Problem of Evil

Problem of Evil. Randall Niles looks at good and evil -- Is evil a created thing, an object? Or is evil the absence of something.

Are you feeling singled out alone confused scared?

Are you experiencing pain, suffering, or downright evil in your life?

Are you currently asking, "Why me?"

As you reflect on your situation, heres a story that might provide some guidance

There was this guy named Augustine who was born in 354 AD. When he was 19, he read an essay by Cicero on the meaning of truth, and it was then and there that he dedicated himself to pursuing such an intriguing, yet illusive notion.




During his philosophical journey, Augustine experienced a great deal of pain and suffering in his life. He went through phases of severe depression and grief. If there was really a God, why was he witnessing things that appeared contrary to his character? Truth and evil seemed irreconcilable, so Augustine kept jumping from philosophy to philosophy for many years.

In his thirties, Augustine had a supernatural experience as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into [his] heart. It was then that all the shadows of doubt were dispelled and he accepted God as part of his life.

Although Augustine would become a great man of faith, he continued to struggle with the pain, suffering and evil allowed by God in the world. He wrote:
There is nothing that even the most gifted people desire more than to finally understand how, taking into account the amount of evil in this world, one can still believe that God cares about human affairs.
Augustine grappled with this paradox for decades. He wrote volumes on Gods nature in scripture and Gods apparent desire for humanity. In the end, he determined that God created us for a relationship with him, and that real relationships are impossible with puppets. Apparently, God wanted us to have the capacity to freely choose or reject him, and this free will gave us the capacity to choose love or hate -- good or evil.

Before he died, Augustine concluded, God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil at all.

So, youre still asking Why Me?

Fair enough. Theres nothing wrong with asking questions. Anselm of Canterbury once used a phrase, "fides quaerens intellectum," which means "faith seeking understanding." One can only seek to grow in understanding by questioning...

However, sometimes the Why questions can only go so far Sometimes thoughts of philosophy and religion leave us hanging for real answers. Sometimes we need to stop and focus on the What and the Who in life.




The great thinker A.W. Tozer once shared, When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself.

Visit http://www.allaboutthejourney.org to further explore philosophy, morality, and the Problem of Evil.

Also, go to http://www.RandallNiles.com/videos.htm to watch more videos.

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• Problem of Evil
• Morality
• Good vs Evil
• Philosophy
• Morals
• Randall Niles

[depauw2004]

Evil is wiping out all Egyptian children because you're mad at their parents.

Evil is asking your disciple to gut his own children to prove his devotion.

Evil is endorsing slavery and second-class citizenship for women

[aaronstately]

@MichaelLougas interesting. I was also thinking that there was not so much a good either... more it just is.

ie: if you are not doing evil....are you doing good? well maybe? i dont know.

So we know evil is harm... good cant simply be not harm? not harm would be normal surely?

We need a name for the state you are in when you are doing neither good nor evil.

[MichaelLougas]

I think I stand to disagree. He's working in absolutes. "Not good, means evil"

I'm a Pure Mathematics major, so it could be that I've incorporated too much logic in all my thinking but when something is "Non-positive", that doesn't implicate that it is negative. There is a zero value. So too can there not exist a state of neutrality on the scale that is good and evil? The math says it seems plausible..

x=0 or x<0. X is non-positive.

[Hufflewaffle]

If God is omni-present He occupies ALL states, ALL space, ALL time. There is no such thing as the absence of His presence. Either God is not omni-present, OR there is no such thing as 'evil' OR God is responsible for evil.

[snuju1]

It is irrelevant whether evil is an absence of something or not. A creater of everything is responsible for the conditions in which cold, dark and donut holes play their part in our reality. The problem of evil still remains.

[shaloop007]

I found a nice lecture series called "Christianity and the problem of Evil" by Dr. Bruce Little. It's on the cross.tv website. Worth a look!

this is the link: cross.tv/tvshows/1252

[Gnomefro]

@zlkimagenX You also have failed to grasp the issue here. Were are talking about a claimed omnipotent being here. If you seriously can not imagine any possible better way of dealing with the fact that the humans you created don't act as you want than murdering innocent babies and kittens by the millions you don't have a lot of imagination.

This is a flat out refutation of the idea that the omnipotent being in question has human interests in mind at all(That is, our definition of "good").

[jfinite]

Evil is just a word people use to describe various things that we find disgusting, hateful, gruesome, etc. What you describe as evil will be different from what the next person describes as evil, and so on.

[RedOrangeSystem]

If god knows everything, how come he created us knowing that we will choose evil and suffer so greatly.

[otur1]

I would argue that all is naturally "good" and then "evil" is added, whos responsible for that?

You are NOT the first one thinking this way, try again....