Evil in the World

God of Evil

Maybe the biggest question asked since the beginning of time, yet still remaining unanswered, is how our universe came into existence. As human nature, many people are devoted to believing that a God created all we have today. Others will debate that until the end of time. From what others have previously established about God, we have grown to believe that he is the all-powerful being. But if he is truly all-powerful, then why do we live in such tough conditions today? As Ernest Hemmingway states in his work A Moveable Feast, “All things truly wicked start from innocence.” If Ernest Hemmingway is correct with this statement, then where is God present in this world? There are many theories proving and disproving God, but truthfully, none of them actually show evidence that God is real. People lose faith in God when life takes a right instead of turning left. The fact whether God exist should not play a large role in people’s lives. In order to live a just life, one must live life through the morals that God has sent down to us. Proving God to be real is an impossible feat, but living life the way he wants us to is quite simple, and evil is just apart of human nature. What exactly is evil? According to the dictionary, evil is defined as, “Profoundly immoral and malevolent.” This definition does not provide us with a clear-cut answer on what evil actually consists of. In this definition, the word “immoral” does not bring much to the table. People grow up with very different morals. Depending how they grew up, humans all develop their own sense of what is right, and what is wrong. As an example, a bank robber could have not understood that stealing was wrong. If he grew up close to the poverty line, or even below, then maybe he grew up to his family stealing because of their needs. Anne Rice states, “Evil is a point of view.”
America’s moral views have also been changing drastically over the last decade. John Hick, a well-known modern philosopher actively pursues on the fight that evil is not a creation of God’s doing; instead, Hick believes that evil is a result of God’s creation of our own free will. Hick states:
“There is no doubt a development in a man’s ethical situation from generation to generation through the building of individual choices into public institutions, but this involves an accumulation of evil as well as good.” (Hick 23)
John Hick, a well-known modern generation philosopher, believes that as the generations turn, the moral tendencies also turn. Hick believes that the current moral state of humans could be closely correlated to a moral state of humans’ two thousand years ago (Hick 23). If the patterns of human morality shift with every generation, shouldn’t that make the notion of evil alter with every generation? If we cannot accurately define what evil consists of, how can we say that God intended evil to be in this world? We all have our own established beliefs on what evil consists of, but if the perspective of evil varies from person to person, then honestly there can be no way God can prevent these “evils.”
Religion can be described as a set of beliefs that are a foundation for a person’s moral and actions. Because of the fact that many people get their morals from the religious denomination they belong to, they cannot understand the mind-set of people who have beliefs vastly different from them.
A major argument relating God and evil is the concepts of free-will and determinism. Free will is the idea that God put us onto this earth, but he allows us to make our own decisions and have our own thoughts. If one believes that God created us with free will, then there is claim for evil being on this world. Vexen Crabtree states, “If all choices result in good, there would be no moral choices. If love is acceptable, it must be chosen over hate and therefore evil and suffering result when we make morally poor choices.” With free will, God grants us the ability to choose our own fates. If we want to choose morally well, we choose well; otherwise, we are able to choose evil. If people believe in the idea of free-will, then they may potentially be able to understand why evil exists. Keith Augustine states, “The free will defense (FWD) maintains that God has to allow the existence of some evil in order to preserve human free will (e.g., Alvin Plantinga, Robert Adams). Finally, the soul-making theodicy (SMT) contends that God allows some evil because it builds positive character in the victims or in others which outweighs the negative value of the evil itself (e.g., John Hick)” (Augustine). If a person believes in free will, then God is not responsible for Evil in this world; rather, it is the individuals abusing their free will that creates the evil for other human beings to endure.
Deterministic and atheist beings may have a problem with the previous statement proposed by Keith Augustine. In a determined society, God already has everything mapped out for each individual. An individual has been forced to make every step in his life by God, contrary to the idea that an individual is responsible for every action they make. A deterministic view of the world makes it harder for humans to understand evil and suffering in our world. If God is all-powerful, then why did he put the human race in the face of unavoidable dangers and suffering from day-to-day? In a deterministic sense, God is responsible for all evil. B.C. Johnson states, “He can create a universe and yet is conveniently unable to do what the fire department can do—rescue a baby from a burning building. God should at least be as powerful as a man” (Johnson 31). Being an atheist philosopher, Johnson believes that if God created the world with as much love as he claims, then why is there suffering? Why does evil happen if God is so great?
