Life is a balance. It is a balance of the various activities that humans tend to do each single day. It is also a balance of the good and bad deeds. The bad deeds, known as evil are the actions, words, thoughts that reflect on absence of goodness. Throughout human history, the existence of evil has been a mind-boggling discussion with proponents saying that there’s a purpose of it’s existence while opponents see it as a form of punishment from the deities. This discussion is fueled by the diverse beliefs and philosophical stands of human beings. From a religious stand (Christianity based), the existence of evil has been as a neccesity, a form of keeping the human race in check and a way of allowing them to be considerate.
Antony Louise is a notable philosopher who has specialized in philosophy of mind, epistemology, language philosophy and feminist theory. One of her books Atheism, Naturalism and Morality, Antony tries to explore the existence of evil among humans and the role of God in all this. She tries to illuminate the fact that the existence of evil in human life is an implication of our actions and choices. According to Louise, life is an open book and what ends up in the pages, whether good or bad has nothing to with God, God has simply given provided choices, made the choices that are known to us and the implications that follow depending on each choice and then left us to our wisdom to know what is the best choice to choose (Louise 2020) .
The choices that can be termed as ‘bad choices’ are what lead to evil, and God cannot influence our choices because as termed before, He has made all about the choices known to us. Louise likens the relationship of God and human choices to a parent and a child. She describes a situation where the parent teaches the child the consequences of the choices the child makes using a toy. The child leaves the toy outside after ignoring the counsel of the parent and the toy is destroyed by rain. This further goes on to show that God leaves us to our judgment as a way of teaching lessons, evil is termed as a necessity, a ‘temporal’ pain or evil that is mainly aimed at providing a lesson that improves our existence.
Antony then goes to further shed light on her argument by trying to show that what one may deem an evil act may be goodness. Evil is merely a product of perspective and choice too, A man that is trying to save a choking woman by doing a Heimlich maneuver may be seen as a potential rapist by an individual who knows not what is going on.
To further show this, think of a woman who had to steal a meal to feed her children that have not eaten for two days. To an individual that does not understand her position, the woman is an evil person, but to the woman herself, this doesn’t seem evil at all.
She goes on to say that an atheist who says one can never be in a position to say that one acted without good intentions, they’d simply debunk the fact that there are good reasons to deny the existence of God (Louise 2020). Here, she shows the logic of an atheist has no foundation, God has reason to allow evil.
The bible is a work of men and women that were, influenced by the actions of God. It explicitly shows that God has a reason to allow the existence of evil in human existence. It is a collection and a record of occurrences that were heavily influenced by God, and some of which God took part in.
The origin of evil is simultaneous with the origin of life (King James Version, Genesis 1:1). When God finished laying the foundations of the earth and everything in it, He created human beings, Adam and Eve. These two humans are a reflection of God’s power and love. They still get tempted and betray God by doing the only thing that God told them not to do. This betrayal caused the advent of evilness in the world.
God’s original plan was for us humans to be like Him, holy and live forever, according to the bible but because of our shortcoming(evil), this was deemed impossible, as with evil came death. God then had to watch His creation that He dearly loved live in pain and suffering.
But He doesn’t stop there, He redeems all by sending His only son according to John chapter 4 verse to end the pain and suffering that was brought about by evil. His son dies as a sacrifice that atones all, allows everyone to live in free will and without being convicted by evil and a bonus of going to heaven, which reflects on God’s original plan, to live forever with His creation in a perfect world.
Despite all this, one may say God is omnipotent, therefore would and can stop all the suffering and evil in the world either way, even with Adam and Eve having betrayed him or better, would have easily stopped the two from betraying Him. But this would mean that the ones that respect God and believe in Him don’t do so because they want to but rather are compelled to. It would simply boil down to all humans living under a spell from God. That’s why free will exists.
The big question is, Why would actions like vengeance and envy be acceptable exclusively in our world? To think of it, if a married husband cheats on the wife, the wife knows of it and kills the husband, which action is eviler? The husband cheating or the wife killing? It would seem more sensible that both be considered wrong, yet with God, even after humanity betraying His love, even now with the knowledge of His original plan for humanity, we still betray His love to this day, knowingly and unknowingly He still comes through and never gives up on bailing us from evil and death.
It is said in the bible that the wage of sin is death (King James Version . 1 John 4:9) yet no one dies instantly after sinning, not even Adam and Eve. This shows God’s love consistency in His love and hopes in humanity, His zeal to teach us, just like the parent and the child, even after we live our toy outside and it’s destroyed the parent buys another toy for the child knowing very well that there’s a possibility that the child will leave the new toy outside again but never gives up on the child.
This shows that we are responsible for all evil in the world and God is very justified to let this evil happen even with Him being omnipotent. This is because He has tried very many times to re-unite us with His original plan but we still sway away from Him.
Lastly, just like the child and parent illustration given by Antony, we should learn from previous failures and evils. They should serve as lessons that we can always refer to when faced with similar or related challenges. We as humans have shortcomings which lead the evil in our life, we should take the shortcomings and the products of the shortcomings as an opportunity to learn.
God has allowed it happen, He has allowed us to experience the evil that comes from our actions and choices not as a punishment but rather as an opportunity to be better at being human.
With every passing evil or an unfavorable occurrence in life, remember that this is a lesson, whether it is caused by or another human being. Instead of asking such evil has happen to you, try to understand the lesson that is being passed to you and the get the best and most from the lesson.
To conclude, the above text shows that indeed God is justified to permit the existence of evil in the world. This is achieved by quoting verses from the bible with additional claims from Antony Louise. The text is finalized by clearly stating that God has numerous reasons why evil should exist in humans. However, we as humans are limited and blinded by our shortcomings and thought processes but resources like the Bible and works of philosophers that are like-minded to Antony Louise it is easier to see that God is simply trying to improve the quality of the lives we live using existence as a mode of discipline.
REFERENCES
Louise, Antony. (2020) Atheism, Naturalism and Morality. John Wiley &Sons
The Bible (King James Version). 1 John 4:9
The Bible (King James Version) Genesis 1:1
Kraby, Clayton. (2019, May 21). The Reliability of the Bible: 4 Quick Thoughts.ReasonableTheology.org. https://reasonabletheology.org/reliability-bible-4-quick-thoughts/
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