Argument From Evil
Marine0I
Join Date: 2002-11-14 Member: 8639Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-11-14 Member: 8639Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">If God's so powerful - why evil?</div> Okay, this is my attempt to draw the hijackers away from my other thread, and also to prevent me from being seduced into hijacking away with them.
The argument from evil is basically this - If God is Good, and is all powerful, then why do we have evil in the world? If everything is created by God, then God actually CREATED evil. How can he claim to be good if he made evil?
The claim that God wasnt powerful enough to stop evil doesnt hold up as far as the Bible is concerned. If you like philosophy then you're going to have a field day here.
Have a read of <a href='http://www.visi.com/~contra_m/antithesis/v2n2/ant_v2n2_evil.html' target='_blank'>this</a> article for a good overview of the situation. It is from the theists position, it doesnt claim impartiality, but it sums things up nicely imho.
So has God contradicted the claims made about him? Does he really have the right to judge us if he made evil? Does the Bible specifically mention Steam as the mark of Satan? I think God is in the clear, but thats just the conclusion I've come to from my very preliminary look at the matter. Discuss.
EDIT for clarity - I'm actually supporting the Big Guy here - though you couldnt actually tell that from the post.
The argument from evil is basically this - If God is Good, and is all powerful, then why do we have evil in the world? If everything is created by God, then God actually CREATED evil. How can he claim to be good if he made evil?
The claim that God wasnt powerful enough to stop evil doesnt hold up as far as the Bible is concerned. If you like philosophy then you're going to have a field day here.
Have a read of <a href='http://www.visi.com/~contra_m/antithesis/v2n2/ant_v2n2_evil.html' target='_blank'>this</a> article for a good overview of the situation. It is from the theists position, it doesnt claim impartiality, but it sums things up nicely imho.
So has God contradicted the claims made about him? Does he really have the right to judge us if he made evil? Does the Bible specifically mention Steam as the mark of Satan? I think God is in the clear, but thats just the conclusion I've come to from my very preliminary look at the matter. Discuss.
EDIT for clarity - I'm actually supporting the Big Guy here - though you couldnt actually tell that from the post.
Comments
God created the heavens and the earth, the angels the lifeforms and humans.
One of these Angels, Satan, decided he would not be gods lackey. For it, he was consigned to eternal damnation. (this is a very abridged version now isnt it?)
Evil exists, in the theological sense, because of Free Will.
We are humans, god allows us to have free will, and because of our free will we commit acts of both great evil and great good.
Being human and being free are double edged swords. Good and evil come from both, depending upon how they are employed and used.
For example, Fire.
Fire can be used to cook food and keep you warm. Yet, fire can also burn your house down and strip forests of lumber.
God allows Evil to happen because he respects that Sin is part of who we are. Evil deeds committed by humans do not come from Satan, but rather from the evil that we are capable of...
Must run, I might get into more detail later...
Evil, is the absence of God.
We are humans, god allows us to have free will, and because of our free will we commit acts of both great evil and great good.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thought God was supposed to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-righteous. If he allows evil at all, he isn't an all-righteous or all-good god is he? You could argue that free will is a good thing, and the best possible world God could make with free will would have to have evil in it. Let me save you the trouble on that.. god wouldn't be all-powerful.
Let me ask you something. Can god make a four-sided triangle? Can god create and lift a boulder so heavy it can't be lifted? If not, you are saying god is not all-powerful. All-powerful, by definition, means you can do <b>anything</b> (yes, there is a reason is it is bold).
If you think he can't make a four-sided triangle, why? Can not even God defy certain rules? If that's true, then that implies there are things higher than even God that he has to follow.
In summary, does God do things because they are good, or are things good because they are done by God? Read that question carefully. They don't say the same things.
(1') A totally good God will prevent all the evil that He can unless He has a morally sufficient reason for permitting its existence.
(2') An omniscient, omnipotent God can prevent all evil.
(3') Evil exists.
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Dont confuse All powerful with "can do anything". God cannot contradict his own nature. He cannot make a stone so heavy he couldnt lift it. No four sided triangles. I dont believe all powerful does mean can do anything. All powerful means if it is possible for something to be done, then an all powerful being can do it.
Things are good because they are done by God is the answer. If he exists, he gets the last word on everything. Evil happens because God decides not to prevent it. Why? I'll ask him the same when I see him.
Sirius in my link the author quoted Augustine's arguement that evil is like a shadow, and also offered criticism of that idea, check it out and tell me what you think.
