Does God Exist?

One of the arguments that claim God does not exist bases its grounds on existence of instances of evil in the world. The underlying principle of such arguments is that if God existed, he would eliminate evil, and since there are various types of evil present in the world, God does not exist. Although it is plausible that God may not exist, mere presence of evil of any kind and magnitude is insufficient for drawing that conclusion. The reason for this is that if God existed in the sense that theists believe he does, he would know more than humans do. The reasoning for one's actions depends heavily on one's knowledge, which someone else might lack. If a person does something based on a specific knowledge, the reasoning for that action might seem unjustified for another person who lacks that knowledge. Even though there might be no satisfying reasons for one's actions, another person's mere inability to justify them is insufficient to entail lack thereof such reasons. Therefore, it is inappropriate to conclude that God does not exist solely on the basis that there are evils in the world that seem unjustified in light of human knowledge of the world. This justification can be used to effectively refute any argument against existence of God that is based on existence of evil.

God, if existent in the sense that theists believe he does, would be omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good. Consequently, God, by nature, would not engage in any act of evil. This means that the net effect of any action God performs would necessarily need to be good. Further, God would be the sole creator and primary cause of the world and everything in it. Through simple means of observation, it is obvious that there are many instances of evil in the world. Hurricane Katrina, September 11th attacks, and the Holocaust are a few examples of numerous others. At first glance, the occurrence of such evils in the world that an omnipotent, omniscient, and good God created is puzzling. This would mean that God intentionally created a world that contains unnecessary instances of evil. That, in turn, would entail that God cannot exist in the sense that theists believe he does. At a closer look, however, existence of some of those evils could potentially be justified by appealing to human's possession of free-will.

For example, the Holocaust and the September 11th attacks are both instances of moral evil, which result from humans' choice to do evil acts. This type of evil can be explained as being a consequence of humans' possession of free will. The explanation suggests, since having free will is better than not having it, God created humans with free will, and thus gave them the ability to choose to do evil. Thus, the argument concludes, moral evil is not due to God's inability to eliminate evil, but rather to humans' abuse of their free will. However, this justification fails to address why God did not create the free-willed