Jenny Wiggins's Essay 'My Proof Of Theism'

Introduction to Philosophy 200 Spring 2008 My Proof of Theism Jenny Wiggins In this essay, I plan to give proofs that defendtraditional theism. Traditional theism is defined by E.K. Daniel in his essay, A Defense of Theism, as: “there exists a being, God, who has all of the following attributes: God is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), supremely good (omnibenevolent), infinite, eternal, a being who possesses all perfections, transcendent to the natural universe, but the creator of the universe (Daniel, p.259).” I find it ironic to prove theism in philosophy class. Even Greek philosophers believe in a higher power. The question that is not always agreed upon is which or what higher power to believe? That being said,
It is not a sense in that one can be taught but a complete sense that will not fail. The decision we make may go against what we are taught as children. I will now take a look at the problem of evil which is most frequently used in the argument against theism. In H. J. McCloskey’s essay, God and Evil, he states the problem in this way, “Evil is a problem for the theist in that a contradiction is involved in the fact of evil on the one hand, and the belief in the omnipotence and perfection of God on the other. God cannot be both all-powerful and perfectly good if evil is real.” An argument can be formulated to disprove the existence of God in the following way: P1: God is a being that is both all-powerful and perfectly
The world is made better by the evil in it. P4: Evil is not due to God but to man’s misuse of the free will that God gave him (McCloskey & Hick, 332 &347). With regards to the latter of these two arguments one might think of the analogy of having something that you think is not good, losing it, and then realizing that what you hadwasn’t so bad in the first place. Most people learn lessons from the hardships that they face in life and go on to live an even better life. Man does not always make the most rational decisions in his life and those bad decisions usually have consequences. This is no evidence that there is not an all-powerful and perfectly good God. K. D. Ellis refutes theism in his essay, Why I Am an Agnostic, on the grounds that there are no good reasons, meaning no reliable empirical evidence or sound rational arguments, to believe that there is a God (Ellis, p.296). He suggests that the classical arguments that are stated in Daniel’s essay, “may offer some support for the plausibility of the belief in a god, but they are not sufficiently strong enough to compel our assent to the conclusion that a god exists.” He also says that there is no knowledge in the statement, God exists (Ellis,