The problem of evil

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Can someone please explain why this is even a problem?

Many people get stuck on this problem, but I just don’t understand why. I don’t understand their logic block.

First of all, if God is love then God can not force his love upon us. He had to give us a choice to feel his love or not. If you truely love someone then you can’t force your love upon them.

Second, isn’t the knowledge of good and evil simply knowing what it is like to exist outside of Gods love? God is all knowing so in order of him to love us completely he does not hide truth from us. He shares the knowledge that it possible to live outside of his love.

Now is that not the choice that we have made? To know what it is like to exist outside of Gods love?.

This is why physical death is God’s mercy to us. When we die we return to God and with the knowledge of his absense (Evil),
Hopefully at this point we return to God with a thankfull heart and a longing for his love. For some this won’t be the case. They will not be able to endure the love of God directly. It will be too strong for them. They will turn away and burn from within.
 
Basically the problem is this:

A six year old is raped and murdered by the family. Why is this allowed by God, when the child is innocent but has been afflicted by terrible evil? Why was the horror of Nazi Germany allowed? What good came to those innocents who suffered terribly and died? Free will, they say, must allow for the possibility of evil.

This is a problem in part because of the existence of heaven. There is no restraint of free will in heaven, but there is also no evil there. This goes against the argument that evil must exist because of free will. It is therefore postulated that a better world could exists, less or no evil could exist, while still retaining free will, and, that this muddles the existence of the Catholic tri-omni god.
 
Aleii said:
There is no restraint of free will in heaven, but there is also no evil there. This goes against the argument that evil must exist because of free will.
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I’ll answer this part. In heaven (or hell) our free will is eternally confirmed (like the angels now). If we choose God, our will is confirmed in that choice - if we choose other, our will is likewise confirmed in that choice. It isn’t that we no longer have a choice - we’ve decided.

By free will, man is capable of directing himself toward his true good, but due to the deception of the devil, man often abuses his free will. (cf. CCC 1704-1707)
 
Aleii said:
A six year old is raped and murdered by the family. Why is this allowed by God, when the child is innocent but has been afflicted by terrible evil? .
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Yes, what kind of God allows this to happen? What is gained by such suffering? Proof that we have “free will?” Well, take away all of my free will now, sweet Jesus, if that would prevent such things from happening.
 
JMJ_coder said:
I’ll answer this part. In heaven (or hell) our free will is eternally confirmed (like the angels now). If we choose God, our will is confirmed in that choice - if we choose other, our will is likewise confirmed in that choice. It isn’t that we no longer have a choice - we’ve decided.

By free will, man is capable of directing himself toward his true good, but due to the deception of the devil, man often abuses his free will. (cf. CCC 1704-1707)
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Could you elaborate on this? Satan was an angel. Also, if one only has one choice and is not able to choose differently in the future, is this not a halting of free will?
 
The religious scholar Huston Smith called the problem of evil ‘the rock of Gibraltar that the faith of many people breaks upon’ (or something like that). I understand human evil, because it is free will, no matter how horrific the example: we are fallen, and we can be incredibly cruel to one and other. I don’t like it, but I get it.

What I don’t understand are things like earthquakes, tsunamis, plagues, etc. Natural disasters have nothing to do with free will, and destroy both the innocent and the wicked. If God is love…why did He design a system that periodically, and capriciously, destroys life, inflicts unimaginable suffering, and shakes our faith in the whole of creation?

That, to me, is the real mystery.
 
