The Problem of Evil

The Problem of Evil

A) For what reasons may suffering create philosophical problems for a

religious believer? (10)

B) Outline two solutions to these problems and comment on their

success (10)

A) The problem of suffering has been around since the dawn of time, or

as religious philosophers believe; since Adam and Eve first sinned in

the Garden of Eden. The first problem that arises from evil is that we

believe that the God of classical theism has certain attributes. These

are that:

· God is all powerful (Omnipotence)

· God is all loving (Omnibenevolence)

· God is all knowing (Omniscience)

· God creates ex-nilho (out of nothing)

· God is infinite

The last point is not as important in this discussion; the others are

the main points in the arguments for and against evil in the world. I

will attempt to get an argument for each of the points above.

First off, the attribute of God being all loving causes a problem

because it is said that if God is all loving then he should surely

want to end all of the suffering that occurs in the world, just as an

all loving God would surely not have wanted such evil things to happen

to his only son Jesus. Another problem that arises from these points

above is that if God is all knowing, then surely he has the knowledge

to be able to stop the suffering in the world, he would be able to

come up with a solution to these problems. Again, another problem that

arises is that if God is all-powerful, then he again should posses the

power to be able to stop evil and suffering from occurring. If God

created the world in the first place and you would have thought that

he would hav...

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...God? If all humans are going to heaven like it is

said in this argument, then why does God enable humans to suffer? If

God were omnipotent, we would have the virtues without having to

suffer. There is also no explanation of extreme suffering that occurs

to the human race, for example the holocaust. The Theodicy does take

into account the theory of evolution, however this is an inadequate

response to the problem of evil.

This Theodicy again is fairly successful in explaining the problem of

evil because it does take into account evolution, and also the

survival of the fittest, however, this response is inadequate for the

problem of evil because it does not really take into account extreme

suffering that has occurred and also some natural disasters that have

occurred over the years that were not necessarily foreseeable.