The Relevance of the Daily Struggle Between Good and Evil - Essay Example

Good or Evil? God’s Nature The of the Good or Evil? God’s Nature The comprehension of life sense and the formation of life ideal on its understanding have always been linked by philosophers with the question of good and evil. The confrontation between good and evil is understood by them as the contradictory basis of being, as an antinomy, a solution of which is the main purpose of human knowledge and activity. As a matter of fact good and evil are two different worlds which cannot exist without each other. If there were no evil people would ever know what is good and if there were no good they would never know what is evil. These two notions are a measure by which human lives are evaluated. Depending on the actions of a person he or she may have a reputation of a good or a bad one. From early childhood, while listening fairy tales we begin to learn the concept of good and evil. We are taught that good always wins, though it is not so in the reality. Then the concept of God enters the life of children and they fully believe in what is written in the Bible, that is, the existence of the Lord is doubtless as well as the good nature of his personality and actions. Still there is a hesitation whether God exists and what his essence. So let’s consider this question with the help of research of theistic works on the theme of Stephen Law and Theodore M. Drange. To begin with we will study the argument of Law’s “The evil-god challenge” in which he touches the aspect of the good or evil will of the Lord who has the power to control life on the Earth as he is its Creator. From the beginning to the end of his work Law doubts the good motives of God’s activity for he allows so much suffering for his creatures, people. One of the main reasons of such a situation, according to the author, is that through the way of travails humans can become stronger and recognize good with even greater intense. Furthermore, the Lord has gifted people with an option of good or evil so it depends on them which one to prefer. And it is God who has allowed evil to exist by his decision not to made humanity his puppet theater giving it the opportunity to make a choice in favor of evil. Law claims that the explanation of such phenomenon as natural disasters which destroy and cripple the lives of sentient inhabitants is His will to prevent a greater tragedy that is invisible for people. This is the first-order evil which needs the second-order good (theodicy) as a world’s virtue, for example. In this respect the suspicion or hypothesis of evil god arises. People just don’t understand how can a good god allow such bad things to happen? Law says that ignorance of the causes of evil does not negate the fact of its existence. It is a common belief that the faith in the existence of God is not devoid of meaning. Then the belief in evil god has the right for existence too. By supporting the hypothesis of good god human beings confirm the evil god one (symmetry). Law says: “The challenge I am presenting to those who believe in the god of classical monotheism, then, is to explain why, if belief in an evil god is highly unreasonable, should we consider belief in a good god significantly more reasonable? We might call this the evil-god challenge” (Law, 360). Consequently there is a great number of new doubts and questions about the evil nature of God, including misunderstanding of the motives of the evil god who has created a beautiful world and gives people so much good instead of causing them constant suffering. Law’s answer is that by giving people something nice for a moment and then by taking it out evil god makes them be even unhappier. This is when the first-order good allows the second-order evil (reverse theodicy). At the same time good god manifests himself in miracles and positive religious experience – this is the point where good outweighs evil on scales as there is no evidence (if to decide that miracles can have a confirmation at all) of anti-miracles. Law asks the logical question, namely: why good or evil god doesn’t deprive people strictly to heaven or hell respectively – and gives the answer, that is, human beings choose their future destination themselves by their good or bad actions in this world. But for this people have to believe in good or bad god. So what kind of god is that one who watches us down? Law tends to think that the Lord can mislead his followers. “In fact, it may help him maximize evil if he deceives us about his true character. An evil and omnipotent being will have no difficulty duping human beings into believing he is good. Taking on a ‘good’ guise, he might appear in one corner of the world, revealing himself in religious experiences and performing miracles in response to prayers, and perhaps also giving instructions regarding what his followers should believe. He might then do the same in another part of the globe, with the exception that the instructions he leaves regarding what should be believed contradict what he has said elsewhere” (Law,362). Law also describes other aspects of God’s dual nature. He argues that good god makes people’s interaction the virtuous one, and evil god in his turn can force humans for theft and murder; that people’s suffering or evil activity in this world will be compensated in heaven or hell correspondently; that some actions of good god can be perceived as bad ones for people don’t know his motives. At last Law underlines that in any case it is impossible to measure whether there is more evil or good in the world as well as the understanding of good god is much easier for people than the understanding of evil god for the latter is a hybrid of positive part (omniscience) and negative part (evil). The argument of Law is a good one for it covers such a contradictory issue as the nature of God in all its aspects from the hypotheses’ development through the consideration of the aspects of good and evil in literature and religious practice to the detailed description of peculiarities of the particular God’s essence and its realization in life. The author of “The evil-god challenge” enlightens the theme of the evil god in great number of details; he tries to give the evidence and proofs of his argument as maximum as it is possible, despite the fact that most likely his arguments will not be accepted with approval so as the most people in general and theists in particular consider the evil-god hypothesis to be groundless. Law has researched all the possible angles of good-evil god as it seems to us. Still Law’s work doesn’t question even for a moment the existence of God as it is done in “The argument from non-belief” written by Theodore M. Drange. The main theme of his study is the nonexistence of God because of great people’s unbelief in Him (it concerns the Lord of evangelical Biblical Christianity). Drange’s key argument is that God as all-powerful being can make the majority of humans to believe in his existence but he doesn’t. According to the researcher’s words, one of the aftereffects of this aspect is that today Christianity could be the most disseminated religion, but it is followed by a minority of people. For Drange the Lord’s desire of people to have faith in him and his son Jesus Christ is supported by miracles which are created by missionaries for wide spreading of gospel. Still has God do this at all due to the fact that rationally thinking people may don’t believe in such irrational spectacular manifestation? “God wants people to believe things without any evidence whatever. It may be, rather, that there are other forms of evidence than seeing, such as, for example, the testimony of friends. Perhaps God is simply indicating that he approves of belief based on the testimony of others” (Drange, 428). The Lord shows people in what they may believe but doesn’t force them for this. Comparing this Drange’s argument with the one of Law, it becomes clear that miracles are perceived by them almost in the same way, that is, miracles are the confirmation of God’s good nature (Law) that makes the existence of the Lord obvious for people (Drange). Still the latter wonders about the Lord’s being as he has not been seen by people all eternity. Drange questions why God has no will to manifest himself to people nowadays as He did this in the times described in Bible. The inconsistency of God’s being occurs even due to the fact that he benevolently gives people free will for free formation of faith and doesn’t manipulate by them, but anyway he takes many humans’ lives against their desire. As Law doubts the good nature of God, Drange globally questions His existence. One more point studied by both scholars is people’s destination after physical death. According to Drangle’s research humans who haven’t been enlightened with God’s word within this worldly life are given an opportunity to do this in heaven, though there are very few people who will save (due to their unrighteous life). Remember Law’s argument of the life after death that is almost the same one, namely: humans determine their future heaven or evil destination by their life on earth. So we can see that Law and Drangle’s theories are intersect in some points even with cardinal opposite subjects of research, that is, the nature of God in the first case and non-belief in God’s existence in the second one. Stephen Law has sowed doubt by his hypothesis of evil-god challenge. Nevertheless, his own belief is that any theistic idea cannot be proven in the truest sense so his idea is still somehow unreasonable. The common feature of these studies as well as many others is that their issues will be questionable probably forever for the relevance of the daily struggle between good and evil and humans’ desire to explore its nature. References Drange, Theodore M. (1993). The Argument from Non-Belief. Cambridge University Press, 29(4). Law, Stephen. (2010). The Evil-god Challenge. Cambridge University Press, 46. Read More