The Problem of Evil
Proof that it is logically impossible for an all-powerful, all-loving and all-knowing being to exist in the presence of disasters and suffering like 9/11, babies getting cancer, the Holocaust, rapists brutally raping children, massive earthquakes killing thousands of people in Haiti, etc.
Christians often make the claim that God knows everything. If asked for specifics, they’ll say this includes knowledge about when and where a rapist will brutally rape a child or when and where the next major earthquake will hit. Christians also often make the claim God can do anything. If asked for specifics, they say this means he is capable of doing things like diverting a typhoon so it harmlessly dissipates over the ocean, causing a car to break down, causing a sword to disappear into thin air. Christians also often make the claim that God loves everyone. If asked for specifics, they’ll say this means things like God doesn’t want for the families of children who get cancer to suffer and that God doesn’t want for children to get brutally raped.
While we all my dispute what “evil” means, we can all agree that things like genocide, ISIS attacks, destructive tsunamis, destructive tornadoes, the Holocaust, babies getting cancer and mass shootings at schools do occur. For the purposes of this essay, these are examples of “evil”.
Given the specifics Christians have provided about their God, we can conclude the following three things:
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If God can do anything and knows everything, then he must not love us enough to want to prevent things like 9/11, babies getting cancer or destructive earthquakes killing 200,000 people in Haiti.
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If God can do anything and loves everyone, then he must not know about the ISIS terrorist who is about to blow up a subway station, the rapist who is about to brutally rape a child or the typhoon which is about to slam into the coast of the Philippines and kill tens of thousands of people.
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If God knows everything and loves everyone, then he must be incapable of preventing things like the Holocaust, the Boxing Day Tsunami or any of the mass shootings at schools.
In an attempt to reconcile this, Christians will resort to one of a number of arguments. One common argument is that God needs to allow evil to accomplish a greater moral purpose. This argument fails, as it suggests if God does prevent the evil occurrence, then somehow that would deem him impotent with respect to accomplishing a greater moral purpose. Since we’re talking about a god which can do anything, such a response would be a straw man. Another common argument is that God will not interfere with man’s free will. Again, this argument fails, as in cases like babies getting cancer or a typhoon wiping out tens of thousands of people, no one’s free will is violated. Furthermore, a god which can do anything would be able to prevent a rapist from brutally raping a child without interfering with the rapist’s free will and would be able to prevent an ISIS terrorist from chopping off the head of an innocent westerner without interfering with the terrorist’s free will.
What can we conclude from this? That we know with 100% certainty that a God which can do anything, knows everything and loves everyone does not exist.