The problem of evil and God.?

Question

1. God is perfectly loving.
2. God is all-knowing and all powerful.
3. There is terrible and unnecessary evil in this world.

Only 2 of the above conditions can be true. Therefore, there are 2 possible conclusions:
1. God is not perfectly good/loving.
2. God does not exist.

P.S. When I talk about evil I'm not talking about having to work hard in order to pay the bills. Problems like that could help to "develop the soul". I'm talking about something like the violent slaughter of 800,000 people in 100 days in Rwanda or a Tsunami slaughtering countless thousands of poor villagers. What purpose does that have in God's plan? And for those who insist that free will is God's excuse, then why did God create us with such hatred, such Xenophobia, that we are capable of these unthinkable atrocities?

So that is a quick proof I threw together (not all my ideas) and I am very curious as to what you think of it.

Answer 1

If we aren't tested in this life then what is the point of being here. There must be an opposition in all things and if there was no evil there would be no good.

We have our own agency and the ability to choose for ourselves.

Answer 2

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? WHoever answered yes to this and tried to defend the potence of God at the sametime is a moron. the whole point of GOD is that he is omnipotent, he is ABLE. the question has never been if he is able, that question deals with the existance of GOD and there would be no point in asking that question if that is the question. But the question has always been is he not willing. THat is the crux of the matter. Explain to me how we could possibly ask questions or think for and of ourselves if he prevented all evil. Look at terrorists, rapists, murderers, haters, and the occasional lawyer. IF he prevented them... there is no free will, what the heck is he supposed to do? change their minds? knock them out with a tree? I don't think you have thought this question through at all. Neither has this David Hume dude. First of all he is adding 2 and 2 to equal 6. His logic is ilogical. His premise is poor but i agree with the conclusion, WHence then is evil? that is the question. THe answer is evil is the counterpart of good, neither can exist without the other.

Answer 3

All three can be true and you have alluded to the answer. Just because God is perfectly loving does not mean that he always acts to prevent evil. I do not believe that God created us with "such hatred". Your first point is that God is perfectly loving. If God is perfectly loving, then evil must have come from somewhere else. Instead of us being created with evil inside us, could the evil have not been introduced after we were created? If there is a God who created us and wanted a relationship with us (in other words, wanted us to know him), how would he go about that? If there was no evil in this world, why would we need God. The truth is that evil entered the world because we allowed it to, and God loves us so much that he wants to save us from that evil/ save us from ourselves either in this life or the next.

Answer 4

I do not see why God cannot allow us to have free will and at the same time know what we will choose before it happens.

It is the same as a the chicken and the egg...its not really a paradox, its just the way things are. Same with free will and God's preknowledge. Which came first? Did I do something because I chose to? Or did God know I was going to choose it before I did it? It doesn't matter...the result is the same.

So, just because there is Evil in the world because of human's choices does not mean that God is obligated to stop it (he may, but is not obligated to, he's God and can do what he wants to).

If you're really all that worried about Evil in the world, you should do something to stop it rather than trying to convince people who believe in God that he Doesn't exist.

If you're not worried about evil in the world, then you are probably a party to it, and are just trying to make yourself feel smart by "proving" that there is no God.

Therefore, whether or not God exists, you might want to consider getting up and doing something about it.

Answer 5

The book of Job disproves your assertion that only two of your conditions can be simultaneously true.

God is, in fact, perfectly loving.

God is, in fact, all-knowing and all-powerful.

Yet, while loving Job, and while able to stop it, he allowed evil to come upon Job. We can't be sure of his motives, but in the end Job learned about God's character and was a better person for the experience. So what we and Job would call evil, God can use for good.

There could be more to your argument but your language is too imprecise to take it much further.

Answer 6

There's one other option that you didn't consider:

A God of Unconditional Love that is expressed individually through each member of mankind. Jesus made reference to this by saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you" and "Don't you know that ye are Gods?" Under this concept, the reason why God doesn't bring an end to evil in the world is because God expresses and works through you. How have you ended evil on Earth? Why didn't you put an end to the executions? Don't you know that ye are God? Or did you just expect some flying superhero with powers that operate on different principles than the rest of the Universe to do it?

Answer 7

It could be that God is not all powerful or all knowing, but then it wouldn't be a God worth worshipping.

It could be that Evil is only an illusion, and what we perceive as evil, really isn't in the grand scheme of things.

Answer 8

Why do you think that only two of those can be true? Why do Christians separate out a good god and a bad god, making 2 gods? Everything comes from the ONE God, good and evil both.

Answer 9

The Christians talk about "Free will" or "God's plan." Which is it? If God knew everything, then we wouldn't need to be tested. The All powerful/all knowing paradox. If he is all knowing then he would know the future, and wouldn't be able to change it, because if he does he still knows the future, and if he is all powerful then he can change the future, which means he isn't all knowing.

Answer 10

You have just totally independently come up with what has been one of the most classic questions ever. This question is one of the main reasons I'm looking for a nice forum for debating instead of this Q&A crap.

EDIT: Oh for Grenth's sake. Three hate-mongers beat me to the punch. Fundamentalist f-ckers.