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Analysis Of Theodicy: The Free Will Defense

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Why does evil exist? If God created everything, then didn’t He create evil? Why could an all-loving God allow evil to exist? The trouble of evil and suffering is one of the most common motives human beings have for not believing in God. These sorts of questions can make people uncomfortable, however this issue will continually be a large philosophical debate among theists and atheists. Evil is terrible, whether or not it is in the form of a paper cut, genocide, bad breath, or epidemics, evil unfortunately exists. If there is an all-knowing God out there, He should know about all of this evil and may, additionally, even recognize evil before it occurs. If God is all-powerful and all-good then He could and ultimately would want to prevent the …show more content…

To be able to have a genuinely rational theodicy we have to admit that just due to the fact that we do not like a specific belief, that does not make it untrue. The most popular theodicy is referred to as The Free Will Defense. The Free Will Defense maintains that God maximized the goodness within the world by means of creating free beings. If we are free, that means we have a choice to do evil things; a choice that a number of humans exercise. In order for free will to be authentic, God cannot place limits on our choices or intervene in any way. If God were to intervene with the intention to save us from a person intending to do evil upon us, this would limit our freedom. Freedom without choice is a logical contradiction. No choice, no freedom. . God loves us and desires us to love him in return. How could we sincerely choose to love God in return unless we are given the freedom to not love God? We could have, in the long run, been made in the image of robots who are programmed to only say, “I love you.” Then we would no longer have a choice to love, instead, we would be forced to love, which would not be actual love. To love is to have a choice. Evil is choosing not to love. When God decided to provide us the freedom of choice, he not only gave us our biggest blessing, but he also gave us our biggest curse, due to the fact that we have …show more content…

Many argue that these theodicies are flawed, and they reject God’s all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good nature by means of finding Him to be less than perfect. In my opinion, The Free Will Defense allows me to understand why evil exists in our world. Our free will is what creates the struggling of mankind, not God. Considering the fact that we are not perfect, it would be impossible for us to create a world that is both free and good. I trust God has a greater plan for us in which he permits evil to exist. God allows us to endure suffering and evil in order to shape our character and better prepare us for our entry into Heaven. Some people argue that unnecessary evil proves that God does not exist, however I believe that everything happens for a reason so that there can be no unnecessary evil. While I may not understand and be furious of about any evil or suffering that comes into my life, I hope that my faith continues to be strong enough to recognize that the suffering will cease and a reason for the suffering will be revealed in due time. We are to assume that we will not always recognize the reason God has for allowing evil and suffering, because we are too emotionally and spiritually immature to recognize God 's motives for permitting evil. I assume that the lesson for us to learn is that God has created a

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