The Problem of Evil
University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education, Undergraduate Philosophy Certificate, Assignment 7
Peter B. Lloyd
Is there any satisfactory way of reconciling the existence of an omnipotent and all-loving God with the existence of natural evil (i.e. evil not due to the misuse of human free will)? One of the central claims of the Judaeo-Christian tradition is the existence of an omnipotent and all-loving God. Against this is the observation that people and animals suffer evil. By common sense, we would infer from this observation that God, as conceived in this tradition, does not exist - for, if He did, He would prevent the evil. This inference is called the Problem of Evil by those who profess one of the religions in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and their attempts to 'solve' the problem have given rise to a labyrinth of sophistry.
Put briefly, the solution most commonly espoused to the Problem of Evil is
* Some suffering is caused by......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 5763
Approximate Pages: 23 (260 words per double-spaced page) |