Interdisciplinary Studies on the Human Condition
As a result, Kant believed that people can distinguish what is good from what is bad, as an innate ability. He believed in a hardened inclination waiting to be shaped by events that merely externalize this inclination towards what defines the character and virtues of an individual. Regarding the existence of God, Nietzsche believes that having doubts and prejudices about God is good, it is honest and honesty is a human virtue that is often encouraged by religion. So, questions like: “Does God exist if there is so much evil in the world?” are not only natural to us, but they are also mysteries that, in some cases, help strengthen our values. This is considering that religion gives a sense of purpose and moves society away from a completely nihilistic vision. Thus, we can come to the somewhat hasty conclusion that the presence of evil is not good evidence to decide that God does not exist because without free will, it is possible we would not ask such questions. However, we can still believe that this freedom is an illusion induced by an all-powerful being, and we end up at the same point where we started from. Toma de Aquino believed that people are naturally born with free will, God leaving the possibility for people to do good or evil as they please. This idea correlates with Aristotle’s concept that people are or should be inclined to the good as a general life mission. On the other hand, in this aspect Socrates and Plato have different theories. We trust that people act through their beliefs that are based on what they know, concrete things, however such notion is not accepted considering that if we could act only on what we believe and nothing more, there would be a much wider lack of morality. Thus, the belief of free will is debatable. Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that God makes everything good, as well, and that humans have free will to be able to make the final decision. Basically, we take factors, good conditions and we can metamorphose them into something evil, thus people being the essence or at least a major contributing factor of evil. Regardless of the existence of free will, considering the proportion of evil, we could consider that God — who is, in most religions, the absolute good — is non-existent. However, in most beliefs God also
42
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting