I need some help with editing/suggestions/etc. please. This is for a first year university introductory Philosophy course. Important parts of the assignment to consider: 1.an opening paragraph clearly stating your topic, your readings, a brief statement of what you plan to do and absolutely nothing else 2.make the structure of your essay isomorphic to the essay question 3.avoid jargon words and bafflegab 4. when arguing your own view, you must keep your argumentation down to earth (restrict yourself to philosophical arguments everyone can relate to)
Question: Explain the basics of John Hick’s solution to the problem of evil (4 marks), then explain the basics of Hume’s argument from evil against the existence of God (4 marks), then argue whether Hume’s argument succeeds against Hick (4 marks).
I haven’t met the page requirement yet…think I still need about 400 words, but I don’t have an introduction yet and I think my conclusion needs expanded.
Here’s the essay:
John Hick defends the goodness and justice of God in spite of the existence of evil. He recognizes that “the most powerful objection to the belief in God is the fact of evil.” He allows that evil is real, because the Bible presents suffering, evil and injustice as such and not as mere illusion. In contrast to many skeptics’ belief that evil is unnecessary, Hick claims that it is and its purpose is to act as an obstacle to promote moral growth and progress. He feels that the skeptics’ argument rests on a pre-supposition that the beings we find on Earth are complete already and argues that we are not. Instead, he offers the Bible’s view that humans are incomplete and in the process of soul-building, which is why the humans are designed with free will and the world was designed with evil, to present a problem to make us think and grow. Furthermore, Hick pre-supposes that a human is defined by its free will and claims that without evil, our free acts and choices are mere illusion; if we were only capable of good or even had a tendency towards good, there would be no true choice to make, stripping us of both our free will and by definition our humanity. He continues on to say that since is evil is a necessary but unpleasant step in soul-building, there must be a just reward for this pain. Finding no evidence of this reward or perfect beings on Earth, he concludes that there must be an after-life to accommodate these, where just reward is given to balance out the pain and where God completes the soul-building process.
David Hume argues that a person not familiar or convinced of the existence of a Supreme Being cannot infer the goodness of such a creature upon examining the facts of nature and the problem of evil. He lays out four obvious circumstances that contradict that idea of an infinite, all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing Designer because the circumstances point to an imperfect design.
The first circumstances he presents argues that if there were such a Designer as described by the Christian faith that there would be no pain, because an infinitely loving Designer would not want to hurt His “children”. Hume argues that an omnipotent Designer would use only pleasure as a motivator: beings would derive pleasure from those things necessary for their existence and would ignore anything that did not cause pleasure, removing the necessity of pain in the world.
The second circumstance Hume presents is that the laws of nature seem to work against Earth’s creature. An omnipotent Designer would be capable of seeing all possible events and would alter them to render good. For example, no person would die if he or she fell from a tall building, because the Designer would alter the laws of nature to ensure no harm came to him or her.
The third circumstance causes the first two circumstances to be actual issues: the frugality of beings. Were every being well-endowed enough to always avoid pain and never cross paths with the laws of nature, the first two circumstances would not be problematic. However, it seems to Hume that each creature is endowed with only one or two faculties and is limited in all others. For example, humans are endowed with logic but not speed or strength; rhinoceroses are endowed with strength, but not much speed or logic.
Finally, the fourth circumstance argues that our world is not coherent and that the “parts” of this “great machine” do not work together. For example, if the Designer was as described, we would have no drought or flood, only perfect amounts of rain that would benefit us.
“The whole” of “blind nature”, Hick then argues, leads us to conclude that nature is not conscious and is both unaware and does not care of what happens to the beings on this Earth.
Hume’s argument succeeds Hick’s because he does not pre-suppose that Christianity is the answer. Instead, Hume presents four key circumstances that an outside observer could use to infer what kind of Designer (if any) designed our world. Additionally, as Stanley Kane says, “there is an inconsistency between Hick’s soul-making theory and his salvation belief. Soul-making emphasizes human freedom while Hick’s theodicy assures mankind that God will bring about human salvation”. Therefore, Hick’s argument is doubly flawed: it both pre-supposes to an answer when it should be objective and then contradicts itself. Hume takes more of a “scientific” approach to the problem, using evidence anyone can see and understand; additionally, any person who undertook the same “experiment” as Hume could also come to the same conclusion: that an infinite loving, all-powerful, all-knowing being cannot exist.
I don’t feel that the structure of my essay matches. Should I put all of the circumstances together into one paragraph to make it look more like my summary of Hick’s argument? How do I write an introductory paragraph…what sort of language should be used, what exactly am I arguing? That Hume’s argument succeeds Hick’s? Is any of the information inaccurate or mis-interpreted? Are there any key pieces, particularly from Hick’s argument, that I have missed? Any suggestions on how to beef out my concluding paragraph? Is my concluding paragraph at all coherent?
Any responses to these questions or any other suggestions would be very welcome. 
Thanks