Problem of evil

In the philosophy of religion and theology, the problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent god.

Related Topics:
Philosophy of religion - Theology - Evil - Omniscient - Omnipotent - Benevolent - God

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The problem of evil arises from the supposition that a perfectly good god would not have created a world containing evil, or would not permit its continued existence in the world, and that an omniscient and omnipotent god should be able to arrange the world according to his intentions. Since evil manifestly exists, it would seem that a god intends it to exist. Therefore such a god is either not perfectly good, not omniscient, or not omnipotent. With the further premise that if a god exists, it must be perfectly good, omniscient, and omnipotent, one can conclude from the existence of evil that no god exists.

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Epicurus is credited with first expounding this problem, and it is sometimes called the Epicurean paradox (or the riddle of Epicurus) — although the argument is not really a paradox or a riddle, but rather a reductio ad absurdum of the premises. Epicurus drew the conclusion that the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of the gods. More generally, no paradox or problem exists for those who do not accept the premises, in particular the existence of a god or gods (or their benevolence if they do exist).

Related Topics:
Epicurus - Paradox - Riddle - Reductio ad absurdum

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There are a great number of variants of the problem of evil, including inductive variants, logical variants, evidential variants, soteriological variants, arguments from natural law, pain and pleasure, and more. For more, see Theodicy.

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