Religious responses to the problem of evil
responses to the argument against the existence of God
Religious responses to the problem of evil are concerned with reconciling the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. An argument that attempts to resolve the problem of evil is known as a theodicy.
The problem of evil is acute in monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism whose religion is based on such a God. However, the question of "why does evil exist?" has also been studied in religions that are non-theistic or polytheistic, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. In most theological discussions, evil is defined in a broad manner as any and all pain and suffering, but religion also uses a narrow definition that says evil involves only horrific acts committed by an independent moral agent and does not include all wrongs or harm, including that from nature.
The problem of evil is formulated as either a logical problem that highlights an incompatibility between some characteristic of God and evil or as an evidential problem that attempts to show that evidence of evil outweighs the evidence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good God.
Definitions
Evil
A broad concept of evil defines it as any and all pain and suffering. While many of the ways to construct the problem of evil are based on the broad definition of evil, "most contemporary philosophers interested in the nature of evil are primarily concerned with evil in a narrower sense." The narrow concept of evil involves moral condemnation and is applicable only to moral agents capable of making independent decisions and their actions; it allows for the existence of some pain and suffering without identifying it as evil. It has been suggested that the term evil cannot be used to describe ordinary wrongdoing because "there is a qualitative and not merely a quantitative difference between evil acts and other wrongful ones; evil acts are not just very bad or wrongful acts, but rather ones possessing some specially horrific quality."
Logical problem of evil
The earliest formulation of the problem of evil dates back to the Greek philosopher Epicurus; David Hume paraphrased it as follows: "Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent.
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