God and Existence of Evil: a Critical Analysis

Abstract

This study focuses on traditional understanding of God; a God who is purported to have created the universe and all it holds on one hand and our daily life experiences of the world on the other hand. Theists assert God to be most powerful, wholly good and all knowing. Our daily experience shows that there is evil everywhere: pain and suffering are undeniably real, cancer, natural disasters, war, poverty, racism, murder, animal cruelty and the list is almost endless. Traditionally, the problem of evil has been seen to arise from the apparent self-contradiction involved in asserting that God, who is omnipotent, wholly good creator exists, and that evil exists. There is a contradiction between these three propositions, so that if the first two propositions were true the third would be false. But all three statements are fundamental elements of traditional theists’ belief. The primary objective of this study is to investigate whether the existence of evil precludes the existence of God and vice versa. The research methodology involved a philosophical analysis, argumentation and evaluation of documents related to this topic. This method has focused on three paradigms of the study: The existence of the omnipotent God and the existence of evil, and whether the two are logically consistent or inconsistent. This study has been guided by the divine command theory as its theoretical framework. This theory states that an action is morally right or wrong because of the prescriptions given by God. The moral quality of an action is determined by approval or disapproval by God.All arguments for the existence of God namely the teleological, cosmological and ontological has been evaluated and a conclusion drawn that none of them proves the existence of God. This study observes that the current arguments for the existence of God are not logically tenable. Evil has been discussed in different aspects namely; its origin, psychology and its various types, and a conclusion drawn from this evaluation is that evil is real and affects human beings and animals. Having discussed the existence of God and the reality of evil, the relationship between God and evil has been assessed and the study observes that there can never be an omnipotent and omni benevolent God in the face of all moral and natural evils we experience in this world. The ostensible strong justification for God permitting evil to exist in the world is free-will defense. This defense has been evaluated and the study concludes that the importance of free-will is surpassed by its’ negative outcomes. And therefore God failed by administering freedom to humanity; he should not have given human beings freedom in equal measures, but in proportion to each individual’s ability to use it. The study concludes by suggesting that theists should accept God’s weaknesses and revise the attributes given to God to accommodate for a lesser powerful, good and knowing God, or drop the whole idea of an omnipotent, omni benevolent and omniscient God