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Thanks for calling me evil <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
God is all knowing, therefore He knew everything that was every going to happen since before the begining of time.
This means He knew people would have free will and He even knew what evil acts they would do before He made them.
He made all the angels with the the preceeding knowledge that one of them (lucifer) would lead a rebellion and He would banish him to Hell.
He created Adam and Eve knowing they would fall to temptation and foreseeing the fall of man.
So you can only concluded, logically, that He knowingly created evil (Satan) and that He knowingly created man as sinners.
Strictly logical standpoint.
PS If you look at old Protestant beliefs they adhered strictly to the idea of predestination, which completely supports the above point.
But again I quote
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->A being is not morally culpable in allowing preventable evil if he has a "morally sufficient reason" for so doing.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That being is God. And we dont know whether he has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil or not. Please, read my link. I know its pretty long and pretty boring unless you're really interested, but at least read the first part. I understand if you havent read that link yet, I dont read half the links ppl post, but I would really encourage you all to at least glance over it.
I'm not sure I agree that all evil comes from Satan. Satan is merely the biggest target when you are talking evil. Evil comes from rebellion against God. God did not CREATE men as sinners, but he did give them the option. Satan encouraged Adam and Eve to rebel, and that was bad, but he was not entirely responsible for their actions. They made the decision, not him.
Predestination is the idea that God lines you up and picks who goes to Hell and who doesnt. Because he knows what choice you are going to make, people assume that you are not actually being given a choice. Not so.
Again my teacher/class example. The teacher (God) tells the class (Us): "soon we are going to have a really big and very very tough exam. You are going to need a lot of help from me in your study, or else you are going to fail. Now I know already whose going to fail (points to the class clown) and whose going to pass - but if you fail it will be because you wouldnt let me help you. The teacher will then mark the exams, and sure enough, hes right. Those who ignored his help failed miserably. Those who asked for his help passed. Both were given the same opportunity, both were marked on the same standard. Justice is served.
EDIT If evil is the absence of God, then that doesnt automatically make you evil Ryo. If evil itself is merely not believing in God, THEN you are evil. So no, your not evil, you're just making a bad decision - purely in my opinion though.
All powerful, all knowing, the "Perfect" being.
If He was perfect, what would be the point of having a universe, let alone good and evil?
One possible reason is that he seeks death, an end to his existence where no progress can ever be made. Being the perfect being that he is, he should know full well that it would be impossible to kill him thus nullifying this line of reason.
Another possible reason would be that He seeks Fellow creators. Humans can create, and destroy. They are capable of good, and evil. If god wishes to have fellow creators, then he would only want the best, the brightest, and the most Good. Thus, the balance of Good and Evil could be viewed as a supernatural test of ones worthiness of being a fellow creator.
Speaking from a purely hypothetical standpoint, let us assume that the amount of Good and the Amount of Evil in the universe is equal and follows one of the laws of physics, that of being unable to be created nor destroyed.
If this holds true, then evil merely exists to counterbalance the effect of good and vice versa.
There are no monopole magnets. You cannot have happiness without sadness.
If there were no evil, there could never be good. You cannot seperate Good From Evil, they are two sides of the same coin, and both are fundamental to our existence in this universe.
For example, The work of Mahatma and Mother Teresa wouldnt have come about had there not been evil to inspire them to great good.
Even Hitlers work of ultimate evil worked to eventual good. He killed 6 Million jews. That is surely pure evil. Yet, Anti-Semitism is no longer an acceptable public view, nor part of society as it once was.
God does NOT control human society. The bible once said he did, but anyone who read the story of Noah knows that he gives man the free will to destroy himself.
Evil is a construct of man. No matter how hard we try to eliminate evil from our society, evil things will always happen.
There's that quote which states how do you know what is good if you don't know what is evil? It's unfortunate that for each of God's creation, that created being will either linger on the light side, or the dark side, (and He's most annoyed by the "gray side" or the lukewarm; I'm not sure if I'm taking that statement out of context though). It's just how things work though, c'est la vie...
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God gave man choice.
point 1 If you created a robot, and programmed it so that all it could every say is "i love you", that isnt love. If your gf/wife loves you because she chooses to, that is love. For God to have a relationship with us humans (because that is why we were created) he had to give us choice.
point 2 what good is a choice with only one option? If i show you 2 squares, and ask you which of thse shapes is your favourite, you have no choice. you have to say a square, because that is the only choice. If i show you a circle and a square, then you can choose - you may say that a square is your favourite, but you may decide that a circle is your favourite. God is deeply upset that many people choose the circle instead of the square, but for the people who choose the square, he know that they choose it because they want to, not because they have no other choice.
