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The Problem Of Evil Essay

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The Problem Of Evil Essay
The Problem of Evil Essay
1) Suffering can create philosophical problem for a religious believer because in the entire Christian view of the world, the Problem of Evil and Suffering is one of the biggest criticisms philosophers and ordinary people face, as they find it hard to prove this theory wrong while still proving that God exists. If god is all powerful, has created the universe and is totally responsible for it, and can do anything that is logically possible, then he could end evil and suffering. If god is all knowing, he must know how to stop evil and suffering. If god is all loving, he would wish to end evil and suffering as he would choose for his creation to live in the world of evil and suffering.
Natural evil raises the problem of why god created a universe capable of acting in such violent ways, moral evil demands an answer to the question why god created human beings who could choose evil, as well as good. These can be further subdivided into Physical evil and metaphysical evil.
Epicurus (342-270) posed this question-“Is god willing to prevent evil, and not able? Then he is impotent, Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then why is there evil? If he is neither able nor willing, then why call him god”.
In response to the whole problem, many people have written theodicies, criticisms and problems surrounding it all. One of the main explanations, or argument which helps prove that God doesn't exist due to the problem of evil and suffering is
Mackie's Inconsistent Triad, in which he brings God's powers and evil still existing into question.
Mackie (1955) stated "if God is Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent how can there be evil and suffering in the world"
, meaning one of gods powers isn't true and there is evil in the world, causing atheism to come into question, Swinburne claimed that the believer must have a satisfactory answer otherwise there is no reason why the atheist should share his faith, David Hume
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