The Problem of Evil in Philosophy

Abstract

The problem of evil is a subset of philosophical problems. When the problem of evil was originally deliberated in a theistic setting, it challenged the theistic thinker to reconcile the existence of God with the experience of evil. Since around the enlightenment period, the problem of evil transformed into, what some philosophers call, an argument from evil where the proponents of the problem argued that belief in the existence of God was rendered irrational or improbable by evil. Many contemporary thinkers still engage with this problem and regard it as a legitimate objection to theism. This paper explores the perception of the problem as well as argues that upon analysis the approach and underlying assumptions of the problem of evil are themselves problematic.