The Problem of Evil and the Activity of God

Abstract

The Problem of evil, from Epicurus via Philo of Alexandria to today, has usually been presented in more or less the same way. We are generally offered three, sometimes more, propositions: 1God is omnipotent2God is good/loving3Evil/suffering exists and the suggestion is that these three propositions, although all believed by many religious believers to be true, are mutually contradictory. These are held to be contradictory because, ‘if God exists, then being omniscient, he knows under what circumstances evil will occur, if he does not act; and being omnipotent he is able to prevent its occurrence. Hence, being perfectly good, he will prevent its occurrence and so evil will not exist’. Professor Plantinga sees the problem in much the same kind of way: .. five propositions . . . essential to traditional theism: a) that God exists, b) that God is omnipotent, c) that God is omniscient, d) that God is wholly good, and e) that evil exists . . . each of these propositions is indeed an essential feature of orthodox theism. And it is just these five propositions whose conjunction is said ... to be self-contradictory’. These writers are not unrepresentative of the vast numbers of philosophers who see, and try to solve, the problem in these terms.