What is the problem of evil and is it a problem that can be solved?

The problem of evil comes from reconciling the three propositions normally held to be true by Western theology and debated by religious philosophy. The propositions are that God is omnipotent, God is also perfectly good and that there is evil in this world.  If evil exists then either God is not all-powerful to overcome it or that He does not want to, which puts into question His goodness.

The problem of evil can be solved logically by denying any one of the three propositions. Theodicy is the branch of theology that attempts to defend the attributes of God against the occurrence of evil. Vedanta Hinduism, Christian Science and Stoicism deny that there is evil in this world. Evil is appearance or imaginary. Thus the attributes of God are defended.

Not so extreme theodicies have evolved. Most revolve around the notion of free will. Not long into the Christian era Irenaeus believed that souls were in a state of development. Within these stages of development evil exists. The development of reason within humans was seen to be God's will to give His creations the free-will necessary to develop into 'Children of God'. That evil exists was necessary for the process of soul making by overcoming adversity. Thus God was not responsible for evil, only Man is.

The end justifies the means. That Man has the freedom to choose good rather than evil is seen to be a good thing in itself by theodicy when a greater good is the outcome. This is an attempt to justify the existence of evil. Further assumptions are made by this argument.  An evil must be overcome, and in overcoming that evil a greater good will result, and that a good that is not striven for is worthless. The attempt fails because a part of the justification is that Man has a soul to develop. A soul cannot be empirically proved to exist. It could be seen as a metaphysical construct used by theologians in their construct of the defence of God in the face of evil.

There should be better ways of developing souls than the introduction of evil. To strive for good lacks some reason in itself if there was no evil. If God could create beings who freely chose good then evil could not be justified. If it is logically impossible to create a freely choosing creature that only chose good, then God could still be perfectly good and omnipotent.  Being omnipotent, could not God create souls as if they experienced adversity with the end result of mature souls, indistinguishable from souls developed through adversity? There could be no distinguishable difference between God-given good and good through adversity.

This aspect of evil may or may not justify why there is human or moral evil. There are natural disasters also attributed as evil to consider. The earthquakes, floods and famines of the natural world are another aspect of the adversity necessary for soul making. That it is not God's responsibility is harder to reconcile, as the evil has not come about by Man's actions. Natural evil has been seen to be indiscriminate. The death or further suffering of innocents has led to further aspects of doctrine in theology about 'original sin'. The problem of randomness may well be justified on this count but does not justify the removal of the soul making process of the young. That the souls would get their just desserts in another existence cannot be proved one way or another.  It is another metaphysical construct to resolve a problem.

There is a problem with the definition of evil. To discipline one's child is to seek a good end, to socialise the child, to ensure that it can survive in society. That the means to do this may be thought to be evil could be considered extreme. It is the extremes that are being considered, but this may only reveal a duality to our thought rather than what is.

Philosophically, evil as a term is not just about an extreme but any symptom of pain and suffering. This can be empirically proved to be true. The other two propositions concerning God rely on faith.

If there are no extremes of good and evil then the second proposition that God is perfectly good can be questioned. The Old Testament's Book of Job attempted to evoke a sense of awe in God that would accept the presence of both good and evil and accept the duality. In a sense this is the same as Eastern Mysticism's Absolute Spirit that transcends good and evil. In some sense God is 'above' instances of the world's good and evil. If this is the case then the second proposition about God being perfectly good is false, He transcends good.

Augustine argued that the evil in the world is in some sense just the loss of good. The world contains a hierarchy of creatures that in themselves are good but show a variety that has since been called the principle of plenitude. The best possible universe shows a variety. Evil only comes about when creatures lose some of the 'goodness'. Evil is thus the absence of good, lacking substance in its own right. It is not part of God’s original creation. So the existence of evil is not God's doing. It is the 'fall of the angels' [and Man].

Leibnitz defended God’s omnipotence by suggesting that it is restricted to what is logically possible. So a creature that freely chose good would be logically impossible. The world is then the 'best of all possible worlds'; that are not mutually incompatible.

William James attempted to resolve the problem of evil by denying that God was all-powerful. That he was perfectly good was not in question but that He had the ability to prevent evil was. So in effect he has falsified the first proposition that God is omnipotent.

There is still a problem of defining what evil is. That the problem of evil can be solved can be answered by suggesting that there is no problem because there is no evil. Natural ecological balances could explain death away, natural predation of the food chain, climactic changes and the like. Moral evil is not so easy to explain. Reasoning, sentient animals should be above making war, tyranny and oppression. If that is what evil is.

Accepting that there is the problem of evil cannot be logically resolved but by declaring one of the other two propositions as being false. In order to counter the possibility of these falsehoods most Western organised religions have had to accept that there is no solution, only faith in 'just desserts' and an enriched soul. It is much easier to resolve the problem of evil by falsifying that there is a God, or that He is omnipotent and perfectly good. There is no empirical way to verify the existence of God, nor His characteristics.