Conflict Between God And Evil Essay

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (Lewis, 1994, p. 91). Throughout history man has had to struggle with the problem of evil. It is one of the greatest problems of the world. Unquestionably, there is no greater challenge to man’s faith then the existence of evil and a suffering world. The problem can be stated simply: If God is an all-knowing and all-loving God, how can He allow evil? If God is so good, how can He allow such bad things to happen?Why does He allow bad things to happen to good people? These are fundamental questions that many Christians and non-Christians set out to answer.

It is perhaps the most difficult intellectual

In doing so you are taking the form of dualism. Dualism is the suggestion that there are two vital principles in the universe: God and the power of evil (Erickson, 2000, 440). In this theory, evil is usually thought of as uncreated. It is simply a power that has constantly been present. In result, there is a struggle between God and evil and the outcome is unknown (Tattersall, 1998). God is trying to defeat evil, but has been unable to do so.

A second rationalization of the problem is to modify the idea of God’s goodness. Although no Christian would deny that God is good, some suggest that the description of God’s goodness should be understood in a somewhat different way. In this view, God is the sole cause of everything, nothing is independent from Him. Gordon H. Clark states, “He alone is the eternal being, and He alone is omnipotent” (Erickson, 2000, p. 443). In this line of thinking, God is the definitive cause of sin. Man executes sin, but God wills when it will happen. In this mindset, God does not sin and is not responsible for sin (Erickson, 2000, p.

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Kreeft, Peter. (1988).“The Problem of Evil.” Chapter 7 in Fundamentals of the Faith. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

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