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Hick’s argument seemed valid to me and more easy to understand compared to Rowe’s. I think Hick’s argument was stronger because he provided contradictions to the points he was making. For example he makes the point, “If by a free action we mean an action which is not externally compelled but which flows from the nature of the agent as he reacts to the circumstances in which he finds himself, there is, indeed, no contradiction between our being free and our actions being “caused” and therefore being in principle predictable.” He then goes on to provide contradictions (“there is a contradiction, however, in saying that God is the cause of our acting….”) so it is easier to see all the the facets of the statement in this manner. I also particularly liked some of the ideas Hick’s presented. His idea on negative theodicy (justify god’s goodness with the fact of evil in the world) really made sense to me. Evil exists, therefore god must exist and serve to shield us from evil, observe the evil, or mediate it for us. I also particularly liked his idea about soul-making. We need every experience the world has in order to grow. Lastly his response to the problem of evil seemed very strong to me: that the idea of moral evil in fact lies in the problem of free will.

In Haslanger’s video “The Problem of Evil,” she presents the idea of contradictory beliefs. I think this is a great compliment to Rowe’s article “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” because it helps to simplify some of the ideas that Rowe presents across a visual medium. She supports the idea that no matter what God’s intentions are by allowing there to be evil, it means that he is not omnipotent and benevolent. Even though Hick does make good points, I think the combination of Rowe and Haslanger suggests that theists should concede that God is either omnipotent or benevolent, but not both. Hick uses extreme examples of a world without evil (a knife turning to paper) when somebody could just logically argue that God would prevent the killer from attempting to stab someone in the first place.

When I first read Rowe’s “Problem of Evil” I was completely convinced to accept his viewpoints and could not think of many ways to argue against what he was saying about athiesm. However, when I read Hick’s argument for thiesm, I found myself agreeing even more with his opinions and logical conclusions. Overall, I think Rowe’s argument contained more logic, but much of the logic was difficult for a new philosophy student to fully grasp whereas Hick used less logic but much of what he was saying was relatable and he put up a good defense against possible counter arguments. His argument included an explanation of what free will really means, soul-making/moral development, and how “a world without evil would be the worst of all possible worlds”. An argument against Hick’s theodicy that was brought up in class was, “If there was a God, why wouldn’t he limit the amount of evil in our world?” And in my opinion, an answer would be that you simply cannot limit evil, there either is or isn’t and since there is obviously evil present in our world, some evils will present themselves as worse than others, and some evils will seem like they are impossible to explain. The matter is – evil is evil and it is present without the full and total understanding of why exactly it is here.

Hick explains that the evil is present because of the manifestations of human sin and for soul-making purposes. There are some counter arguments for why these reasons may not be sound, but I believe more arguments could be made toward Rowe’s argument, which is why I believe Hick’s argument for theodicy makes for a better understanding of the problem of evil and the logic behind his argument and many of his claims makes the most sense.

I felt that both Rowe and Hick both had valid arguments and both supported their logic with soundness but I felt that Hick was more open to the logic behind a possible counter argument than Rowe was. Hick, throughout his paper, mentioned and argued for both points–God’s existence and His non-existence. Hick, in my opinion, made it a point to show his readers both perspectives which I think made the excerpt better to understand and yet, he still manages to get his point across. He argues the existence of God very logically. He basically mentions all the examples that typically  are used to argue God’s existence then he continues to use logically charged arguments to state his view points. I think that Hick’s use of the various view points and how he uses it to prove his real argument give him more validity than Rowe’s did. Rowe just stated many hypothetical examples with not many counterarguments. I think because of that, it just showed one perspective that a counterargument would be easy to use. Hick, on the other hand, I felt used many more common viewpoints and a logical argument to back up his ideas. He also, at the same time, never says that God flat out exists, he just offers arguments and validity that suggest that God most likely does exist. In my opinion, I think that Hick had better logical reasoning and enforcement of his ideas.

I found Hick’s argument that justifies the presence of evil in our world and uses that justification to point to God’s existence to actually be more coherent than Rowe’s opposite stance. However, I found what I thought to be a flaw in Hick’s explanation. Hick argues that evil is essentially a byproduct of good, that is exists because good exists, which I completely agree with. Good and evil can only exist because of the relativity they provide. I do have a problem with Hick’s assertion of a definitive good and evil, which he explains on pages 44-45. Hick presents a world in which all is “good” in order to prove a point about the necessity of evil. However, using his previous argument that good and evil are relative, we cannot assume that what is good in our world would be good in this utopia that he has fathomed. When I wake up in the morning, I think it would be awful, an injustice, if I missed a meal that day, and that it would be good if I had a nice juicy steak for dinner. A starving person wakes up in the morning and thinks that it would be awful if they didn’t eat for the third straight day and good if they got their hands on anything to eat. Good and evil are relative, and they rely on our perception of the world. If our world was altered, so would our perception of good and evil, and thus there will always be good and evil whether or not a God does or does’t exist. So in the world that Hick proposes, perhaps something that we view now as “semi-good” would become evil, in light of the much “better” things that are occurring.

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