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The Existence Of God And The Problem Of Evil A Philosophical Evaluation
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In Islam, God is seen as one, prefect, uncreated,
eternal, omnipotent and creator of the most gracious, the most merciful,
the only owner and the only ruling judge of the day of recompense6
monotheistic religions, the charge has often been made that the
Christian notion of trinity in particular is at variance with the
oneness of God in monotheism. God is seen as the cause and creator of
everything, he knows everything and foreseen everything. He is an
embouchement of justice. In the words of Gerald Hawting "this God is
one, there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of God"7
In
the African Traditional religion especially in the Yoruba
socio-cultural Millie, the idea of God is different. God (olodumare) is
more akin to the Old Testament. Yahweh in his requirement of honesty and
uprightness. God is the creator, He creates both good and the evil. He
is the most powerful being. His ways are in comprehensible. J.S MBITI
assert the Yoruba consider God to be judge over all. J.A.I BEWAJI says
this about Olodumare:
There is no doubt that God is the most powerful
being Being and he has all the supernatural attribute one can Consider
but the Yoruba does not think such a being Cannot do evil or cause evil.
It is part of the attribute Of the supreme being to be able to utilize
all things.8
In a similar vein E.B Idowu Maintains that:
He is the most powerful being the creator, the wise impartial judge who exercises inexorable control over the universe.
J.A.I. Bewaji is also of the opinion that:
The
source of evil are God devised and help to maintain High moral standard
the Christian God is ever merciful, Slow to anger but quick to forgive.
In fact, he does not Desire the death of the sinners but that he repent
and Be saved. Whereas the Yoruba Olodumare is morally Upright God
who metes out justice here on earth and not necessarily in the
hereafter where we are not sure anybody will witness and learn from
it10.
The Nicholas and Cusha see God as an amalgam of good and evil.
Process theologian like whitehead conceived and the world as sharing the
same process and being dependent on each other for growth and
development. God is also considered as dipolar, having one aspect of his
being which is dependent of his world and another, which is completely
immersed into the world process and suffers with it. A process
of theology as implied he explains the exercise of evil and
suffering by extending to every level of creation the freedom to
respond or failure to respond to the persuasive law of God.
The
conception of God from the process philosophy selves two major problems
being faced by the Christian philosophers. These problems are; how can
an immaterial being or spiritual be the source of matter? To this, the
process philosophy explained by trying to remove the duality between God
and matter, an integral part of the divine being. The second solution
which the concept of God by the process philosophy solved is that of the
problem of evil. To this school of thought, God just means that he is
not the creator of evil.
Sigmund Freud conceive God as a product of
illusion. God is an illusion devised to plug the 100pholes of security
left by maturity above parental care. These various conceptions show
that God is subject to different interpretation.
1.3 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
Immanuel
cant maintained that the existence of God cannot at all be
demonstrated, yet neither can his existence be disproved. To kant,
God was considered to be an objective issue, one that is irrefutably a
matter of interpretation. He says that the idea of God grounds moral
beliefs, therefore we can make the practical assumption that God exists
to ensure the connection between virtue and happiness.
Frederick
Nietzsche rejected belief in God as weak and unreliable. Philosophers
like Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud tried to explain the personal motives of
believes and their origins, pointing out that this is not enough to
prove the existence of God. We have different argument for the existence
of God propounded by different philosopher’s right from the time of
Aristotle to Spinoza, and from one philosophical age to the other.
We
also have the theistic concept of God. The theists see God to be
unlimited with regard to knowledge that is omniscience. Power, he is
regarded to be omnipotent, and omnipresent. God is also regarded to be
sexless but he is been traditionally referred to with the masculine
pronoun.
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