If God created a utopian society, then nature would be destroyed. The population would be sky high without tragedy. If the only source of death was by old age or sickness, I believe there is a good chance this world would be out of all its natural resources. God put evil on this planet to challenge humans, to keep them on their toes, and to make humans choose between being morally good or morally bad. Evil is what separates us from animals. The poor actions of human beings just prove our dominance over that of other species. As previously states, the shift in human moral patterns thoroughly explains the evil in this world. People believe that the world is going to hell because all the violence and the fact that the culture is not the same. The truth of the matter is that the human culture has yet to be fully developed, and it may never reach a fully developed stage. For each individual Religion affects them in a different way. Religion has always been a part of my life especially in relation to my family. Coming from a family with a Roman Catholic background, religion was always something we had. While growing up it was never a second thought what I would be doing on Sunday morning. Church was a regular activity in my life and since it was how I was brought up I never questioned it as a child. I was baptized as a baby and therefore grew up following the same beliefs as the rest of my family. I attended my religious education classes, and received both my communion and confirmation. It was what was expected of me because not only was it what everyone in my family did but also a majority of my friends. Attending a catholic high school from seventh grade until my senior year, I was able to draw out many conclusions about what I believed the whole “religion” idea was about. From eighth grade I started to try and make sense about how God possibly created all of us, developed a way for us to think, and even allowed us to do whatever we want as long as we stayed true to his word and showed love and respect for all. As I continued with my religion classes, I felt uneasy about what I was learning. The Old Testament is a brutal book in the Bible. Within these pages, God orders many people to kill somebody else because they do not believe in God. As it shifts over to the New Testament, the total opposite of what God previously ordered occurs here. In the New Testament, peace is brought upon and new mottos such as, “Love thy God and thy neighbor with all thy heart” are formed. By why is there such a change in the tone of the Bible from there on out?
Thinking about the differences between the New and Old testaments, I believe that our culture and mindset has not been fully evolved yet. As the Bible starts out in the Old Testament full of evil, torment, and competition, we read about many tragic deaths and wars. God surely has to have a reason for bringing all this disaster. It could be possible through Hick’s theory that we share the same moral mindset as a generation did from the Old Testament. Evil and war could be surrounding us until our time and character development has reached to the New Testament. In the New Testament, we see the first concept of peace. Instead of having the thinking of “you have to fight for what’s yours,” in a few hundred years or so we could see the thinking of “lets compromise.” Hick questions. “Is this the kind of world that God might make as an environment in which moral being may be fashioned, through their own free insights and responses, into ‘children of God’?” (Hick24) I believe that there could be a strong chance that Earth provides us with the perfect environment in order for us to learn and adapt mentally, physically, and morally. These adaptations will change over time, and perpetuate forever.

Work Cited
Augustine, Keith. "Evidential Arguments from Evil." The Problem of Evil:. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2012. .

Crabtree, Vexen. "Is Free Will the Reason God Allows Evil and Suffering?" Www.vexen.co.uk. N.p., 28 Apr. 2012. Web. 02 Dec. 2012. .

Hick, John. "Allowing for Evil." Philosophy of Religion. N.p., 29 Aug. 2012. Web. 3 Dec. 2012.

Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Print.

Johnson, B. C. The Atheist Debater 's Handbook. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1981. Print.

Cited: Augustine, Keith. "Evidential Arguments from Evil." The Problem of Evil:. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2012. . Crabtree, Vexen. "Is Free Will the Reason God Allows Evil and Suffering?" Www.vexen.co.uk. N.p., 28 Apr. 2012. Web. 02 Dec. 2012. . Hick, John. "Allowing for Evil." Philosophy of Religion. N.p., 29 Aug. 2012. Web. 3 Dec. 2012. Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Print. Johnson, B. C. The Atheist Debater 's Handbook. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1981. Print.