Journal 2

The Problem of Evil is that if there is a God and he is all good and all powerful and wants his creation to be happy then how could evil exist? We veiw God as a perfect being but if he was perfect how could he have created evil? or does he not have the power to create? There are four conditions for which 1 must be denied in order for the other 3 to be true. 1) If God exists, wants only good , and can do anything he wants, there must not be evil. 2) If God exists and wants only good, but evil exists he must not be all powerful. 3) If God exists and can do anything he wants, but evil exists God must want evil to exist. Therefore he is not good at all. 4)Finally if "God" means a being who is omnibenevolent and omnipotent--but evil exists--then "God" must not exist. There are many ways of addressing the problem of evil. Evil could just be the lack of goodness. Darkness is not a true thing it is just the lack of any light just how evil is the lack of something good. There is nothing malacious in evil, it is just the lack of goodness that God created. God also created humans with free will to choose themselves right and wrong, so evil could not be his creation but our choice which he allows us to have in order for us to be free. If the only choice you had was goodness then you would not have free will, but because God created humans with free will, evil exists because we chose it over goodness. The problem of evil could just be that we are asking the wrong question and that we should be grateful for what we do have and not complain to God about the occasional obsitcal to happiness. Living in the state of sin has consequences and all sin is evil therefore since everyone sins we all must be evil or have evil so why should we say we are good people. Evil is just the consequence for all our evil acts. Also suffering could be seen as an experience from which to grow from. Suffering could be a test of our commitment to God which he puts in front of all humans like he did to Job. The main solution to this problem is ignorance. We just cannot know what God knows or has in store for the humans. His understanding is far greater than any human will ever be.

1) The problem of evil; if God is all good and all powerful and wants his creations to be happy how could evil exist.-This was hard for me to realize at first. It put into question what I had learned ever since I was born. Could God either not be good or not be all powerful? I will continue to seek my own answer to this question. 2)The human condition is the situation in which every human being finds himself or herself by virtue of being human.- It is a constant for all humanity which would help me to better understand myself and others processes of thinking and reasoning. 3)Eschatology the study of the four last things, death, judgement, heaven and hell. - Every person who has ever lived or will ever live will have to experience these things.Our understanding of the events of the last things are limited but gaining more knowledge will perpare me for when it is my time to experience them.

Pascal belived that all humans had a desire to be happy.

Since evil exists can God be all powerful?

To make myself a better person I should try to better understand the problem of evil and the human condition. It will help me to comprhend the actions of other people and myself. My grasp on this information might effect my entire grasp on my theology.