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Epicurus was not an atheist, although he rejected the idea of a god concerned with human affairs; followers of Epicureanism denied the idea that there was no god. While the conception of a supreme, happy and blessed god was the most popular during his time, Epicurus rejected such a notion, as he considered it too heavy a burden for a god to have to worry about all the problems in the world.
The Epicurean paradox or riddle of Epicurus or Epicurus' trilemma is a version of the problem of evil. Lactantius attributes this trilemma to Epicurus in De Ira Dei , 13, 20-21: God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able.
God is a spiritual, (not corporeal), Being who is sovereign over other lesser beings because God created material reality ex nihilo. Augustine's view of evil relies on the causal principle that every cause is superior to its effects. [175]: 43 God is innately superior to his creation, and "everything that God creates is good."
This type of trilemma argument (God is omnipotent, God is good, but Evil exists) was one favoured by the ancient Greek skeptics, and this argument may have been wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius, who, from his Christian perspective, regarded Epicurus as an atheist. [87]
However, if Epicurus did write a discussion on the specific problems that Hume attributes to him, it would not have been tied with the question of an omnibenevolent and omniscient God, as Hume assumes (for Hume does not cite, nor make any implication that he had knowledge of Epicurus's writings on this matter that held any greater weight than ...
Epicurus was a pagan philosopher whose views contradicted Jewish scripture, the strictly monotheistic conception of God in Judaism, and the Jewish belief in the World to Come; see Epicureanism § Philosophy. The Talmudic interpretation is that the Aramaic word is derived from the root-word פק"ר (PQR; lit.
Free will in antiquity is a philosophical and theological concept. Free will in antiquity was not discussed in the same terms as used in the modern free will debates, but historians of the problem have speculated who exactly was first to take positions as determinist, libertarian, and compatibilist in antiquity. [1]
(3) This requires that God remain hidden, otherwise, freewill would be compromised. (4) God created an epistemic distance (such that God is hidden and not immediately knowable), in part, by the presence of evil in the world, so that humans must strive to know him, and by doing so become truly good. Evil is a means to good for three main reasons: