Why does God let people suffer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Why does God let people suffer - Essay Example The existence of a powerful and benevolent deity responsible for the design and creation of the world as well exercising power over the laws of nature has been debated by both skeptics and believers for millennia. Skeptics have often enquired; If God is all knowing all powerful and all good as most religions tend to believe, then it translates there should be no evil in the world because he would be able and willing to prevent its occurrence. Conversely, believers claim that despite his possession of the above attributes, he has given humanity freedom of choice, which would be moot, if he were to exercise these powers over them. David Hume’s articles attempts an explanation of the compatibility of God’s nature with the imperfection and evil that characterizes the world. Hume takes it for granted that God exists, his focus in the article is to determine if evidence of an infinitely good powerful and perfect God can be derived from the imperfect nature of the world. With inference form Hume’s work this paper will defend this claim that the nature and existence of a benevolent God cannot be deduced by humans from the natural and imperfect condition of the universe. In support of this claim, Hume puts forward several arguments to demonstrate the nature of Gods workmanship of the universe and the many flaws, which in the eyes of human intellect cannot logically be used as inference of benevolent God. The fact that pain exists and animals are doomed to suffer it is the first contrivance of evil in Gods supposed creation, through pain and pleasure animals are forced to become vigilant as they engage in the never ending routine of self-preservation. Hume posits that pain in unnecessary and should not rationally be used as the extreme opposite of pleasure. When an animal is hungry or thirsty for instance, instead of just feeling a reduction of the pleasure it briefly experienced should why should it feel the pain of this deficiency (Clark 82)? If the world was created by a benevolent and all-powerful God, should he not simply eliminate the pain that courses so much suffering and substitute it with absence of pleasures? The unpredictable and sometime s punitive character of our natural environment also makes it difficult for the human faculty to understand or accept that a benevolent creator could have been behind the universe’s design (Hume). The world is fraught with disasters many, which man can neither predict nor prevent and it would be logical to assume that God in his goodness would mitigate to either end them or turn them to the advantage of humanity. However, nature seems to follow no moral code and to some extent, it can be seen as evil, even immoral in its action and inactions. When adults die through accidents of disease, there is always an allowance from religious perspective that they could have died in penance for their sins, in most communities this is universally recognized if not accepted. However, illness also strikes innocent children who are incapable of doing wrong and therefore, why them would they suffer the same as those who knowingly commit sins. If the concept behind the belief in God and religi on is that we should lead righteous and moral lives and those who do not will be punished, indeed it is said that the wages of sin are death. Ironically, hurricanes, tornados, and pestilence do not select their victims and therefore one is forced to question whether there is any merit in the natural laws that coincides with religious moral expectations. What is the point of leading moral lives if the good and evil are treated with the same lethal indifference by nature and why would God make it so? Another example of what makes the universe so irrationally constructed is the frugality with which abilities are distributed with each animal having so little control over its own pleasure. Elephants are bestowed with great strength but lack speed, humans have great intellect (Compared to beasts) yet they would be helpless without the