by Harry Tournemille

Created on: February 15, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

Perhaps the title of this subject is a little faulty, though I think it is interesting. Does God really punish evil? If so, what is the concrete evidence of this and could someone show beyond reasonable doubt that such punishment has occurred? I think the answer to these questions may be no, but first we must tackle free will.

The usual arguments have been brought to light: God provides free will so all his blessed little children can choose between him or the world, between good or evil. The ramifications of choosing evil, if this is what you believe, would be the byproducts visible today: murders, rapes, exploitation the weak, dishonesty etc. However, does this sort of free will really exist? The argument for the negative can be made.

Every decision we make today, whether it be something as simple as deciding on what movie to see at the theatre or as complex as deciding on the existence of God, is influenced by all the years and layers of events that have occurred to us previously. I do not wake up one morning and decide that I hate eating green peas for no reason. I attach memories of being forced to eat them as a child, or vomiting them up when I was sick years ago. These are what influence my opinion. Likewise with all other choices, we have come to our decisions based on how we've experienced the world around us previously.

But does this mean that all our choices are causal? Do we then have no free will at all? I would suggest that we do have some limited amount of free will, but it is not absolute. If I go to a store and decide to buy Coke instead of Pepsi, there is no-one standing there with a gun forcing me to choose one over the other. In the action of choosing itself, there is an element of freedom... even if the choice is influenced by previous experiences. This is called Compatibalism.

Now a problem arises when considering common perceptions of God. If our free will is limited, how does our decision to do good or evil become our responsibility? I don't have an answer to this, and I'm not sure anyone else does either, unless someone wants to concede that God has pre-chosen those who will be his own. But this still leaves the problem of evil.

If God punishes evil, where is the consistency? Why do so many acts of unmentionable evil occur? Why does the child still get abused? Why does the killer slip through the judicial system? Why do political leader's of wealthy nations exploit poorer nations for their resources? Why do natural disasters occur? Are these God's forms of punishment? If so, how are they not evil?

The big question: why does God's ultimate plan have to involve innocent, unnecessary suffering? Is this not evil? If he is an all powerful God, then why does he not prevent this? Does he choose not to prevent this? Would that make him an evil God? It's a difficult subject to broach. At some point, it would seem that God is allowing for evil to occur because he is incapable of achieving his goals without it. So then God is not all-powerful, but rather a powerful being with certain limitations. There is no evidence that God is punishing evil in the world today, even if some believe that he may do so in the future. The problem I see is that evil occurs all the time, perhaps due to free will, perhaps due to other influences, and yet the rationale for its existence is suspect.

But, I could be wrong.

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