Rowe and Swinburne
In Rowe's treatment of the problem of evil in the world he uses a rationally probabilistic argument to prove that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being. He uses massive evidence to show that it is more probable than improbable that the God of Christianity and Judaism does not exist. For his evidence he uses the prevalence of massive, unnecessary, and intense human and animal suffering that occurs daily. Such suffering is clearly evil, but if it does lead to some greater good, then we might just say that the suffering is justified. Even so, Rowe, taking the immense human and animal suffering as a clear instance of evil, can make a rationally probabilistic argument for atheism. First he writes that, "There are instances of intense suffering which and omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse (Snyder 2)." That is to say that with the amount of intense suffering in the world daily, each instance of suffering could not be so intimately connected to some greater good that the God of Christianity could not have obtained it without allowing such suffering. I cannot imagine the roundabout goodness that
For Rowe to ask why there can not be a world of less suffering is not wholly absurd, but in application to Richard Swinburne's argument, it seems that in trivializing the suffering and great evil in the world then you trivialize the good that can come, because you cannot have actions of significant greatness with our the possibility of significant evil. Evil in our world in not punishing or purposeless, in our pain and frustration we gain, and become better, and stronger, physically and mentally. The removal of any evil or possible evil in the world takes away one more actual good, and in reducing the severity of evil in the world you must conversely be removing the level of goodness that can be achieved. It must be obvious then, that it is better for one to live a life and endure considerable pain for the possibility of greater goodness, than it would be to live a fleeting inefficacious life, where you existence is trivial at best. In treating these statements, Swinburne starts by talking about fulfillment, and desire. He states that evil is the frustration of desires, and the older and more sophisticated we get, the harder it is to fulfill desires. This will lead us to pain, because our desires become increasingly more complex and harder to fill, and as our level of satisfaction grows, conversely, our level of pain and sacrifice will also grow. Surviving in our world today we delay pleasure, and endure pain to reach goals.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 973
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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