Aleii said:
Could you elaborate on this? Satan was an angel. Also, if one only has one choice and is not able to choose differently in the future, is this not a halting of free will?
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  1. Satan rebelled against God. The angels did not yet enjoy the Beatific Vision. Please see this article for more information: newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm#III
  2. No, it is not halting; the angels and saints can still choose to do whatever good they want. They have free-will, it’s just now that they use it totally for good, able to choose freely what good to do. The same goes for the demons: their free-will is now totally grounded in evil and they use it to choose what evil to do.
 
ilovekittens said:
Yes, what kind of God allows this to happen? What is gained by such suffering? Proof that we have “free will?” Well, take away all of my free will now, sweet Jesus, if that would prevent such things from happening.
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This question is the first asked by us when we talk about God. The answer I beleive is not that difficult, I beleive what JWs say that the world is ruled by the evil, which will end when Jesus comes back. We do evil things not God, God is perfect God is good, He would never do anything remotley bad. It is always our choice wheter we give in satans call or not. Many of us do give in, that is what makes this an evil place. Evil influences us all the time by different medias, and sometimes we are weak to resist.
We always expect God to help us, but He cannot interfere with our choice, cant just stop every evil act all the time. We make a choice to do evil, we have to live with it. If He saved us from bad all the time we wouldnt have free will, this place would be heaven. If I choose to jump off a cliff I will die, no matter what.
He wants to prove us that we cannot live without His control, we have to surrender to his will and accept it. It takes time, and as long as we listen to evil instead of him we dont deserve to live in heaven. He doesnt want to hurt us, we do it to ourselves, we kill our children, poison our planet, torture animals, etc. He doesnt want to use nature to hurt us either, like storms and volcanoes. We poison the planet which has an effect on it, he created a world which is delicate, just like us, we should take care of it.
Innocent suffer because of evil/us not because of him, like Jesus suffered from our whip, but was saved by Him.
When the time comes those who deserve will be saved, we just have to live a life that grants to be amongs those.
 
Nickkname said:
  1. Satan rebelled against God. The angels did not yet enjoy the Beatific Vision. Please see this article for more information: newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm#III
  2. No, it is not halting; the angels and saints can still choose to do whatever good they want. They have free-will, it’s just now that they use it totally for good, able to choose freely what good to do. The same goes for the demons: their free-will is now totally grounded in evil and they use it to choose what evil to do.
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Right, JMJ just seemed to be saying that the statement that those in heaven have free will but don’t sin was incorrect. I wanted to clarify what he was saying.
 
Aleii said:
Are you are saying that those in heaven don’t have free will?
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Oh no sorry!! I meant that there would not be pain and suffering. Which we cause by chosing to do evil not good. Once we are saved we will realize that God is our choice to live in perfect happiness, and without him there is only suffering. Then we are going to use our free will to choose what good we are going to do.
 
Deo_Optimo_Maxi said:
Oh no sorry!! I meant that there would not be pain and suffering. Which we cause by chosing to do evil not good. Once we are saved we will realize that God is our choice to live in perfect happiness, and without him there is only suffering. Then we are going to use our free will to choose what good we are going to do.
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Thanks for the clarification 🙂
 
’ If you pull out the weeds you may uproot wheat as well, let them grow together until the harvest, then the workers will seperate the weeds from the wheat and the weeds will be thrown into the fire.’ (paraphrase)
 
Aleii said:
Could you elaborate on this? Satan was an angel. Also, if one only has one choice and is not able to choose differently in the future, is this not a halting of free will?
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In the beginning, the angels were given a test (indeed, our current state as pilgrims on earth is our test). We don’t know exactly what the test was, many theologians think they were given a vision of the Incarnation. A third of the angels, led by Lucifer, rebelled against God and were thrust out of Heaven. “It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels’ sin unforgivable. “There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death.”” (CCC 393; St. John Damascene, Defide orth. 2, 4: PG 94, 877.)
Aleii said:
Right, JMJ just seemed to be saying that the statement that those in heaven have free will but don’t sin was incorrect. I wanted to clarify what he was saying.
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Though we will not sin in Heaven it is because we are eternally confirmed in our freely willed choice. We shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set us free. The fact that we will no longer be fickle agents, as we are now going back and forth between love of God and love of self and created goods, doesn’t mean we no longer have free choice - it means our choice is eternally confirmed.
 
Aleii said:
Basically the problem is this:

A six year old is raped and murdered by the family. Why is this allowed by God, when the child is innocent but has been afflicted by terrible evil? Why was the horror of Nazi Germany allowed? What good came to those innocents who suffered terribly and died? Free will, they say, must allow for the possibility of evil.

