God and Evil . Can the problem of evil be solved without giving up any of the divine attributes? Evil, a God which is omnipotent and a God which is morally perfect; the problem of evil is the problem that revolves around the co-existence of the above. Arguably, when any two of these exist, it would be impossible for the third to co-exist. For if God is morally perfect, he would have created a world without evil. Yet evil exists, thus we are forced to conclude that either God is not morally perfect, or that he does not have the omnipotence to create a morally perfect world. What is evil? The commonly adopted definition of evil consists of two sub-classes, physical evil and moral evil. Physical evils consist of diseases, pain, and natural disasters such as earthquakes, famine et cetera. The problem of evil here is quite straight forward, why would a morally perfect God inflict such suffering on human kind if he had the power to prevent it. Moral evil, on the other hand, is the human capacity to perform evil actions. The question here is why would an omnipotent God allow this to be? alan
Evil is a point of view and nothing more. The concepts of good and evil are human, not divine. It happens when you can't see the whole picture. x
Evil comes from the same root as offal...anyone who has ever cleaned an animal knows that offal is the guts, etc...evil/offal means what is too much and nonbenificial....excess....anti-fertile....but there is always a balance...so nothing is inherantly either/or....thus is the basis of the neccessity of conflict cosmology of Elder Heathenry..
I always liked this story... A university professor addressing his large body of students asked of them this question, "Did God create everything that exists?" One brave student replied, "Of course He did!" The professor inquired if he was sure of his reply. "Yes, sir. He sure did create everything," replied the student. The professor became happy with himself thinking he had the student over a barrel. He told the group that if God created everything, then God surely created evil, since everyone knows that evil exists. He further elaborated on the principal that since our works define who we are, then God is evil. The student's face turned red and he offered no retort. The professor, being quite pleased with himself boasted to the students that he had proven once more that God is a myth. Another young man quickly asked the professor if cold existed, to which the professor answered, "Of course, cold exists. What kind of question is this? Have you never been cold young man?" The young student replied, "In fact, sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, cold is, in reality, the absence of heat. Cold does not exist. We have only created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat. The professor remained quiet. The student then asked if darkness existed, to which the professor stated an affirmative. The student told him once again that he was wrong, because darkness does not exist either. The young man said, "Darkness is, in reality, the absence of light. We can study light but not darkness. We can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wave lengths of each color, but darkness has no measure, sir. Darkness is but a term used by man to describe what happens when no light is present." Finally, the student asked the professor if evil existed, to which an angry professor stated of course evil is present in the world. He elaborated on man's inhumanity to man as well as to daily crime and violence. The student firmly replied, "Sir, evil does not exist either. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is a word created by man to describe no God, such as you have attempted to do. Evil is but the result of what happens when man does not have God in his heart. It is like the cold when there is no heat, and the darkness when there is no light. The professor sat down.
