One of the primary arguments against the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-benevolent god1 is the existence of evil in the world. How could such a god allow horrible things to happen to innocent people? If this god loves humanity, how can he let children die of cancer, or hundreds of thousands of people die in the wake of a tsunami?
One of the answers sometimes given to this question lies in the idea that God gave humans free will. Many Christians believe that Adam and Eve, having free will, chose to sin by eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In doing so, they unleashed the concept of evil into the world. Can we reconcile the idea of God allowing evil because of Adam and Eve’s original sin with the amount of evil extant in the world? At first glance the impulse may be to say that no, that’s not a good enough reason. The punishment is too harsh for the crime; one mistake on the part of two people thousands of years ago is not justification for the extremes of evil seen throughout history.
Free will, both Adam and Eve’s and our own, allows us to choose to do evil. How much evil, however, would a benevolent god allow us to choose? How do we define evil, and how do we measure it? Out of context, an adult hitting a child and making that child cry may sound evil. In context, it may be that the adult is the child’s parent, and they were hitting the child’s hand away from a hot stove. The child is learning a valuable lesson which they need to learn in order to live safely in the world. In the grander scheme of things, what appears evil is actually necessary, and even “good”. Some types of “evil” may not directly teach lessons in the sense that punishment does, but could be classified as “soul-building” evils. Surviving adversity may make someone a stronger, better person, and one who is better equipped to handle other parts of life, or better able to help others. Again in the grander scheme, the end result could be considered beneficial, or even “good”. This type of evil can be the result of their own free will, such as someone who chooses to abuse drugs and hits bottom, but then pulls himself out of his drug dependency and turns his life around, or it can be the result of someone else’s decision, such as a victim of child abuse who grows up with inner strength and a better understanding of the nature of suffering, and who perhaps goes on to become a counselor who helps other victims of abuse.
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11/06/2007 12:54 PM Reply
Opalcat thinks! Shock, horror! Keep it up, the world needs more clever people. It doesn’t really matter what you believe, as long as you question it. From an carnivorous atheist.