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Evil becomes a paradox when a Judeo-Christian male deity exists who is both allpowerful and all good, but can coexist with evil. The best response to the problem stems from the possibility that God did not create evil, but that humans have the free will to do evil. Since the idea of free will would be benevolent and humans were made in the image of God, it would make sense to give the option to humans. He wished to create free will in order to create the existence of morality, which led to faith. Adam and Eve would receive the temptation of evil, but ultimately it would become their choice whether to indulge in the immoral choice and creating evil. And because they chose evil even once, God became somewhat responsible for their sins as their creator. So He absolved individual evil by sending a perfect son to Earth and allowing his torture at the hands of humans; therefore, the tremendous anguish he took, without reprieve or complaint, created enough good to counteract the net evil of His believers. In effect, he just left the choice of believing in Him, and allowed humans who didnt have the faith to be accountable for their inevitable sins. If humans are capable of evil and the Devil, evil incarnate, exists, it brings forth the question of why God doesnt destroy both parties immediately. God wishes to wait until the last believer on Earth dies before sending the Devil and all the believers to hell in an event known as Rapture. He guards his omnipotence until then, thereby elevating his desire to be all good above his absolute power, because he wants to wait for the last believer to die on the Earth. However, some points arise to contradict these points, culminating to why God doesnt destroy evil and its sources as soon as possible. The major problem: He doesnt eliminate humans and replace them with better copies. When he created a being that failed to abstain from evil, he could have easily replaced humanity

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with beings that wont perform evil acts. The usual response would be that such a being would be an automaton, a being lacking free will. Yet, Jesus who had a personal connection to God, always chose goodness over evil, and didnt act like an automaton; in all ways, he solved all the problems of humanity in his existence. But God kept imperfect humanity over the years even though a much better being existed to populate the lands, which voids his power as a God who is perfectly good. In addition, humans have free will but keep the possibility of choosing evil over goodness, which voids at least one of the powers of God. If humans can perpetrate evil and God wont keep a Savior to regularly remove it, means he implicitly permits it. Patience, essentially inaction, about dealing with the evil means he doesnt keep his power to be all good all the time. Lastly, while free will and the inability to perform only good acts remain logically incompatible, God loses his omnipotence if he cant allow the paradox of both to be true.

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Knowledge of the external world that comes through the senses and through reasoning does not hold the truth about reality. Since either method deceives at least once, they could always deceive true perception of reality. Through rationalism, people can come to false conclusions about reality and pass it on with negligible doubt. In addition, the influence of a group to change the rational thought of an individual, mob mentality, can considerably reduce the validity of individual reason, since not believing in what the majority believes can create conflict or even punishment for opposing opinions. Galileos correct view of the solar system almost cost him his life, a result of the perceptions of the Church against him. Even more false ideas can become posited, when knowledge comes from biased sources or through confirmation bias. Famously, many conspiracy theories exist about the President concerning his middle name, birth certificate, and religion, all of which affected the previous election; most of these theories fail due to Ockhams razor, since the President has given simple explanations for all of them. Through empiricism, people can also come to false conclusions about reality. For each sense, a trick exists to fool it. Most people have experienced optical illusions, and the end of each illusion shows that vision failed in a certain respect. And some people have created professions based on illusions with ventriloquism up to magicians. In addition, some drugs distort the senses and even improve them, yet a baseline is not possible, since a person cant simply dial up or down their senses at will. Through Nagels What is it Like to be a Bat, he proposes that the senses cant provide enough resources to describe how a bat perceives his senses. Since it is not possible to remove the subjectivity of the senses and continue to sense, mankind cant find the truth about reality.

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Descartess Meditations provides a method to apply rationalism and the methods of reasoning mentioned previously will be prone to falsehood. Meditation II mentions the cogito argument which meant that one can think, therefore one exists. This ability to think allows any individual to reach valid conclusions based on individual thought, but it doesnt prove the existence of others, so deductions of reality must be made with knowledge gained from ones mind. This correct method of rationalism removes contamination of truth. Locke implements empiricism and parries the problem of senses deceived in different manners and how individuals can find truth with their sets of senses. He says an individual doesnt yet exist that has objective perception, so he goes with the construct of primary qualities, qualities that anyone can measure and objectively know as truth. The secondary qualities, which represent perceptions about objects, can be developed over time into truth through the use of collective knowledge. Responses to cogito and secondary quality deductions have an implicit assumption behind one and the end state of the other. The cogito argument stays valid with the idea that anything that can think, exists. However, the possibility arises with the Brain in a Vat argument, which proposes that a brain can exist independently and receives signals of a false reality from a computer. Thus any deductions from sense and reason fail to create an accurate picture of reality. Furthermore, the end state of developing secondary qualities of reality with the help of others creates a problem, since it raises the possibility that one cant find an accurate truth in a lifetime. Furthermore, relying on developing secondary qualities of reality over time assumes pronoia: the universe conspires to help one understand each element, not to deceive.