Richard Swinburne's "The Problem Of Evil": God's Existence

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this world? If God consciously knew He was creating a world in which there
is evil, then He would not be omnibenevolent. If God did not know He was
creating a world in which evil exists, then He would not be omniscient. If God
is omnipotent then He would be able to stop any evil from occurring. Either way,
God would not be what Christianity makes him out to be. Swinburne argues that
the theodicist, one who believes that it is not wrong for God to create a world
in which there is evil, can logically explain the existence of evil in the world.

The main argument that the theodicist uses is the free-will defense, which
claims that God gave humans the freedom to choose between doing acts of good and
acts of evil. The theodicist argues that the good person could do is greater if
it is chosen instead of doing evil. It is better to choose to walk an elderly
person across the road instead of deciding to push the elderly person in front
of an oncoming car. The theodicist ...

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fit to make? For example, a man who is schizophrenic may hear
voices that tell him to do something that he knows is morally wrong, such as
kill somebody. Would it not be better for God to intervene and make this
person's judgement better? It most certainly would be better for God to
intervene and give this person a proper sense of right and wrong and the ability
to do the right thing. It would have been a better world if God had created
Hitler so that he would not feel the need to order the massacre of millions of
Jews. Swinburne, however, thinks that it is better for these people to have a
choice to do wrong or to do right.
Swinburne argues that, although evils are bad, their ...

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