Dr. Alvin Plantinga's Argument For The Existence Of God

We can posit that God allows evil to exist because the existence of evil is a necessary condition for individuals to develop or complete their moral souls. Accordingly, the world is seen, instead, as a place of “soul making in which free beings, grappling with the tasks and challenges of their existence in a common environment, may become children of God and heirs of eternal life.” We can learn what morality is about and develop proper virtues. We cannot learn what morality is and how to develop proper virtues in a vacuum nor do we know morality a priori. The suffering of others is essential for individuals to learn lessons about morality and virtue, because without the opportunities offered by suffering and evil, individuals would not have

Therefore, God must lack power, knowledge or goodness and the God as defined as being all powerful, all knowing and all good does not exist. Dr. Alvin Plantinga responds to the argument from evil, stating that it fails to establish an explicit logical contradiction between God and the existence of evil. He insists that the argument from evil is missing a premise, which is that God could not have a good reason for allowing evil. The argument from evil cannot succeed without this premise. He states that because we are not able to know what sorts of reasons God could or couldn’t have, we are in no position to assert that God could not have a good reason for allowing evil. Therefore, the existence of evil does not provide an argument for the impossibility of God and belief in God is

One may argue, if we are viewed as complete beings and God is all good and all powerful, then the environment God creates for humanity to dwell is naturally as pleasant as possible. Since our world is full of turmoil, God could not have created this world. In response, however, Christian thought never states that the purpose of the creation of the world is to create a place that provides an endless amount of pleasure and avoids pain at all cost.1 The church father Saint. Irenaeus taught that humanity has been made in the image of God but has not yet been brought as a free and responsible agent into the finite likeness of God, which is revealed in Christ. The world, therefore, is a place where humans complete their soul’s by living with the freedom of choice and action. God is not guilty for allowing evil, our world is the best possible world which allows humans to fully develop morally. Our development requires meaningful free will and therefore requires the possibility of evil. If the purpose of our world is to foster the development of the moral character of humans than a good world is best suited to that purpose. A world that contains some suffering and evil which helps us draw closer to God. So, when it is said it scripture that God created a good world, this is a world that is fit for the purpose of soul making and therefore is not devoid of