism based on the view “that heavens and the earth and all that they contain owe their existence and continuance in existence to the wisdom and will of a supreme, self-consistent, omnipotent, omniscient, righteous, and benevolent being, who is distinct from, and independent of, what he has created” (Nagel’s defense of atheism, p. 598). Atheism is therefore the converse of theism by totally debunking the idea of theistic views concerning the existence of God. Hence, the idea concerning the argument from evil holds the claims that God is omnipotent, God is all good and evil exists cannot all be true at the same time. I would like to defend theistic point of view contrary to the line of reasoning presented through the argument from evil. Therefore, I am proving that God is omnipotent, God is all good and evil exists, all at the same time. God is omnipotent In this section, the definition of God’s omnipotent power based on theistic perspective is integrated and illustrated. God is all powerful that he is above everything, and above every name. This would also imply that God could control everything, so he could either allow things or interfere. For this reason, he created everything and because he is powerful, he could allow evil to exist to justify further his goodness and power. After all, he is powerful and there is no limit to what he can do. This would also imply that God could totally eliminate evil, but because he is omnipotent, and all knowing, we could not eliminate the possibility that he knows that it is only through the presence of evil that his goodness and power will prevail. Without evil, God will never exist among us, and the other way around works. For this reason, God chose not to eliminate evil. He chose to do this to justify his existence, and to be known as the one who is supreme, self-consistent, omnipotent, omniscient, righteous, benevolent being and who is distinct from and independent of, what he has created. God’s characteristics are very powerful that evil cannot subdue. These characteristics are what made God omnipotent. Outside of these characteristics are therefore implied evil. Let us illustrate further this point in order to demonstrate God is powerful over evil. Based on the definition, God is righteous and apart from this is evil. To kill is evil and so people entered into a social contract in order to protect their property and above all, life. Thus, when somebody murders, which is an evil act, the law could always be above of this malevolent act, subjecting the murderer to imprisonment and even to life sentence. So this proves that the law itself could represent the righteous act of God which is superior to murder as an act of evil. Since there is an existence of righteousness through the implementation of law for instance, then there exists God, as being righteous is his primary characteristic. However, since there could be murders or other related crimes which could be defined as unrighteousness, then evil exists, because from definition, outside God’s characteristics are evil. However, based on this illustration, God’s righteousness prevails over evil, as definitely the implementation of law is a primary manifestation that we want to ward off evil acts. We condemn murder, so in the same way we are living in the powerful principle of God. Now, at this point it is clear that we are seeing in the real world the very characteristic of God which is righteousness that could help us justify that he exists and together with evil. However, God’s supremacy over wickedness is clear as we too could not deny the fact are living under God’s principle or righteous acts, as we continue to condemn evil acts such as murder. We could therefore simply say that good should prevail over evil. By definition and understanding God’s characteristics, this would only imply God is omnipotent. God is all good Our definition of what is good or bad could become subjective that they may vary. However, by definition of God, good could therefore be defined when there is wisdom and will of a supreme, self-consistent, omnipotent, omniscient, righteous, and benevolent being, who is distinct from, and independent of, what he has created. Therefore, living under these characteristics should be defined as good. Apart from these, it should be evil, so by this assumption, humans including evil could not be all good but God. Humans have own will, and God allows us to experience to choose our own actions, intentions and motives. God wants us to follow his ultimate will because he wants us to experience all good, but we all have the freedom to follow our own will. Choosing our own will neither may not necessarily be all good nor may result to one, because from definition, it is only God who is good, including his will. There are various consequences of our choices, some based on our standards are good and others are bad. For this reason our actions cannot be all good, unless we follow God’s will that based on the definition should make our life perfect and free from the works of evil. It is for this reason that in the presence of bad things, we could remember that there are ultimate good. Since we follow our own will and see that not all results of our choices are good so God has proven his will to be remarkably good. By definition, God must not commit mistakes because he is omniscient, omnipotent and righteous. As proven in the first section that God exists, then his characteristics would prove that he is all good, as proving that his will is superior to our will. With our will we commit mistakes and other bad circumstances, but the omniscient, omnipotent and righteous God would not do the same. Evil exists At this point, it remains to be proven that Evil exists, but part of this essay is to prove the co-existence of God and evil. Based on the definition, in the absence of God there is evil. Based on the first section, unrighteousness is evil. There is therefore unrighteousness, which is the very characteristic of evil. Observing this characteristic to happen in the real world is a proof that evil exists. As we see righteousness exists together with unrighteousness, then there must be co-existence of God and Evil. This is consistent with our point in the first section that God as omnipotent could allow evil to exist. This is for us to identify that God is absolutely good including all his will. Recall that from the previous section, part of the implication of God’s omnipotent power is to allow evil to exist. God could have chosen to eliminate evil, but he chose not to. For this reason, we have defined that there must be absolute good and bad. Based on the two previous sections, God’s omnipotence, his being all good and his entire existence could only be proven better in the existence of evil. To illustrate this point, we cannot identify good things if there are no bad ones, and the converse is true. Apart from the characteristics of God should therefore be of the Evil. Since we continuously see everyday that there are bad things happening aside from the good ones, so it implies evil exists. Atheistic point of view points out that there are natural evil such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and droughts which cause great human suffering. Atheists point out that God creates nature so God must have eliminated natural evils. God could have chosen to eliminate all these, but since he is all-knowing and omnipotent, we could not erase the possibility that this could be part of his plan to help us seek for his presence and his will. We want comfort, we do not want suffering, and we do not want pain and so on. So we need God whom apart from evil could give us all the comfort we need. Since it is possible that from time to time we feel discomforts, which could make us feel bad, then evil exists. Conclusion The presence of good and bad signifies the presence of God and Evil. These two must co-exist. God’s omnipotent power made it possible to allow evil to exist, for this is the only way humans could identify God’s existence. In the same principle, we could not identify good if there is no concept or idea of what is bad. Thus, it is important that God must choose not to eliminate evil in order to allow us to identify the existence of righteousness. It is only through the presence of evil that God’s omnipotent power could be revealed to us. After all, this could become a perfect justification that his power is working and could work in the presence of evil acts. With this argument, we could prove that God is omnipotent, God is all good and Evil exists. Read More