Evil, By Robert M. Adams, James Cain And Richard Hauser On The Eyes Of The Beholder

The issue of evil in the world raises questions with which everyone wrestles. Pain and suffering come into everyone’s life to some degree or another. Trying to find meaning and purpose in the midst of suffering, whether our own or someone else’s, is difficult regardless of what worldview one holds. How individuals and societies deal with this issue will have important implications for those individuals as well as to the whole of society.

Before we can dive into the problem of evil, we must define a term. Whenever the word “God” is used in this paper, it is referring to the classical theistic conception of God. In this view of God, God is that, “than which nothing greater can be conceived” in your mind. Any attributes or qualities that make a being great, God has to the maximum. This means that, among many other qualities, God is benevolent(all good), omnipotent(all powerful), and omniscient(all knowing). Furthermore, God is the creator of the universe and is personally connected to the human race.

In the course of this essay I will argue that evil is not compatible with the existence of god. This means that evil and God cannot coexist because if god were present, the existence of evil would contradict all that god is believed to be. Abrahamic religions insist that God both created the world and that he preserves and maintains it. Christianity claims that God is all knowing and is boundless in his abilities. Religions claim that God is benevolent, and only wants the best for humanity and the universe, as his creations. If all of the above statements be true, then it is hard to understand why god would allow evil to thrive right from the beginning of time.

There is a lot of evil in the world, and much of it happens unexplainably. In the history of life on Earth bad things have happened and evil has caused problems. In relation to some world

In this paper, I would like to explore several responses to this argument, the nature of evil, and to explain why some evils might be a necessity.

In the book of Genesis in the Bible, God created the heavens and the Earth and all was good. God told Adam and Eve that they can eat from all the trees in the Garden of Eden except for one, The Tree of Knowledge and Good and Evil. God was and is compassionate enough to give the beings he created freedom of choice. Nobody wants someone who is forced into love. God also does not want us to be made to love Him but wants us to do so out of our own free will. That free will that God gives us is the source of evil. Just as Adam and Eve used the free will God gave them to be disobedient and sin, human beings evil because of their freedom to do so. In addition to free will God allows evil to exist because without it, the beings he created could not develop ethically. The Problem of Evil states that God cannot be all loving, all good, all powerful and everywhere because evil exists. Philosopher, John Hicks states that evil is necessary for soul and moral development. How would humans know that is good without it counterpart for comparison? In situations like the Charleston church shooting, where loved ones lives are violently taken by evil, the families of the victims are made to develop morally. When confronted with evil, violence, and grief, they either exhibit patience, love, courage, forgiveness, acceptance, and/or faith. Otherwise they conform or give into evil and become timid, weak, angry, or even become violent themselves. Without evil our world would be blissful.

Good and evil are concocted differently in every imagination. To some, evil is the most appalling sins, including such heinous acts such as murder, rape, distortion, or betrayal. To others, evil might be something so simple as indecisiveness, extravagance, or vain glory. Goodness is ambiguous to mankind as well because one man might define goodness as the ordinary man living a free life, yet another might conclude that true goodness is obtainable only through a perfect, honorable lifestyle, completely abstaining from worldly endeavors. One’s attitude at good and evil will predetermine their values, actions, and points of interest. Whether life is spent pursuing heavenly goals or the applying oneself to his or her life, their

Shirley Jackson’s “The Possibility of Evil” is a short story that starts out with an innocent old lady, Miss Strangeworth. Then, when the story progresses, Jackson tells us that she is not the nicest old lady. She also tells us that she does not want to mind her own business. She starts writing mean and evil letters to the townspeople. The letters consist of rumors that she has imagined and she is very mean about telling the people what she has made up. She ends up paying for the evil she has done at the end by losing her roses, which were very important to her. The irony is Miss Strangeworth wants to write evil letters to the townspeople, but instead causes the evil. The theme of “The Possibility of Evil” is evil can arise in any person

This paper examines St. Augustine’s view on evil. St. Augustine believed that God made a perfect world, but that God's creatures turned away from God of their own free will and that is how evil originated in the world. Augustine assumes that evil cannot be properly said to exist at all, he argues that the evil, together with that suffering which is created as punishment for sin, originates in the free nature of the will of all creatures. According to Augustine, God has allowed evil to exist in the world because it does not conflict with his righteousness. He did not create evil but is also not a victim of it. He simply allows it to exist.

Everyday it is possible to read a newspaper, or turn on TV or radio news and learn about evil going on in our world. Banks are robbed, cars are stolen, violent murders and rapes are committed. Somewhere in the world the aftershock of an earthquake is being felt. Cancer is killing millions of people each year, while other debilitating conditions continue to affect many with no cure to end their suffering. President Bush said that our country is fighting a war against evil. We all agree that evil is real and cannot be ignored; the problem comes when we try and rationalize the concept of God and evil coexisting.

The problem of evil is a highly contested argument in the Philosophic community. It has been a point of contention between atheists - people whom do not believe in the existence of a God - and theists - people whom do believe in the existence of a God. The formalised version of the problem is that: If God exists then he must be the all-knowing – omniscient, all-caring – omnibenevolent – and all-powerful – omnipotent – creator of the world. But, because of all of the evil – anything that causes death and/or destruction and/or devastation – in the world then how can God be all of these things? And thus there is no being that is all of these things, thus there is no God. There are three main objections to this problem: that God’s methods are

In other words, some people refer to evil as sin and suffering; others think of it as a separation from God while still more people personify it in the form of satan. My purpose here is not to discuss what form evil may take in an individual's life even though it may come up periodically. The central fact remains that evil, in one form or another, does exist and anyone not willing to believe in this reality quite frankly lives in a different dimension. Either that, or they simply live in a total state of denial! Keeping all this in mind, what I want to accomplish in this paper is to first explore the idea that evil is a relative term that exists within the context of each situation. Ah, yes! Even as I wrote that last sentence, I could see the wheels turning in your head. But not to worry. I will clarify soon. From this point, I will seek the wisdom of people who have tried to answer these tough questions proposed on the first page, come to some more conclusions through personal interviews and then end on a more personal note, using the help of my life experience as a Christian. This topic hits me hard at times. I often find myself in reflection, trying to formulate an answer to the evil that I see, and yes, the evil that I do. This evil will sometimes leave me feeling totally powerless and at its mercy. Yet I never give up hope for I know that just through the process of writing this paper, some new insights will be

Why is there so much suffering and evil in the world today? And if God is so powerful and in control, why does he not put an end to suffering and evil? These questions are asked by many, especially when their life has been ransacked by pain—the loss of a loved one or hurt by an act of evil. Ideally, it is a question of God’s sovereignty. How involved is God in the story of humanity? Overwhelming, the Scriptures and the Great Tradition speak to this issue clearly, yet also leave some room for diversity in the working out of God’s sovereignty. Therefore, people need a clear Scriptural definition of the sovereignty of God, an understanding of the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human free will and the purpose of God allowing suffering and evil to still exist.

What is considered evil depends upon each individual’s view of morality, which constantly changes through the course of that person’s life. Roy Perrett’s “Evil and Human Nature” explains this by elaborating on the customary interpretation of moral evil. This evil, caused by an intentional bad action or harm, opposes another type of evil, natural evil, which occurs without

The problem of evil is as ancient as humanity itself. Since the dawn of man, thinkers, philosophers, religionists and practically every human being who have suffered at the hands of evil have pondered this enigma, either as a logical-intellectual-philosophical or emotional-religious-existential problem. The preponderance of evil as a reality in human existence, and