Created by God

When the theist describes evil as privation, she means absence of goodness where goodness might have been (Cambridge, p . 41). This claim comes from the argument that God, both incorporeal and immutable, makes everything, and all that he makes is good. Badness arises from the tendency of things to decay: ‘for a thing to be bad is for it to fall away from being and tend to a state in which it is not (Oxford, p. 214). Enquiry as to why God allows such privations, St.

Augustine states the following points: first is the natural tendency of creatures towards mutability and corruption, this is the liability of having been created out of nothing. The second point is, creatures are subject to perspectival prejudices, failing to see how local privations contribute to the good of the whole. “Evil” is sometimes predicated of the choices and actions of creatures possessing reason. In the case of “sin”, it is not a desire for naturally evil things but the abandonment of better things. (Cambridge, p. 41) Another argument is that whatever exists is created by God and is good in some degree.

If things ceased to be good in any sense, they would cease to exist. On this principle things are relatively evil to the degree that they lack goodness. Evil is privation of good, but not in an absolute sense, this is not necessarily a moral distinction. In the moral sense, evil is the fact or consequence of willed evil action by a mind that remains essentially good whose nature is good. (Routledge, p. 906) This is mainly the theist’s way of resolving the problem of evil, an answer for the issue of compatibility between God and the existence of evil.

God causes all the things which are done by a just or an unjust will, viz. , all good and evil deeds. In the case of good deeds he causes what they are [essentially] and the fact that they are good; but in the case of evil deeds he causes what they are [essentially] but not the fact that they are evil. (Routledge, p. 385). Immanuel Kant’s claim that cosmological argument presupposes ontological argument simply means that the former is dependent on the cogency of the latter argument.

Cosmological argument’s main premise is the existence of a contingent creation to a necessary cause of it. It is also related to the argument from design, according to which the orderly form of the world we observe around us can be explained only by the activity of an intelligent designer. Aside from this, Kant also argued that an a priori proof for the existence of God is available, i. e. , God could be demonstrated as the necessary ground of even the mere possibility of existence. Kant, logically, is right with this claim.

The ontological proof mainly depends on a priori concepts and even ideas, they are without empirical basis. For this particular proof, an idea isn’t proof of existence or simply thoughts cannot cause facts. As for the cosmological argument, as Kant formulated, “If there exists anything, there must exist an absolute necessary being also. Now I, at least exist; therefore there exists an absolutely necessary being. ” Kant basically argued that a priori and empirical basis, together, could prove the existence of God.

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