Summary: Divine Evil by David Lewis
Main argument
The text by Lewis is about the evils God fails to avert, including the misery and pain individuals go through every day and how such suffering relates to the sins of the people. Therefore, the entire text is based on the argument that God does very little in preventing people’s suffering and evil. All the stories highlighted in the text direct the reader towards the many reasons why God is the primary cause of all evils and misery.
Main Points
The text highlights some significant points, which support the main argument.
• The author discusses the standard versions, which focus on the evil that God fails to stop and those he executes himself. Starting with the evils God perpetrates, the author refers to the orthodox story, which prescribes the eternal torment or punishment for insubordination (Lewis 232). Based on this story, the author emphasizes that God is capable of doing something worse than any form of suffering and evil that happens on earth. In opposition to this story, Lewis argues that if lack of faith can lead to eternal torment, then there is no justice in case someone who lived an honest life will be tortured merely because he/she failed to believe.
• The author also argues that God is responsible for damnation. If he wants people to lead righteous lifestyles, he should then remove all the evils from their lives because it is those evils that put some people into positions of damnation. The text further indicates that if God is worthy of worship or he exists, then he should inform every one of the right ways to avoid the eternal torment (Lewis 233)
• Under universal salvation, the author argues that God could have saved himself from the accusation of the unnecessary eternal torment by creating other ways of converting the resisters. Because he is the omnipotent, God could have devised psychological ways through which the resisters or those who do evil are saved to believers thus acquiring salvation (Lewis 235).
• The author argues that most Christians appear to be decent people worthy of respect from the non-Christians. However, he further notes that the fact that these believers admire a God who is responsible for all evils, sufferings, and torment then their beliefs and practices become evil and less-admirable (Lewis 239).
• The author concludes that the non-believers perceive the believers as people who are poor discerners, unable to identify the dark side of their deity (Lewis 242).
Interesting and uninteresting portions of the reading
Even though I might disagree with a significant portion of this text, I find the part

Find a relation between culture, innovation, development, and creat...