There are many arguments for the existence of God, but the biggest argument against it is what's known as The Problem of Evil.

This argument was first codified by Epicurus and goes something like this:

If God exists, by definition God should be omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and benevolent (all good).
If God is benevolent, God would want to eliminate all of the evil that God could.
If God is omnipotent, God could eliminate all of the evil God knew about.
If God is omniscient, God knows about all of the evil in the world.
Therefore, if God was benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient, evil shoudn't exist.
However, evil does exist.
Therefore, either God is not omnipotent, not omniscient, not benevolent, or God doesn't exist.

There are several answers to this argument, but I will simply describe my own personal answer, based on my research.

The problem truly arises with this one premise:

If God is benevolent, God would want to eliminate all of the evil that God could.

I believe there are two answers, based on two different types of evil -- Moral Evil and Natural Evil. Moral Evil is evil committed by one person to another, or to several others. Natural Evil describes things like natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, etc.)

Moral Evil occurs because of Free Will. Humans have the ability to choose between right and wrong. We are not animals, guided solely by instinct. We are not robots, programmed to do exactly the right thing all of the time. From the beginning, we were given choices -- obey or disobey, love or hate, kill or let live. There is no way to allow a "choice" without allowing for both good and evil to exist. If you went into Baskin Robbins and all 31 flavors were Vanilla, that's not a choice. Even if you were given one option, and that option was "good", inaction would be evil. If you do not choose "Good", your choice was evil.

God gives us rules to follow but gives us the ability to choose whether we want to or not. Men choose evil all of the time -- terrorists choose to bomb buildings, dictators choose to torture and kill their nations' citizens, husbands decide to abuse their wives and children, teenagers bring guns to school to kill fellow students and teachers, students cheat on their tests, even toddlers scream "No!" in defiance of their parents.

Parents give their children rules to obey and give the children the opportunity to disobey. If a child disobeys, he will either be punished by the parent or suffer the natural consequences of his actions (or both). This does not mean the parent is evil for allowing the child to disobey. It simply means the parent wanted to see if the child would obey (either out of love or duty), if for no other rean than it helps build discipline and responsibility into that child. If a child is micromanaged and never allowed to choose whether to obey or not, he will more thank likely resent his parents and rebel against them later on in life.

A somewhat more difficult idea to grasp is the idea of Natural Evil. Hurricanes are not the result of a person's choice. Nobody decides to have an earthquake. Though on rare occasions (in the Bible) God uses natural disasters as punishment for disobedience, that's not always the case (and I daresay not usually the case). So what about these? I believe the answer is two-fold.

First, according to the Biblical account, when man first disobeyed God, it not only affected his life, but it damaged all of creation. Beings that were meant to live forever were now growing older and dying. Pain and suffering entered the world. The ground was cursed. Everything was tainted because of the consequences of one person's disobedience. That has affected everything that has happened since then.

The other answer is simply this -- there is an adversary out there, known as Satan, Lucifer, the devil, whatever you want to call himm and he works against God and wants to destroy everything God created, especially mankind. And why does he exist? Again, free choice. God created him and gave him free choice, and he chose to rebel against God, so now he's working against God.

Why doesn't God just wipe him out? According to the Bible, God will one day. At the end of time, God will punish the devil and all who follow him. Until then, God wants to allow everyone the opportunity to choose good over evil -- ultimately, to follow God.

Page last updated Wednesday, September 21, 2005.