Universality Of Evil Essay

Bad things happen to good people because evil exists. Evil exists due to the continuum of evolution and the eventual schism between humanity and nature; a division that resulted in the development of increased intelligence and therefore greater awareness and freedom (Griffin, 2001, pg. 120). This freedom has allowed for an extreme degree of self-regarding, which facilitated the capacity for evil; not in-itself, but for the self - individually and corporately (Hicks, 2001, pp. 44-45). Some theodicists claim that the problem of evil is only a problem when taken in context with theism (as defined by Davis “the belief that the world was created by an omnipotent and perfectly good being” (Davis, 2001, p. ix)) (Davis, 2001, p. x; Cobb Jr., 2001,

188) and Schopenhauer reiterates it quite pessimistically when he defines the world as “the battle-ground of tormented and agonized beings who continue to exist only by each devouring the other” (p. 263). This is the essence of evil which sprung from the earliest forms of human differentiation from nature. In the presence of perceived scarcity and threat, some must suffer so that others may flourish and further protect themselves from the threats of an arbitrary nature (Hicks, 2001, p. 44). This moral evil subsequently becomes universal as humankind proliferates and becomes universal itself in our landscape. While evils may appear in more trivial forms on the individual level across our temporal existence - they take on their full devastating impact when manifested on the corporate or collective level. As the development of human society has become more complex, so too have the justifications for perpetrations of moral evil. We can no longer look for justifications or sovereignty from God. The development of our character alone has granted us the capacity for acts of horror, and it is now the environment of our own creation within which they