Leibniz Ontology

Many of us question why we live in a universe full of sin and evil? We question if our god is good why is our natural world filled with suffering, violence and destruction? This is where the theodicy problem comes into play, Theodicy is an attempt to explain why a good god would have created evil and suffering. Atheists don’t believe in God for this matter, since evil exists they assume God must not. I believe that we were all blessed with the ability to choose and we can still make our own choices. What God did was he created mankind with free will, it can't be logical for a man to remain sin free when they are making their own choices. So we can make our choices moral, immoral, or amoral. Immoral acts result in evil, if God intervened it

For atheists, apologetics, and non-believers, a big topic of contention is the existence of evil in a world with God. This is known as the problem with evil. How does a God that is all knowing, all powerful, and perfectly good allow such atrocities to occur under his watch? It is this question that so many people have discussed. The argument centers on God being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good (Mackie, 1955 p. 200). Omnipotent is to be all powerful. Omniscient is to be all knowing and to be perfectly good means that God would prevent a morally bad event from ever happening (Swinburne, 1998 p. 13). In the problem of evil, God’s powers are taken at face value, and applied to God’s inaction to evil on earth. People who argue against the topic of evil typically make generalizations on the attributes that God

At times it may seem like God causes suffering, but actually it is the fault of mankind. In the beginning, God created everyone to have free will because He knew that without free will, no one would be able to make their own choices (Life on Hold). Without being able to make their own choices, there would be no real love because everyone would be forced to love. Everyone would all be programmed to do the same thing, so

In J. L. Mackie’s “Evil and Omnipotence,” the author presents an argument detailing why belief in a both omnipotent and wholly good God is contradictory to a God who allows evil to exist. He utilizes this philosophy to show that God doesn’t exist due to the problem of evil. As Mackie’s delineates in his first paragraph, “I think, however, that a more telling criticism can be made by way of the traditional problem of evil. Here it can be shown, not only that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are positively irrational, that the several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another.” (p. 100) Mackie discusses

The problem of the existence of evil in this world is a debate that seems to have no clear end in sight. It has stumped many eager, young philosophers and lead many to atheism. I think similarly though, that it has the potential to strengthen the deist’s belief if properly answered. Antony Flew writes an interesting paper attempting to use this line of argument to disprove the existence of a god. His main premise is that there is no direct evidence showing that God has significantly impacted the world. I believe that this premise is false, and therefore that his argument is invalid. God does significantly affect our life on this Earth, even if it is not appreciated by all. In addition to this, Flew’s statement that there is no support for Christian

The problem of evil is, perhaps, the predominant theological concern for any religion that affirms the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. Although the problem of evil does not and cannot rebut the existence of God, it does however, establish an inconsistency with God's perfect attributes. The problem of evil almost always ask these questions in one form or another: If God is perfect, why is there innocent suffering? Given the qualities attributed to God, is there any way to reconcile the suffering of the innocent? Specifically, if God is able to prevent the suffering of the innocent, yet chooses not to, then He is not omnibenevolent.

It is difficult to imagine God to be anything but so. What is understood about God is that he is good, omniscient and omnipotent. But looking at how the world is today, it is clear that there is evil in this world and so comes the question: “If God is good then why is there so much evil?” If God is good then he would have the desire to eliminate all the evil from this world, but why doesn't he? Is he unable too? If he is unable, does that mean that he is not omnipotent. But God is also omniscient, which means he knows about all the evil in this world and he knows how eliminate it, or does he? We can then conclude that since there is evil in this world, then a good, omniscient and omnipotent God cannot therefore exist,

For centuries human beings have been questioning the existence of God. This has led to numerous questions and theories. For instance, if God is all-know, all-loving, all-powerful then why does he allow tragedies, natural disasters and overall bad things to occur? Is he willing to remove all evils but not able to? Then he must not be all powerful. The Greek philosopher Epicurus stated: is he able but not willing? Then God must not be all good. Is he able and willing? Then why is there evil? Or is God neither? In that case why is there a being called God? These particular questions lead to the problem of evil argument, which is an argument against the existence of God. Evil is all things that are bad in the world. There are two types of evil, moral and natural evil. This includes physical pain, emotional suffering, unfairness and morally wrong deeds. In this world that God has created his guidance and care has been almost non-existent. There are a large number of kind, innocent people who have experienced tragedy as a result of all the evil in the world, some have even lost their lives.

The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued believers since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words “theos,” or God, and “dike,” or justice (Knox 1981, 1). Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a

Rather, it cries out for him/her to be the solution. In his book “Mere Christianity,” former atheist C.S. Lewis noted, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line” (Lewis, 41). This is where the argument of evil, used as evidence against God’s existence, boomerangs into an argument for his/her existence. How would we innately know the difference from right vs. wrong? Surely this innate notion came from somewhere/something greater than ourselves. Continuing, if there is in fact an ultimate moral standard or law of justice, then there must be an ultimate moral Law Giver that knows the difference between good and evil. Without his/her moral law we would not even know what evil really is. And without his/her spiritual comfort we would not be able to tolerate evil because we would never have any solace, resolutions, or any realistic hope for

Catholicism teaches that when the world was originally created by God there was no suffering, “Suffering is not part of God’s original created order,” (Genesis 1-2). Instead, suffering was introduced to the world when humans resisted against God; when Adam and Eve sinned suffering entered the world. “It is a result of Adam and Eve’s sin that ‘thorn and thistles’ entered the world,” (Genesis 3:18). At this point, God did not just remove this sin as he would then have to remove all sin after this. The reason God permitted sin to enter the world was so that each human was able to have freewill and choose God on our accord; in doing this he shows his love for us. However, because of this freewill, people choosing to go against God creates suffering.

Leibniz’s position does seem plausible; however, it also has some major difficulties. The consequence of his view is that there is some standard of goodness outside of God that God must follow if He is to be called good. The first difficulty is that, if there is an external moral standard that God must follow, it means that something distinct from God does not depend on Him for its existence, which directly violates the sovereignty-aseity

The two main variations on the Problem of Evil that Leibniz focused on were the Underachiever Problem (Slacker God) and the Holiness Problem (Bastard God). The former focused on the idea that if God is infinitely omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, then he would create the best world possible. The best of all worlds would not include evil because God is infinitely omnibenevolent and would never cause evil. The Problem of Evil arises when we look at the world around us and notice that there is not only human evil but also natural evil. Meaning that God is an underachiever and did not create the best of all possible worlds (Leibniz). Modern atheist would use this contradiction to show that God does not exist because God would never create

However, apparently we are imperfect beings of problems and sinfulness. Despite the perfection that God possesses and can provide for His own creation, this must be the only thing He must have failed to perfect. But, yet, this imperfection must be deduced to be intentional in nature, as no god, who is made of perfection, can create an imperfection as that would make him no god.

Living in a world where evil and suffering is widespread, many people find it challenging to put all of their faith into the existence of a perfect God. If God is all-knowing (omniscient), it seems that He would know about all of the future evils. If God were all-powerful (omnipotent), He would be able to put a stop to the evil and suffering. In addition, if God were morally perfect (omnibenevolent), then He would not want His people to endure evils in the first place. However, “we find that our world is filled with countless instances of evil and suffering” (Beebe). In this instance, theodicy takes over for many. “Theodicy” derives from