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All 8 Flashcards — Arguments against God
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Question
The problem of evil?
Answer
A good God would want to stop suffering and a powerful one could — yet suffering is everywhere, so the three claims seem to clash.
Question
The free will / greater-good defence?
Answer
Suffering may buy something better — real freedom, courage, growth — that even a good God allows.
Question
The weak point of the greater-good defence?
Answer
The sheer scale of seemingly pointless suffering (a famine, an unseen animal's pain) is hard to tie to free choice or growth.
Question
The omnipotence paradox?
Answer
Can God make a stone too heavy for God to lift? Either answer leaves something God can't do.
Question
The usual reply to the omnipotence paradox?
Answer
'All-powerful' means doing all that's genuinely possible; a stone God can't lift is a contradiction, not a real thing.
Question
The argument from inconsistent revelations?
Answer
The world's religions describe God in clashing ways and can't all be right, with no neutral way to tell which is true.
Question
What does inconsistent revelations actually challenge?
Answer
Not God's existence, but our confidence that OUR picture of God is the correct one.
Question
The three challenges to belief in God?
Answer
Problem of evil (good+powerful God vs suffering), omnipotence paradox ('all-powerful' self-contradicts), inconsistent revelations (religions clash).
Read the notes
Full study notes for Arguments against God
Topic 5.1 hub
Nature and existence of God
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Philosophy exam skills
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