Jesse Harris

Prof. Haney
PHI 2010
September 28, 2006
Word Count: 934

Critique of the Problem of Evil

When I examined the logical problem of evil and its theodicies or attempted solutions to

the problem, I found that the theodicies did not logically solve the problem of evil. The

problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of evil or suffering in the

world with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God or Gods.

The problem of evil is a deductive argument which means if the premises are true then

the conclusion is also true. The premises of the problem of evil are as follows;

1) God is omnibenevolent and therefore God does everything in his power to prevent

any evil.

2) God is omnipotent and omniscient and therefore would know of any evil and is

able to prevent it.

3) Therefore God must prevent all evil.

4) There is evil in the world.

5) Therefore God does not exist.

From this arises Epicurus’ questions; ‘Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both

able and willing? Whence then is evil?’ By definition God is neither impotent,

malevolent or evil. Therefore the mere definition of God contradicts reality.

 To me it seems obvious that the definition of God as omnibenevolent, omniscient

and omnipotent is inconsistent with the fact that evil exists. If he was both all good

and all powerful surely evil wouldn’t exist.

The theodicies try to solve this logical problem by either saying evil doesn’t really

exist or that evil exists but there also exists an alternate omni malevolent deity called

the devil. This second so called solution may be easily dismissed since God could not

be omnipotent if an opposite rival deity existed. I also don’t like this argument since

it undermines human responsibility.

The other theodicies say that evil doesn’t exist because suffering is not pointless

or that those who suffer are not innocent. The last statement implies original sin; that

we are already guilty before we are even born and therefore we deserve punishment.

Not only is this ‘solution’ pure speculation but to me it seems ludicrous to say that

one is guilty before committing a crime or that a baby that suffers or dies deserves

God’s punishment.

The remaining theodicies attempt to explain away evil by saying it’s not pointless.

Like the other theodicies, they are also built on speculation and they all violate

Occam’s Razor which is expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae (law of

succinctness). Occam's razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should

make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or "shaving off," those that make

no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. In

short, when given two equally valid explanations for a phenomenon, one should

embrace the less complicated formulation. The least complicated formulation is

obviously evil exists but God doesn’t. The theodicies which argue that suffering is
not pointless speculate about God’s ‘Big Plan’, that evil is necessary for ‘character

building’, that human ignorance is so great that we cannot know if evil exists, that we

need evil in order to ‘contrast’ it with good, and finally that free will is a test to see if

we will choose good. None of these really solve the problem of evil. If God is

omnipotent and omniscient he would already know if we would choose good

especially if he created us. To me, the ‘contrast’ argument sounds a lot like the

‘character building’ argument as well as the ‘test’ argument. These imply that there is

a point to having evil so that we may choose good. However, often there is no choice

involved when something evil happens, like the distruction caused by a natural

disaster or when people die but there is no one else around to witness it. Some times

good things come out of something evil but that doesn’t mean that the original event

is no longer evil, just that the effects were not entirely evil. The argument that

humans are to ignorant to understand evil and yet are able to understand God is

equally preposterous. Both of these concepts may be understood by humans since we

invented them. The definition of evil is pointless suffering of the innocent. This is

easy to see when we observe the world around us. However, the existence of an entiy

that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent is not objectively observable and

also logically violates Occam’s Razor. Not only that but, as shown, it is incompatible

with the existence of evil which is observed.

In The Problem of Evil written by David Hume, Cleanthes responds to the

theodicies: ‘These arbitrary suppositions can never be admitted, contrary to matter of

fact, visible and uncontroverted. Whence can any cause be known but from its

known effects? Whence can any hypothesis be proved but from apparent
phenomena? To establish one hypothesis upon another, is building entirely in the air;

and the utmost we ever attain, by these conjectures and fictions, is to ascertain the

bare possibilities of our opinion; but never can we, upon such term, establish its

reality.’ In conclusion, the theodicies and the concept of God as we define it are all

speculation built ‘entirely in the air’. The concept of evil, on the other hand, is easily

observed in the world around us. By definition, since evil and God cannot both exist,

the logical problem of evil shows that only one of the concepts is objectively real; the

one that is observable.