In short: God allowed choice, and, yes, this meant allowing evil, but it was man who chose the circle instead of the square asnd brought evil and suffering into the world. If adam and eve hadn't eaten the friut, they would still be perfect, but they did, so we aren't
Choice was the only way to allow us to have a true relationship with God, and because of evil, he can now show us his mercy and grace. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Without war, there can be no peace,
Without hate, there can be no love,
Without evil, there can be no good.
I believe it's simple and to the point
off topic : that's what makes this religion suspicious , it is claimed that it's bad to rebel against higher powers. That it's better to follow one's "destiny" and accept one's fate , and never question authority. This religion seems like it has been created by the ruling classes , and certainly not a deity.
Disobeying the master's orders is a natural and necessary thing. You can't become an adult if you can't dare to say "no" at least once to your father.
This would imply that God is not an entirely good god to allow suffering to exist in the world. It is a bit like setting a house on fire with women and children inside, just to give someone the chance to play hero and save them. Would you be doing a good thing to do this?
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Dont confuse All powerful with "can do anything". God cannot contradict his own nature. He cannot make a stone so heavy he couldnt lift it. No four sided triangles. I dont believe all powerful does mean can do anything. All powerful means if it is possible for something to be done, then an all powerful being can do it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then God is governed by other laws. God cannot create everything. God is limited by his actions. If this is true, then you think the world with its physics laws was this way before God even created it?
This would imply that God is not an entirely good god to allow suffering to exist in the world. It is a bit like setting a house on fire with women and children inside, just to give someone the chance to play hero and save them. Would you be doing a good thing to do this?
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so, if you were God, what would you do?
how would you get a meaningful genuine two way relationship between yourself and humans?
do you think you can do better?
Without war, there can be no peace,
Without hate, there can be no love,
Without evil, there can be no good.
I believe it's simple and to the point <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't agree with your argument.
Peace can be achieved with compromise and understanding.
One does not need to experience hate to understand love. One merely needs to experience the fact that not everyone loves them. In other words, an absence of love is sufficient to understand love.
Ditto with the evil argument. You do not need to be harmed to understand what it is to be helped. Evil might highlight good, but it is not necessary for good to exist or be understood.
In other words, God chose a world model that allows for something unneccessary i.e. Evil.
Your four-sided triangles have nothing to do with the laws of nature. They're merely a play on words, an undefined string of letters which has no meaning assigned to it. You're basically saying "God can't create a sdjfnmcb. He sucks."
These laws also dictate the rules like pythagorean theory and the "all angles add up to equal 180 in a triangle" rule. So could god make a triangle with the angles add up to be 181?
This is my point. Can God break rules which he himself defined?
He didn't define the rules of logic. They're certainly not part of the creation (as opposed to the laws of physics). What exactly the rules of logic are might be an interesting metaphysical question; are they an inherent property of God, a purely verbal human concept, or something else entirely?
Regarding the question of four-sided triangles (or square-circles, as these non-things are usually called), perhaps this little article is helpful:
<a href='http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/billramey/omni.htm' target='_blank'>Is Omnipotence Logically Impossible?</a>
You have to face evil to know good [Sorry not in the mood for a long post <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> ]
No middle ground? What kind of fantasy world do you live in? There is quite obviously a huge ammount of grey area in morality, if god says otherwise, well, he's a liar.
"You are either with us or with terrorists"
Boring rethoric really. If the world can be divided between the Good and the Evil , what's the point in believing ? There has to be a middle ground , else the "free will" is a joke. God would give us the choice to be with him or against him ? How interesting ! This really highlights how complex we are , awesome existence... it would be like if God , instead of creating obedient robots , created robots with random binary values good/evil , so they would obey him half of the time. I don't think God would be satisfied with that.
Our "free will" and conscience are not here just to separate evil ideas from good ideas. If there are two absolutes , they are unfathomable. How naive it is to think "I just did a good action"... you can't do anything "good" , you can do what you <i>think</i> is good , nothing else. It is a matter of responsibility to consider what the other think of your ideas before acting. No faith in the world is going to make you "right" , faith only makes you <i>hope</i> you are right.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Lamentations 3:38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that both calamities and good things come?
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD , do all these things.
Amos 3:6 When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?
Ezekiel 20:25 I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by;
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1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
Dueteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.
