God and the Problem of Evil
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Everyday it is possible to read a newspaper, or turn on TV or radio news and learn about evil going on in our world. Banks are robbed, cars are stolen, violent murders and rapes are committed. Somewhere in the world the aftershock of an earthquake is being felt. Cancer is killing millions of people each year, while other debilitating conditions continue to affect many with no cure to end their suffering. President Bush said that our country is fighting a war against evil. We all agree that evil is real and cannot be ignored; the problem comes when we try and rationalize the concept of God and evil coexisting.
Two types of evil exist in our world today. Natural evil occurs when earthquakes, hurricanes, and storms occur causing devastation in the world. Moral evil occurs when a person makes a choice as to how he will act in a certain situation. Everyday moral decisions are made. People decide whether to steal, give in to anger and harm another, falsify information, and behave in a way unacceptable to society.
The problem of evil is this; If God is loving, then he would want to end evil; and if he is all-powerful he would be able to do just that. Since evil exists, how can God be both omnipotent and loving? The Christian Science answer to this question is that evil is an illusion of the human mind. The Judaic/Christian faiths do not hold to this theory. The Bible is full of descriptions of good and evil in human life. Evil is pictured as dark and ugly. The ultimate example of evil for the Christian is the crucifixion of Jesus, a violent rejection of Gods Messiah. St. Augustines view is that the universe is good, (a creation of a good God and meant for a good purpose). He does not hold to the belief that matter is evil. He believes that there are higher, and lower, greater, and lesser goods in abundance and variety. “Everything is good in its own way, except that it may have become spoiled or corrupted.” Whether the evil is an instance of pain, or some disorder in nature, it is the distortion of something intrinsically valuable. Since evil is negative, logic would reason that it was not willed or created by God. Why does an all-powerful God allow suffering and pain? What about moral evil? Why was a world created in which such things exist?
One defense for evil is the free-will defense. This says that people are relatively free, self-directing agents, and responsible for their own decisions. We have the choice to decide to act in an acceptable manner, or in a wrong manner. There is no guarantee that a free moral agent will never choose wrongly. For a person to say that God should not have created people with the ability to choose sin, is saying he should not have created people at all. J.L. Mackie contends that God could have indeed created beings that would act freely (but always right). If this had happened we would not be free, but more like robots. If God had created creatures of superior moral character but lacking the ability to choose, these creatures would not be what we call human beings.
How we view the presence of God and evil depends on why we believe the world was created. If man is a fully created creature then the world was created for him to live in, a comfortable, pleasant place. Our world is obviously filled with suffering, danger, hardship of all kinds, so an all-powerful God could not have created it. To Christians the world is not a paradise where one can experience the maximum of pleasure and a minimum of pain. The world is a place of “soul making” or person making. As we try and understand the challenges of our lives, and our environment we may become “Children Of God”.
How different our lives would be if we lived in a world with no pain and no suffering. No one could ever again injure another person. The person with a gun filled with anger intent on killing another would find his bullets harmless. The drunk driver would no longer kill innocent children because he chose to drink and drive. The child riding his bike would not be injured when he had an accident. The repairperson who must climb up poles to diagnose electrical problems would no longer be in danger. No one would have to work, because there would be no harmful effects of not having a job. No concern would ever need to be expressed for neighbors or those