The Problem of Evil
University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education, Undergraduate Philosophy Certificate, Assignment 7
Peter B. Lloyd
Is there any satisfactory way of reconciling the existence of an omnipotent and all-loving God with the existence of natural evil (i.e. evil not due to the misuse of human free will)? One of the central claims of the Judaeo-Christian tradition is the existence of an omnipotent and all-loving God. Against this is the observation that people and animals suffer evil. By common sense, we would infer from this observation that God, as conceived in this tradition, does not exist - for, if He did, He would prevent the evil. This inference is called the Problem of Evil by those who profess one of the religions in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and their attempts to 'solve' the problem have given rise to a labyrinth of sophistry.
Put briefly, the solution most commonly espoused to the Problem of Evil is
* Some suffering is caused by others' misuse of their own free-will (as in murder).
* God does not intervene to stop people freely choosing evil because:
o people can be virtuous only if they freely choose between good and evil;
o having virtuous people in the world is a greater good than eradicating evil;
o therefore God must allow people to be free;
o therefore evil inflicted by other people is the price that God demands that we pay to enable some people to be virtuous.
* Some suffering is caused by natural phenomena (as i ...