James 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So there really is no biblical answer to this question because it is one of the many things the bible flip-flops on. If the Biblb (the only book that contains any "real" information on the topic of god) cannot answer this question, then it is useless for us to argue it. God blatently contradicts himself on the topic, and since according to Hebrews 6:18 he cannot lie, then either A)they are both true (that good is the source of all evil, and not the source of evil), or B)it's all a load of bunk and it's useless for us to argue anyway.
Death Is Evil.
Life Is Good.
Yet, Life cannot exist without Death.
If humans did not die, there would be masses of overpopulation. We would never be able to exist, since the first humans would be both hindering us and taking up room.
Death makes society dynamic.
But on a broader spectrum, the very first bacterium would have multiplied to such an extent that the entire "Goldilocks" zone of the solar system would be inhabited by it's subsequent descendents.
Life, as we know it, cannot exist without death.
If there were no evil in the world, what would defin a good act? There would merely be lesser good and greater good. Would the lesser good become comparitively evil?
Do you see what I'm trying to convey? If there were no evil, then where would good be? There would merely be a restandardisation of good/evil.
Think of it in other terms.
If in life, you had no choice but success, what would be the point? It dosent matter how hard you try, you will ALWAYS succeed. Failure defines an alternative path and makes you wish to succeed.
What is the point in life and gods relationship with man if man can only do as god wills?
Try taking gods perspective on things as best you can. Do you want people to believe in you because they know no better? Or because they can make a choice?
God does not control our actions because god respects our free will. For example, Jonah. God gave him orders to go to Nineveh and tell the people there to recant. Instead, Jonah ran away. The ship Jonah was on was caught by storms (created by god) and only when Jonah jumped off the ship and got swallowed by a whale did the storms caese. For three days Jonah spent his time in the whale praying until he was vomited onto the coastline.
Now, in that story, god could simply have mind controlled Jonah to do his bidding. Instead, God took actions which may appear to be evil, but worked out to Jonahs good in the end.
Jonah eventually went to Nineveh, told the inhabitants to recant to save themselves from punishment from god. The people of nineveh did recant, and god spared them.
God gives us free will for a reason. He might pull a few strings to get his way, but he does not invade our minds and nor does he control our actions.
Evil arises for two reasons. Out of mans free will, and to contrast with good.
With life, there is death.
With black, there is white.
With hot, there is cold.
With Growth, there is decay.
With good, there is evil.
With charity, there is greed.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Personally, I think that if you added the sum of all good and the sum of all evil together, there would be a neutrality, but that is what I think, and is my opinion, thus it doesnt serve as an argument.
In any case, Evil exists because good exists. Remove them both, or live with them both. You cannot have one without the other.
Life Is Good.
Yet, Life cannot exist without Death.
If humans did not die, there would be masses of overpopulation. We would never be able to exist, since the first humans would be both hindering us and taking up room.
Death makes society dynamic.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He could have allowed everyone to live forever right? Whatever problems might arise, he could stop. He's God, the omniscent afterall, right?
So how can he go around making claims of "creating perfection", when to know perfection he would first have to had created evil, or evil must have been created at exactly the same time.
Something else that just hit me, the Tree in the Garden of Eden was called the "Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil". Perhaps there was no evil because Adam and Eve were ignorant of it. Once they knew about it, it came into being......
But then again, they got tempted by satan, and he was already evil, so evil must have existed before that, but the claim is that it didnt exist on Earth until the Fall.
Stakhanov Jesus was demonstrating that there is no middle ground in Faith. You chose to accept Jesus/God (same thing) or reject him. You're with him or against him. I dont see where that contradicts free will. The choice is entirely ours. In almost every situation, there is a right thing to do, and a wrong thing. Sometimes it hard to make out which is which, and in a few hypotheticals you can create situations where the right and wrong are impossible to distinguish, but basically a choice to the right and wrong thing exists in every situation.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->it would be like if God , instead of creating obedient robots , created robots with random binary values good/evil<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Absolutely nothing like it at all. God has created AI. Intelligence, then he has given this intelligent and completely independent creature a choice. How is that anything like preprogramming a binary human?
Hive similar contradicts have been posted in my other thread, and I'm going to answer those some time this afternoon hopefully, but just on the few you have there.
God, being the ultimate lawmaker and standard as the Bible claims he is - simply cannot do anything wrong. However, he can punish. Take the story of Jesus and the prostitute. He said to the mob, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Do you realise what he was saying there? If you have no sin, then I (as God) am giving you permission to kill this woman. Which leads to the interesting conclusion that supposed evil done by a blameless individual cannot be classified evil. Which means that evil must be introduced and accepted to you before you can actual do it. Adam and Eve accepted evil by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Ehehehe that doesnt really support my point does it.... Still interesting to think about.
