19/09/2009

On the nature of evil

I found this post on the nature of evil at Aydin's Snail's Tales blog. A great piece of enlightened thought from the 1870s.

The existence of evil is then a terrible stumbling-block to the Theist. Pain, misery, crime, poverty, confront the advocate of eternal goodness, and challenge with unanswerable potency his declaration of Deity as all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful. Evil is either caused by God, or exists independently; but it cannot be caused by God, as in that case he would not be all-good; nor can it exist independently, as in that case he would not be all-powerful. Evil must either have had a beginning or it must have been eternal; but, according to the Theist, it cannot be eternal, because God alone is eternal. Nor can it have had a beginning, for if it had it must either have originated in God, or outside God; but, according to the Theist, it cannot have: originated in God, for he is all-good, and out of all-goodness evil can not originate; nor can evil have originated outside God, for, according to the Theist, God is infinite, and it is impossible to go outside of or beyond infinity.

To the Atheist this question of evil assumes an entirely different aspect. He declares that each evil is a result, but not a result from God or Devil. He affirms that by conduct founded on knowledge of the laws of existence it is possible to ameliorate and avoid present evil, and, as our knowledge increases, to prevent its future recurrence.

Charles Bradlaugh. 1874. A few words about the devil: and other biographical sketches and essays.

1 comments:

Kirk Yetton said...

Alvin Platinga does a pretty good job of showing the evil does not mean that an all-loving, all-powerful God does not exist. I can't quite remember the title of the book, but I'll look it up and get back to you.

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