Basic Problem with Evil

Basic Problem of Evil

The problem of evil is an argument for the nonexistence of God. The basic argument from evil against the existence of God goes as follows: premise one states God is perfect, premise two states a perfect being would not allow unnecessary evil, premise three states there is unnecessary evil and therefore the conclusion is there is no God. Presumably, if there where such a perfect being, namely God, He would not allow unnecessary suffering in the world, yet everyday new occurrences of suffering and evil are presented in the media, such as starvation, multiple murders, even extreme child abuse. In many of these cases, only innocent victims are affected. The argument from evil against the existence of God argues that a perfect being, God, would not allow this kind of unnecessary evil or innocent suffering, therefore, God does not exist.

One common defense to the argument from evil against the existence of God is the free-will defense. The free-will defense allows the existence of God and the existence of unnecessary evil and suffering to be reconciled with one another. The argument is that God created human beings with a free-will in order to choose between alternative actions or choices, for example choosing between good and evil actions. If God created a world in which he chose to intervene every time something evil was about to happen, we would not be truly free to choose between good and evil. In order to be ultimately free we must have the possibility to choose an act of evil. It is not possible to create truly free beings, yet limit their ability to do evil actions. Therefore, the existence of willed evil can be reconciled with the existence of God in that He must allow truly free beings to have the capability of doing evil acts.

The free-will defense can also be applied to natural evil, which can be defined as evil that is not a result of the will of humans, such as natural disasters or disease. There are two possibilities that can allow for the reconciliation of natural evil with the existence of God. The first possibility is that men are in fact responsible for natural disasters by the claim that God has linked the amount of evil in nature to the goodness of man in such a way that when the totality of man-willed evil increases, so does the amount of natural evil in the world. Thus, when natural evil occurs it is a direct result of the behavior of mankind. The second possibility is that there exist other human-like free beings, namely angels, to which God has largely entrusted the care of the world. An angel who has chosen with his free-will to do evil is named a fallen angel. It can be assumed that all evil that is not a result of mankind's free will is a result of a fallen angel's free-will. But, just as it is morally impermissible for God to intervene with mankind's free will, so it is for Him to intervene with the free-will of a fallen angel.

I do not think the problem of evil can be solved in the sense