Anyway, heres the point. When we kill we are taking away something that only God has a right to take away. God created humans, and he can take them away. Everything we have is Gods, and he retains the right to remove it, including our lives. Thus when he sends calamity, its not actually sin. He is merely taking back what is his - our lives.
However when Humans take away other Humans lives, they are taking what only God has the right to take - and thus have done evil. God can kill humans and remain blameless, humans cant or they are stealing something that only God can take. So yes, God floods the Yellow River and kills 1000000 Chinese, and comes out without sin. The Bible is not contradicting itself there.
When God said "I gave them over", that pretty much means he stopped protecting them, and let them be fooled by Satan. Again he retains innocence, I chose to protect them from Satan, and now I have stopped.
Just because God "is a warrior" doesnt exclude him from being a God of Peace. He is dealing with what is pretty much evil personified, lucifer. And God fights with him, and if he didnt, then there would be no Peace. No contradiction, God fights for Peace. Thus he is a warrior and a God of Peace simultaneously.
Hawkeye God could have made everyone live forever - and thats his eventual plan. For some reason he chose to allow evil that he could have stopped. However, as I have stated several times in this thread, "A being is not morally culpable for allowing preventable evil if he has sufficient moral reason for allowing it."
We dont know exactly what that morally sufficient reason is, and thats gonna be my first question.
So how can he go around making claims of "creating perfection", when to know perfection he would first have to had created evil, or evil must have been created at exactly the same time. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wait a minute, you're telling me that in order for there to be perfection, things must be imperfect? I thought that when things were perfect there shouldn't be any bad to compare it to. And if god said the world was GOOD when he created it, then maybe he meant that he had made it the way he intended, it was good in his eyes. You don't need a bad universe to know when you're made a good one.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->However when Humans take away other Humans lives, they are taking what only God has the right to take - and thus have done evil. God can kill humans and remain blameless, humans cant or they are stealing something that only God can take. So yes, God floods the Yellow River and kills 1000000 Chinese, and comes out without sin. The Bible is not contradicting itself there.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How can you say that? A parent who orders his child not to drink, then goes on a bender is a hypcrit, correct? Then a God who orders people to not kill, then kills millions is a hypocrit. And what happened to that grat gift of free will? Where's his wondrous gift then? When god kills you, you have no say in the matter, no free will. That's pretty darned evil of god if you ask me.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Just because God "is a warrior" doesnt exclude him from being a God of Peace. He is dealing with what is pretty much evil personified, lucifer. And God fights with him, and if he didnt, then there would be no Peace. No contradiction, God fights for Peace. Thus he is a warrior and a God of Peace simultaneously.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When was the last time you heard of God fighting Satan? He doesn't. God and Satan regularly talk and in Job they make a friendly wager about how much Satan would have to make a man miserable. That's not God fighting Satan, that's God letting him run around willy-nilly. The fact is, if God wanted to fight Satan, he could simply will him out of existence, but he doesn't, because he isn't a very nice guy.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Hawkeye God could have made everyone live forever - and thats his eventual plan. For some reason he chose to allow evil that he could have stopped. However, as I have stated several times in this thread, "A being is not morally culpable for allowing preventable evil if he has sufficient moral reason for allowing it."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And what reason does God have for allowing it? So we will be happy? He could have made us happy as clams and we wouldn't have known the difference if we were robots. He could have given us free will but just given us a bunch of equally good choices, either way God could have made us happy and completely content withought free will and we wouldn't have known the difference.
(1') A totally good God will prevent all the evil that He can unless He has a morally sufficient reason for permitting its existence.
(2') An omniscient, omnipotent God can prevent all evil.
(3') Evil exists.
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Dont confuse All powerful with "can do anything". God cannot contradict his own nature. He cannot make a stone so heavy he couldnt lift it. No four sided triangles. I dont believe all powerful does mean can do anything. All powerful means if it is possible for something to be done, then an all powerful being can do it.
Things are good because they are done by God is the answer. If he exists, he gets the last word on everything. Evil happens because God decides not to prevent it. Why? I'll ask him the same when I see him.
Sirius in my link the author quoted Augustine's arguement that evil is like a shadow, and also offered criticism of that idea, check it out and tell me what you think. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm going to laugh if I get into heaven and there are four-sided triangles and rocks too heavy for God to lift there. Laugh long and hard.