Photo: © The Jewish Virtual Library

The Challenge Of Evil For Believers

Theologian Peter Kreeft writes: 

 "The problem of evil is the most serious problem in the world. It is also the one serious objection to the existence of God.
 Thomas Aquinas [in his] Summa Theologica could find only two objections to the existence of God.

These were -
• The apparent ability of natural science to explain everything without reference to God
• The problem of evil."

How Can A Good God Allow Evil?

The classic formulation of the problem of evil is :

• If God is all good, how can he allow evil to exist?
• If God is all powerful, why does he not deal with evil?

Either God is not all-good and loving (omnibenevolent) 
Or       God is not all-powerful all the time (omnipotent)
[For a recent restatement of this classic formulation, see Alvin Plantinga's Free Will Defense]

There is, however, another possibility, hinted at in ISAIAH 55:8-9. Since we are not God, we do not have the whole picture and do not understand.

The Problem Of Evil & God's Justice

The Holocaust in which more than six million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis or the murderous regimes of Stalin or Pol Pot raise the serious question of evil that appears to go unpunished. If God is a God of justice, it is clear that he cannot allow evil to go unpunished.