God And Theodicy: The Problem Of Evil

The Problem Of Evil

Not a day goes by that I am not affected by the evil the world has inflicted upon me. It is clear when looking at my own demons and the world around me that there are immeasurable incidences of suffering in this world. For a particular type of religious man, namely one who worships the Christian ideal of God, this suffering caused by evil can be problematic. The problem becomes more clear when one examines the different types of evil that one can be presented with and the forms this argument can take. There are two important responses that theologians turn to when presented with the problem of evil but even these do not fully seem to explain away these accounts of suffering and therefore make the existence of God and the

“ It does not claim to explain, nor to explain away, every instance of evil in human experience, but only to point to certain considerations that prevent the fact of evil from constituting a final and insuperable bar to rational belief in God”(Cahn 117). One of the major theodicies is brought up by St. Augustine in which he tries to explain how evil came about. He believes the world was created perfect and harmonious but abuse of freedom caused evil to come into the world. This abuse lead to both moral and natural evil’s existence in the world. Evil is seen as God’s punishment to man. A major critique of Augustine’s theodicy is that if we went wrong we couldn’t have been perfect in the first place. Something that is perfect doesn’t have the capability to go awry. It also brings up another question as to why an all-loving God would punish and continue to punish His people, even those who were not responsible for the original abuse of freedom. Another criticism of this theodicy is that modern science and Darwin’s ideas of evolution tend to oppose the belief that the universe was created perfectly. Instead, humans are an improvement the more imperfect beings they developed

Theodicy appears to be an attempt to make the pieces try to fit together after the fact. The only possible solution is to change one’s conception of God and that comes at a very high cost. One is left with an imperfect God who either doesn’t care or is unable to fix the problem. A God that is to be worshipped is not found. My beliefs are in line with the main argument brought up in the “Rebellion”, it is not a matter or whether there is a God or not, it is a matter of whether this God care’s for human life and it is clear He does not. It doesn’t matter if he is all-powerful and all-knowing he has no value for me or my life, which is why belief must be