1 Vivian Ou Final Paper Assignment Considering that God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, the best answer to the problem of evil would be that humans have free will, which means we are the ones doing the evil, rather than God. God gave us human free will. This solution points to humans as the ones causing evil. It is still reasonable to consider God to be good even with the evil present since He is not the cause of evil. Despite the effectiveness of the solution, it is weak since it fails to address God's responsibility for evil since God gives us free will, and the amount of free will humans have appears to be overstated due to the expectation that we live up to certain standards set by society. Rather than focusing on God's imperfect omnipotence, this solution focuses more on humans as they are a source of evil. People can act both good and evil if they have free will because they have the freedom to do what they want. “By Boethius’ logic, we exercise free will only when we use reason and rational thought to come to our decisions. If we are making rational decisions, we are acting in our own best interests—we are pursuing happiness” (Villanova University, 8). It is in human nature to have an endless amount of goals and to strive to surpass others. This can sometimes mean harming those around us because sometimes it includes intentional acts such as harming oneself for the sake of success. As opposed to God's lack of omnibenevolence, the focus here is on human choice and not God's lack of benevolence. It cannot be said that God must assume all responsibility or that humans must assume full responsibility. Both sides need to assume equal amounts of responsibility. 2 Since God gives us free will and we can choose whether to act good or bad, it is reasonable to assume that God is responsible for some of the evil that we experience. For example, going out to shop with your friend and your friend asking you to steal a piece of clothing. Even though most likely you acted, it makes sense for your friend to assume half the blame because it was their idea and, if you and your friend are caught, it was their idea. It wouldn't have been possible to carry out that specific action without their idea. This is similar to how God is giving humans free will. In the beginning, God most likely gave us free will so we would only bring good to the world. If we were given an option of choice, God needs to recognize that if we choose the wrong choice, he is also responsible for our choices. Since we all have free will, God can not limit human behavior to only good choices in hope that we will not commit any evil acts. Although humans may bring evil into the world, God gave humans the choice to act evil. “The claim that God ‘‘permits’’ evil is probably unavoidable for Christians who confess creation from nothing, and thus that there is no factor alongside God that grounds created being; but in order to avoid any implication of divine complicity in evil, such language must be deployed very carefully” (McFarland, 325). Christian insight into how evil arises should not be used to suggest that Christians have any positive perspective on evil, let alone to explain God's relationship to evil, by maintaining the virtues of the trilemma, the three legs of Epicureanism can be addressed. First, no evil is intended or enacted by God since he is good. Second, the power of God to redeem evil is not beyond his grasp since his powers are unlimited, and third, no illusion exists when it comes to evil. Humans are presumptively expected to have a great deal of free will, however, in reality, such freedom is limited. In society, we are expected to act in certain ways, and we can never 3 always act the way we wish to because some of our actions are considered morally wrong. Because we're fully aware of actions that society already deems morally right and wrong, we are being restricted from using our free willfully in certain circumstances. Free will is not fully utilized by humans since they are aware of the given consequences of performing evil deeds. “Some see lying as a distinctive wrong; others see it as morally equivalent to deliberately omitting relevant truths, falsely insinuating, or any other species of attempted verbal deception.” (Barber, 141). Activities including murder, robbery, rape, lying, and breaking promises constitute morally wrong acts. An example of breaking a promise would be agreeing to hang out with your friend on Friday and when Friday rolls around you ditch your friend that you were supposed to hang out with for another friend. Although we as humans have free will, this is a morally wrong thing to do since you made a promise to hang out with your friend that day. When lying certain consequences could happen, for example, lying in a relationship. You can lose trust in your partner if they keep telling lies. The more lies they tell, the less you trust them or have faith in how honest they are. This shows how in society there are expected ways to act in certain situations and we can not act sometimes in a certain way because it is morally wrong to do so. As a society, we are aware of the morally wrong and right things to do and are restricted by certain circumstances. In conclusion, free will was given to humans by God. This solution suggests humans are responsible for evil. Despite God giving us free will, it does not analyze the ultimate responsibility for evil since we have free will, and it appears that society's expectations of us lead to an overestimation of human free will. Having free will means that people can act both good and evil because they are able to choose whatever they want to do. Because God created us with 4 free will and we have the choice whether to act good or bad, we can assume that He is responsible for some of the evil that we encounter in life. Our culture requires that we behave in certain ways, and sometimes our actions are considered morally wrong, so we cannot always act as we wish. 5 Works Cited Barber, Alex. “Lying, Misleading, and Dishonesty.” The Journal of Ethics, vol. 24, no. 2, Springer Netherlands, 2019, pp. 141–64, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-019-09314-1. McFarland, Ian A. “The Problem with Evil.” Theology Today (Ephrata, Pa.), vol. 74, no. 4, SAGE Publications, 2018, pp. 321–39, https://doi.org/10.1177/0040573617731711. Villanova University. “Do We Have Free Will? – Boethius101.” Boethius and the Consolation of Philosophy, boethius101.org/?page_id=46. Accessed 24 Apr. 2022.