This is a problem in part because of the existence of heaven. There is no restraint of free will in heaven, but there is also no evil there. This goes against the argument that evil must exist because of free will. It is therefore postulated that a better world could exists, less or no evil could exist, while still retaining free will, and, that this muddles the existence of the Catholic tri-omni god.
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Who was more evil? The Nazi perpetrators or those who stood by and allowed them to commit their unspeakable crimes?
 
ilovekittens said:
Yes, what kind of God allows this to happen? What is gained by such suffering? Proof that we have “free will?” Well, take away all of my free will now, sweet Jesus, if that would prevent such things from happening.
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That is nearly exactly what we ask God to do in the Lord’s Prayer.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done…
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As Jesus said in Luke 22:42…
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
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JMJ_coder said:
I’ll answer this part. In heaven (or hell) our free will is eternally confirmed (like the angels now). If we choose God, our will is confirmed in that choice - if we choose other, our will is likewise confirmed in that choice. It isn’t that we no longer have a choice - we’ve decided.

By free will, man is capable of directing himself toward his true good, but due to the deception of the devil, man often abuses his free will. (cf. CCC 1704-1707)
Click to expand...
That’s a very good answer. I had not really thought of that before. 👍
 
Deo_Optimo_Maxi said:
We do evil things not God, God is perfect God is good, He would never do anything remotley bad. He doesnt want to use nature to hurt us either, like storms and volcanoes. .
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The Old Testament is filled with heinous crimes and the Biblical authors attributed them to God.

God has used nature often in the OT to hurt and in some cases, kill his children. Here are a few examples off the top of my head.

God has innocent babies killed, (I think the first born sons) in Egypt during the plagues and other things he rained down upon Pharoa and his innocent citizens.

God rains fire and brimstone down upon Sodom and three other cities. The problem is that babies, pregnant women and toddlers also had to be living in those cities and were also slaughtered.

God turned Lots wife into a pillar of salt because she looked at the destructive display behind her.

God killed everything on earth by using a very slow method, a world wide flood. God could have simply and immediately willed all beings out of existence, or immediately given everyone a heart attack. Again, babies, pregnant ladies and toddlers also die in the flood.

God killed everyone in Sodom and the other cities because there were not enough righteous people living. The problem is that Lot is considered righteous, even though he offered his daughters up to be raped and abused by the mob, in order to protect a couple of strange guys. Then the daughters later had sex with Lot, God being Omniscient, would have known that they would do this…but they all got to live, while everyone else was violently killed.

Permitting hell to exist, and permitting infinite punishment for his children, for finite sins committed while on earth.

Adam and Eve - God gave Eve child birth " pain" as punishment for having disobeyed him. He also chucks his kids out of the Garden for having made a mistake, instead of forgiving them.

There are other violent actions that are attributed to God.

I’m fairly sure the OT also has God expressing that he is Jealous and vengeful. Those aren’t great qualities, even for lowly humans.

God is love, but why are all those violent actions attributed to him?
 
Here is a simplistic answer to why evil exist or why God allows disasters to happen.

This is not Heaven…at least not yet. IF evil, suffering and death ceased to exist then we would by definition be in Heaven. We lost that with sin.

Life is simply a test. Which will you choose; sin and death; or goodness and Heaven. How will your respond to sin and evil ? with love charity and forgiveness or will you be indifferent; embrace evil or perpetrate evil ?

Many of the saints and martyrs embraced suffering (and many even inflicted it upon themselves - which is grossly misunderstood) offering up their pain for the salvation of others.

When my kids complain life is unfair, I remind them that this is earth, not Heaven, get used to it.

When we see suffering and death, we learn a little about what Hell and Purgatory may be like. Plus it gives us the opportunity to be charitable and understanding. It gives us a chance to help others and sympathize with their pain and sorrow, to offer comfort and empathy.

When we can feel the pain and suffering of others then we become a little more like Christ. And when we experience pain and suffering ourselves, then we can understand a little bit of what Christ went through for us.
 
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