Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

arguments against.

The earlier argument has suggested that for the most part God is unnecessary as an explanation for the physical universe. God has only been used to fill in the gaps in our knowledge, and is no longer needed as a Creator or ‘first cause’. Whilst these observations may be true, they do not necessarily preclude God's existence.

A second argument against God's existence is essentially a moral objection and concerns the amount of suffering in the world — both in the human realm and in nature. How, it is argued, could a good God allow such suffering to take place? Notice firstly that the assumption is made that God is good. This argument is really not concerned with God's existence so much as with the nature of God. However, many find the suffering in the world so abhorrent that they would prefer not to believe in God at all than to try to reconcile that suffering with God's existence. The answers often put forward to this problem are — God is unable to prevent the suffering, or — God could prevent it but chooses not to — or, God deliberately causes the suffering for reasons not clear to humanity. The Christian answer is usually along the lines of the second option, but it is difficult to escape from the idea that God must cause much suffering if one is to accept God as Creator. To say that God allows human suffering for the sake of our moral improvement is a suggestion which many justifiably find distasteful. Also, there is the problem that God at times seems to intervene to prevent suffering. In many ways this raises even more difficulties than if God were to do nothing, since it leads inevitably to asking why

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