Thomas Aquinas Evil

In Evil and Omnipotence, J.L. Mackie is debating the idea of the existence of both good and evil. He claims that a “wholly good, and all powerful being (omnipotent) could not also allow evil to exist in the world.” Mackie explains that one of the three things must not be completely true. Either, God is not all powerful, wholly good, or evil is only an illusion. He goes on to state that “good” always eliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do.

Before we can dive into the problem of evil, we must define a term. Whenever the word “God” is used in this paper, it is referring to the classical theistic conception of God. In this view of God, God is that, “than which nothing greater can be conceived” in your mind. Any attributes or qualities that make a being great, God has to the maximum. This means that, among many other qualities, God is benevolent(all good), omnipotent(all powerful), and omniscient(all knowing). Furthermore, God is the creator of the universe and is personally connected to the human race.

Aquinas’ understanding of the roles of faith and reason can be likened to a house. Reason provides the foundation. This foundation draws heavily from the Greek philosophers. Without special revelation from God, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle could not comprehend the fullness of wisdom only Christ provides. However, by observing general revelation, they reasoned their way to many universal truths such as the existence of a perfection outside of mankind–evidenced by Plato’s world of the forms–the benefits of the virtuous life–Socrates’ insistence that good men can never truly be harmed–and the distinction man holds from the animals–Aristotle’s recognition of the importance of logos. This use of reason compliments the teachings of Paul in Romans. He reminds the believers in Rome, “…since

The idea that God gave humans free will is one that is essential to the Christian faith. This is highlighted in Genesis. If we were to believe this concept consequently, we would believe that we are morally responsible for our actions. The idea of omnipotence logically requires God knowing what we will do before we do it. This is a problem with the idea of free will, as this may mean that we do not entirely have freedom. It could be argued that God has no right to reward and punish if he is able to foresee what will happen. In the Bible there are many passages which demonstrate God rewarding and punishing.

Aquinas argued the existence of God with five main points. Aquinas began by saying that nothing can be a cause of itself; rather every event was caused by some prior event. Therefore event A causes event B that leads to event C and so forth. He believed in this cause and effect relationship but believed that there must be a first cause as a starting point. When contemplating this starting point Aquinas rejected the possibility of an infinite series of events. This means that the universe has not existed forever and there must have been something from which every single event stems. There must be an uncaused first cause, which Aquinas concluded to be God. The first cause is called the unmoved mover. The unmoved mover is what set all other events and beings in motion.

In the article, “The Five Ways,” from Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas argues whether God exists, which

The ideas that God is altogether simple and that he has complete knowledge of himself and all things form the foundation for much of Aquinas' arguments for the existence of a world of contingent beings, deriving from a necessary being. Aquinas continues this line of reasoning in his argument that God's knowledge is the cause of things. Aquinas likens this relationship to the artificer and the art. The artificer, working through his intellect, creates the art. As Aquinas says, "Hence the form in the intellect must be the principle of action." Aquinas also says, "Now it is manifest that God causes things by his intellect, since his being is his act of understanding; and hence his knowledge must be the cause of things, insofar as his will is joined to it." Aquinas is saying here that if God's intellect creates things, i.e. human beings, then he must also be the cause of those things because his intellect is the same thing as his will. Keeping in mind that God is altogether simple, this conclusion naturally follows a logical sense of reasoning.

Well unfortunately some believe their (omnipotent) God has all the answers and knows of every person’s next moves and what’s yet to come. I can somewhat agree with that but I don’t believe it is my duty to judge or prove the existence, and the all mighty power God has. I certainly am a believer of faith and that the existence of good and evil lies in all of us, regardless of the control God has over us. My opinion relates to how Aquinas believes that everyone’s consequences and endings they choose are because of the free choice God gives us all. As mentioned in the book, a great example that I find makes a perfect analogy is when he states, “He can create in a multitude of ways, No

He argues that it is man’s responsibility to use this freedom to search for knowledge and enlightenment in order to get higher. It sounds as if he was saying God would be happier to see man reach perfection and would even admire man for being the creature who works on the creation of God the architect, and bring about changes.

Every person would like to think that they have free will as if we did not than our existence would be pointless. Expanding on the idea of free will is the core of a naturalist argument against that of an intelligent creator in a traditional Abrahamic sense that is omniscient. Taliaferro outlines this situation aptly stating that “If God knows what you will do tomorrow, you cannot do otherwise. But if the future is fixed how can you be free?” to outline the structure of the naturalist’s point of view (Taliaferro, 34). For instance, if a God who was omniscient knew you were going to eat at the Reitz tomorrow is it really your choice to eat at the Reitz if this God knew you would eat there, and not at Chick-fil-a?” The objection seems to be

The main argument of the passage can be presented as such: I. If an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God created humans, then they would be free agents with the disposition to always do good. II. Humans exist with variable natures between good and evil. III.

He tells the narrator about the reality that humans will never understand the truth about God and God’s design, but it is still important to be active in striving for this truth. To be a good Christian means living a life searching for the good, and this can be done by following the path of Christ towards salvation. This process is on going in life and will continue even beyond our deaths. The human soul is immortal and is made to resonate with God as we are made in his image, but we will never reach transcendence as Jesus did, it is our gift and our curse.

That God is not the one creating these evils, but humans given the free will are. Mackie’s main objection to this is “if God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have made men such that they always freely choose the good?”[1]. He means to say that, If God, all powerful and all good, where to make a human being, why not just make all humans with the mindset of being good? It throws out our first point to say that God gave humans free will and some of them decide do evil things. This means God created an evil thing. Likewise, perhaps all humans aren’t evil, but when they are about to do evil things, the fact that god doesn’t step in throws out our second point, that God is omnipotent. It would be so easy for someone that powerful to do away with many of the awful things humans cause in this

Lewis begins chapter two with God Almighty, by questioning the meaning of God’s omnipotence. He asserts that God’s omnipotence means that God does not have the power to do anything but God does have power to do anything that is consistent with his nature. “God has the power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. We may attribute miracles to him, but not nonsense.” Lewis then suggests that not even God’s omnipotence could create men with free wills without at the same time creating a relatively independent and unavoidable nature. Lewis establishes a universe where free souls can communicate with one another and have free will. That man, possessing this free will, may take advantage of the laws of

A critique that could be levy against Thomas Aquinas’ assertion is that the Holy Scripture in the Christianity religion is the word of God. There are other religions that claim that their doctrine is divinely inspired also. So this would allow other religions to claim the same absoluteness of authority on indemonstrable knowledge as Christianity. For example, the Koran and Torah were also said to be inspired by God. The question arises of which doctrine is the definitive Scripture that God attended for us to use. Thomas Aquinas is going to pick his religion holy doctrine over the other ones due to his faith in Christianity.