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What is the absence of good?
Is evil the absence of good?
Can good exist without evil?
Is evil merely an absence or corruption of good?
What is evil if all things were made with goodness?
What does Aquinas say about good and evil?
Oct 7, 2023 · In this view, evil is not merely the absence of good, but a force that actively opposes and subverts goodness. Proponents of this theory claim that evil has its own motivations and intentions, capable of perpetuating itself without the presence of good.
Jan 20, 2024 · Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good. In his insightful statement, Thomas Aquinas postulates that good can exist independently of evil, whereas evil relies on the existence of good.
- Two Aspects of The Problem
- Digging A Hole in Goodness
- Flawed Perfection
- The Best of All Worlds
- A Heavenly Twist
- Spoiled Goodness
The problem of evil can be phrased in several ways. One approach addresses the origin of evil, prompting the syllogism (a series of statements that form a reasoned argument): 1) God created all things; 2) evil is a thing; 3) therefore, God created evil. If the first two premises are true, the conclusion is inescapable. This formulation, if sustaine...
Central to Augustine’s idea of goodness (and, consequently, evil) was the notion of being. To Augustine, anything that had being was good. God as the ground of being was perfectly good, along with everything he brought into being. This goodness was a property that came in varying degrees. With this foundation Augustine was now prepared to answer th...
Augustine’s solution has not been satisfying to some. Friedrich Schleiermacher snorted at the concept that God gave good creatures the freedom to do bad. If a being is perfect in its goodness, he held, it would never sin even if it were free to. Evil would then have to create itself ex nihilo, which is ridiculous.7 However, it doesn’t follow that m...
A world that had never been touched by evil would be a good place, but it wouldn’t be the best place possible. The best of all worlds would be a place where evil facilitated the development of virtues that are only able to exist where evil flourishes for a time. This would produce a world populated by souls that were refined by overcoming evil with...
This observation reveals an interesting twist in this problem. If morality freely chosencan only happen in a world where evil is possible, then heaven will be a place where there will be no moral growth, where moral choices will not be possible because all the inhabitants of heaven will be immutably good. There is a type of soulish growth only avai...
Augustine knew that evil was real. Independent evidence (natural theology) was enough to convince him that God existed and that everything He created would be good. Evil, then, must be something real, but not a “thing” in the conventional sense. Evil is not a created thing, but spoiled goodness made possible by the free moral agency of rational cre...
The Absence of good is a philosophical theory which considers evil to be a lack of something, rather than a object, or entity, like good is. This means that everything in the universe is usually good, and the lack of it is what we call evil.
One resolution to the problem of evil is that God is not good. The evil God challenge thought experiment explores whether an evil God is as likely to exist as a good God. Dystheism is the belief that God is not wholly good. Maltheism is the belief in an evil god.
Aug 19, 2023 · Augustine’s association of all goodness with God carries significant implications for understanding evil, which he sees not as a substance but a deprivation or absence of good. The existence of evil, then, is not a contradiction to a benevolent God but a departure from the intended goodness.
Mar 20, 2022 · Augustine deals with the problem posed by the existence of evil in world created by a good and omnipotent God by asserting that evil does not actually exist. Rather, creation is fundamentally good, and evil is merely the absence of good.
