Back to Home

The Problem of Evil

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

Epicurus, as quoted in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Answers and Rebuttals

Answer	Rebuttal
Evil results from human free will	God could create free beings who always choose good, like heaven.
Suffering fosters spiritual growth	God could achieve the same ends with less suffering.
Evil leads to greater goods	This argument justifies any evil, and it is unfalsifiable. What is evil, and what is good?
Humans are too limited to make judgments about evil	This argument doesn't solve the problem. It only claims that it's unsolvable.
God didn't know that evil would occur	God is no longer omniscient. The Bible says that God knows the end from the beginning.

Despite numerous attempts to reconcile the existence of evil with the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God, Christianity (and theism in general) struggles to provide a satisfactory solution to this problem. Each proposed answer faces an unsolvable challenge.