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  • Essay / The Problem of Evil - 1523

    In his essay “Why God Permits Evil,” Swinburne argues that the existence of evil in the world is consistent with the existence of an omniscient, all-powerful, all-knowing God Good. To begin, Swinburne bases his argument on two basic types of evil: moral and natural. Moral evil encompasses all evils resulting from human action, whether intentional or negligent; natural evil included all evils not caused or permitted by human beings. While moral evil such as abortion, murder, terrorism or theft comes from humans acting immorally, natural evil, in the form of suffering caused by earthquakes like Haiti's, hurricanes like Katrina, wildfires or diseases like HIV/AIDS, result in pain and suffering that comes from anything other than human action with predictable consequences. Swinburne's argument is that God permits suffering because it is necessary to make humans good in their own right by giving them the free will to choose freely between their competing deliberations. To understand why moral evil is necessary, Swinburne urges us to imagine the kinds of goods Almighty God would bestow on humans. In addition to pleasure and contentment, Swinburne supposes that such a God "would give us a great responsibility to ourselves, to each other, and to the world, and thus a share in his own creative activity of determining what kind of people it would be. 1 This type of responsibility requires that humans have free will, because we cannot be responsible for our actions without the freedom to choose among other available competing options. Accordingly, humans must have the ability to harm others in addition to helping them. Furthermore, he argues that humans should be expected to have si...... middle of paper ...... ng? The answer to these conundrums, according to Swinburne's argument, is that in enjoying significant freedom and responsibility, people must make a choice between what would be beneficial and what would be harmful. Therefore, Swinburne's argument provides the best possible answers to the old questions posed by those who argue against the existence of God on the basis of the existence of evil. As he indicates, moral evil and natural evil weigh upon human responsibility, both of which are obligatory for human health. In case these propositions do not fully justify the necessity of evil in the world, Swinburne argues that humans should be reassured that God will compensate the victims by providing them with an afterlife in which they will have a priceless and worthwhile existence. The problem of evil is therefore not a good objection to the existence of God..