The Problem Of Evil

The issue of evil and suffering in our world poses a serious challenge to the belief in a God, both from western and non-western perspectives. The problem of evil also called the problem of suffering, is an argument against the existence of God and is fundamentally the main argument for God’s non-existence by an atheist. In the western world, it is unmistakable that many theists believe in an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. However, these set of beliefs cannot all be true at the same time, leading to a contradiction of the attributes of God. The theory goes as follows: an omniscient God would know evil exists and might know about it before it even happens. Evil describes all manner of illness, from natural disasters to the impulse …show more content…
The epicurean paradox or riddle of Epicurus, invented by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, sought to deconstruct the logical problem of evil by listing four possibilities. “God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or he is able and is unwilling, or he is neither willing nor able, or he is both willing and able. If he is willing and is unable, he is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if he is able and unwilling, he is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if he is neither willing nor able, he is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if he is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? Or why does he not remove them?” (Lactantius, …show more content…
The ‘evidential’ problem of evil developed by William Rowe states that the existence of evil makes God’s existence unlikely or improbable; however Alvin Plantingo reasons that a good being may have morally sufficient reasons for not eliminating evil. A parent, for instance, will not protect his or her child from all evil because an experience of some evils is necessary for the child’s development.Theodicy is the attempt to resolve the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God. Therefore it accepts that both evil and God exist and that if God is able to remove evil, then why doesn’t he do