God and the Problem of Evil

When the existence of God is argued, some skeptics raise the issue of contradictory properties attributed to God. God is said to be loving and good and yet there is a great deal of pain and suffering in the world which is sometimes referred to as the problem of evil. How could a loving God permit the existence of evil? If "God" is all powerful, then he could obviously create a world that contained no evil. If God created and condones the evil in the world, then he must be indifferent to human suffering.

Some say that Satan creates the evil in the world. But the problem with this explanation is the Satan is also a creation of God and cannot be more powerful than God. Therefore, this just moves the problem back to why God would create a hostile being like Satan and unleash him on the world.

Another explanation is that God gave man free will and let him choose his own behavior. This would explain evil as caused by human beings that have turned away from God. But God created man and therefore would be responsible for his behavior. In addition, if God is all knowing, then he would know what people are going to do before they do it. This would make human activity sort of like a Greek tragedy where you already know things are going to end badly before the play even starts.

Maybe God permits evil in order for people to have an opportunity to act nobly. For instance, if someone is suffering, then another person can do something to ease their suffering and behave in a Christian way. This is all very good and well for the helper but what about the suffering of the victim? Again, if God is all knowing, then he will know in advance whether or not someone will help a suffering person. If he knows that there will be no help for the sufferer, then why would a loving God make someone suffer for the ultimate benefit of no one?

One answer to the question is that the human race in making a mistake in categorizing God. If God is all powerful and all knowing, then he is indifferent to human suffering. If you want to have a loving and good God, this is a reduced definition that confines God to those actions that benefit mankind. Conversely, you could have an evil God that deliberately caused suffering. This could be thought of as Satan. So you could say that the God of all is a combination of the good God and the evil God.

So, in the end, the two thousand year argument over the reason for suffering and evil may boil down to a matter of semantics.