Essay on "God Creation and Evil"

Quoted Instructions for "God Creation and Evil" Assignment:

God, creation and evil

I need an essay according to the criteria in the bottom abut only ONE of these movies

Oh God! (1978)

Director: Carl Reiner

This film is helpful for understanding the divine attributes and, to lesser extent, the problem of evil.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Director: William Shatner

This movie is useful in grasping the concept on Omnicompetence of possible contrast its message with that of Solaris.

The Rapture (1991)

Director: Michael Tolkin

This film uniquely expresses issues pertinent to faith, religious pluralism, and problem of evil.

Dogma (1999)

Director Kevin Smith.

This film raises issues pertaining to faith and, to a lesser extent, the divine nature.

Solaris (2002)

Director: Steven Soderbergh

This film raises a number of issues including ineffability, the divine nature and afterlife.

How to develop your essay

Once you*****ve formulated the issue on which you wish to focus and briefly described how it arises in the film, you should review some of the alternative *****˜answers***** that have been given to your major issue. For example, consider the differences among how a skeptic, a realist, and a Buddhist might interpret the issue presented in the film. Generally, you*****ll probably find that the film itself adopts or suggests a particular approach to the issue. Identify what that is if you can, and then consider the limitations of that approach in light of other possible ones. You might even ask yourself in what ways the film might have been different had it adopted other possible viewpoints on the issue. (Feel free, for instance, to suggest *****˜alternative endings***** that more agree with your own viewpoint.)

How to organize your essay

Formulate a philosophical issue that it raises, noted the perspective on the issue adopted by the film, and then considered some alternatives to that perspective. To organize your essay, you*****ll need to formulate an argument like this:

1) Introduction: A brief account of the manner in which the philosophical issue you want to explore presents itself in the film together with a presentation of the issue in more general terms. (For instance, *****In Indecent Proposal, a young married couple receives an offer from a wealthy and attractive man that the wife spend one night with him for a million dollars. The ethical issue is whether a sufficient sum of money (and the benefits for them it can buy) can justify their breaking of their marriage promises. At the most general level, the issue is whether moral commitments like promises can be justifiably broken if the consequences of doing so are sufficiently beneficial.)

2) A statement about the position adopted by the film. (For instance, this film seems to suggest that accepting the *****˜proposal***** was morally justifiable so long as their relationship was strong enough to survive the *****˜infidelity***** *****“ although I admit that someone else might read this a different way.)

3) Reasons why you agree or disagree with the viewpoint presented by the film. For this, you can refer to some of the readings and class materials.

4) Conclusion.

Please consider the following concepts:

*****¢ We can*****t *****˜rationally believe***** a contradiction.

*****¢ We can*****t *****˜rationally believe***** something the sole justification for which is based on authority (like religious scriptures), even though

*****¢ Authority may still count among the justifications.

The belief in God, that is, a *****˜divine (infinite, perfect, etc.) being***** is the cornerstone of most religious faith in the Western tradition. Philosophers note two closely interrelated questions on this issue:

(1) Are there any rational grounds upon which to believe that *****˜God exists*****? i.e. Are there any sound arguments for God*****s existence?

(2) What is the *****˜nature***** of God? (On this score, they ask whether the very *****˜concept***** of God is contradiction-free or not?)

The Ontological Argument

The Cosmological Argument

The Argument from *****˜Intelligent Design'

The Classical Argument of God and Evil:

(1) God is all knowing and all good but lacked the power to create a perfect world (He*****s a great guy but limited in *****˜his***** abilities)

(2) God is all powerful and all good but not all knowing (He did his best and intended well but could not foresee the consequences of his plans)

(3) God is all powerful and all knowing but deliberately created things to exist in an imperfect state. (He*****s able and knowledgeable but is playing games with us.)

(The point is that if we acknowledge the world to be less than perfect, then, at best, God can only possess two of the three major attributes; hence the very concept of God in most religious traditions is confused if not contradictory.)

*****¢ The concept of the Ineffability of God.