Is It Possible For God To Be All-good And All-powerful While There Is Evil In The World?

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate October 2001

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The existence of evil is a problem with which the religious community often confronted with. The problem mainly arise with the Christian believer who holds that God is not only good and powerful, but all-good and all-powerful.

In this paper I will assume several assumptions. The first three are based upon biblical description in which God creates every thing and where every thing is in him.

"For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them" (Exodus 20:11) ""¦ one Lord, One faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:5-6) "Who has known the mind of the Lord? For from him and through him and to him are all things." (Romans 11:34,36) The assumptions based on the preceding verses are that God is all-good, God is all-powerful and God is all-knowing.

In this paper I will discuss whether evil exists and if it does I will discuss God's moral reason for allowing it to exist.

In the attempt to gain a consistent understanding of evil, theists traditionally distinguish between two main types of evils, moral evil and natural evil. The greatest challenge to Christian theism seems to be posed by the existence of natural evils, since moral evils have their origin (at least with respect to their character as evil) in free moral choices.

Moral evil: Moral evils were discussed by Augustine and later adopted by Aquinas.

(Stumpf , 1983). Evil, by Aquinas is not a thing, it is the absence of a the good. The same as for the blind the absence of sight. In this context the question is, why does God allows the evil to exist whether it exist per se or by the...