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P 1) If God were to exist then that being would be all powerful all knowing, and all good (all PKG) P 2) If an all PKG being existed then there would be no evil. P 3) There is evil C) Hence there is no God derived Conclusion q Conclusion p qG? ? ? ? ? ? p? ? ? ? ? For this paper I am going to discuss Sobers schematization of the argument from evil.
The purpose of this argument is to disprove the existence of an all knowing, all powerful, and all good god. Throughout the course of this paper I am going to prove that this argument is sound, and that it does stand up to the soul building criticism. Before I can prove that this argument is indeed a sound one, I must first give a brief definition of the terms validity, and soundness. An argument is valid if and only if it is structured so that it is impossible for it to have true premises and a false conclusion at the same time.
An argument is sound if it is valid and its premises are true. it is important for an argument to be validly structured because then a stable conclusion can be derived from its premises. It is equally important for an argument to be sound, because if an argument premises arent true then it can be easily criticized and it will not be very persuasive. The argument from evil is a valid one. it is structured in a modus Tollens form which is a valid deductive form in propositional logic. it is characterized by the denying of the consequent which in turn denies the antecedent.
This can be seen in premise three. The consequent of premise two has been denied thereby denying the antecedent. However the antecedent of premise two is the consequent of premise one. Since it has been derived the antecedent of premise one must also be derived.
This argument consists of two modus topless argument put together and is indeed valid. Now that I have proven this argument to be validly structured I will show that its premises are true thus making it a sound argument as well. The first premise is true because it is a substantive definition. In other words this means that premise one is stating a widely accepted view of god as seen in some religions. The type of god being discussed in this argument is an all knowing all powerful, and all good being. All knowing means that this being knows everything that has happened in the past, is happening in the present, and will happen in the future.
All powerful means this being can interfere with or change everything that has happened in the past, is happening in the present, or will happen in the future. All good means that this being wants the consequence of every action to be Premise three states that evil in fact does exist. This statement is obviously true because evil events take place every day in this world. For example, babies die of cancer, hundreds of people die in earthquakes, people are tortured and raped by others, and hunger and poverty are rampant. This pain and suffering that people endure on a daily basis most definitely proves that evil does exist. Premise two states that if an all (PKG) god does exist then evil can not.
This is true because if an all (PKG) god did exist then since this being is all knowing it would always have the ability to detect evil, since this being is all powerful he would always be able to interfere with or change the event that lead to this evil. Therefore evil would not be able to exist because this god having the ability to prevent it would indeed do so. Now that I have proven this argument to be validly structured and its premises to be true, I can conclude this argument to be a sound one. However even though this argument is a sound one that is not to say that it goes without criticism. One of the strongest criticisms against this argument attacks the premise two, and basically says that an all (PKG) god would let some evil exist, if this evil were soul building.
Soul building evil is evil that when people suffer through it or witness it they are left with stronger characters. Evil which causes people to learn from their mistakes would be soul building. For instance say you walk around barefoot all the time and one day you step on a piece of glass. This painful experience would have taught you that you should not walk around barefoot because you could get hurt. Its plain to see that this is a strong criticism against the argument from evil.
However I believe there is a couple of ways Sober can get around this criticism. First of all if a (PKG) god did exist then their should be no need for soul building evil. Since this being gis all powerful it would have the ability to make us with the strong character and knowledge that soul building evil gives us from the beginning. Furthermore since this being is all good it would be more then willing to make us this way, because it would keep evil from existing. Second of all even if an all (PKG) god did allow soul building evil to exist, this evil still could not account for the excessive pain and suffering that human beings have endured throughout time. For instance, how did humans benefit from the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Nazi Concentration Camps during World War II?
How did the vast number of lives taken by the bubonic plague strengthen peoples character? what have we learned from the brutal sacrifices satanic cults perform on babies and other living creatures? I think it is clear that the evil that took place during these events were by far in excess of what was needed to teach us whatever we learned from them. Evils like these and many more humans endure every day ad I think it is ridiculously obvious that soul building evil can not account for all of it. Therefore I think the soul building criticisms does not disprove Sobers argument in the least.
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Research essay sample on Soul Building Evil Walk Around Barefoot Argument
