Apr 26 2010
How can a good, all-powerful God allow evil?
You have probably heard this argument before. It goes something like this…
1. Evil exists.
2. If God was all-knowing, then God would know that evil exists.
3. If God was all-good, then he would not want evil to exist.
4. If God was all-powerful, then he would be able to stop evil from existing.
5. Therefore, there cannot be a God who is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful.
This argument is usually used to prove that the Christian God does not exist, or that no God exists. Or this argument has been used to limit God. "God must be ignorant of the suffering of this world, otherwise he would want to change it and would be able to." Or, "God must not be as good as we thought because he must know that evil exists, and it seems as if he would have the power to change it." Or, "God clearly does not have to power to stop evil because he knows about evil and wants to stop it." These arguments would either make God too distant from our lives to notice, call God’s motives and kindness into question, or make us pity God because he appears to be weak just as we are. But is the argument outlined above really that airtight?
Consider adding a new 5th proposition…
5. God is all-wise and has a purpose for the existence of evil.
The only way that you could disprove this statement is to be wiser than God. Because if you deny this statement you are basically saying, "I know all possible reasons God may have for the purpose of evil and none of those reasons are good enough." But that response is clearly false - you don’t have an infinite mind, you can’t fully know the mind of God. It is because of this proposition that all serious philosophers (Christian and otherwise) have abandoned the argument outlined in the beginning of this section. And as Christians we believe that God has clued us into why he might allow evil to exist. For our answer, refer to the second section entitled, "Why is There Evil in the World?"