Does Evil Disprove God?

Evil exists everywhere. Turn on the news and you will see people ravaged by horrific diseases, children sent to fight in wars and destruction effecting the most vulnerable. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the suffering within the world. And yet, some people believe in an all powerful and all loving being. Surely this is illogical thinking? If this were the case, why would he permit evil? Is he sick, or is he impotent?

This is referring to the logical Problem of Evil, which is used as an argument by atheists to render the classical concept of God illogical, drawing out a supposed logical contradiction. What I intend to offer in this article is a brief demonstration about why the existence of evil is compatible with the existence of God in a logical way, but I will not try to explain for sure why evil exists. I propose a more moderate aim for this article, in trying to show how God is a logically viable being with respect to this problem.

On a side note, whilst this argument remains highly popular with the laity today, the vast majority of philosophers have abandoned it due to the fact that it has been demonstrated as false in the 70s. So bare in mind that if you do not see why my defense works, the experts in the field came up with this and it generally accepted as true.

The Problem in its fullest and most powerful form is stated as such:

1) God is omnipotent.
2) God is omniscient.
3) God is wholly good.
4) Evil exists.
5) If God is omniscient and omnipotent, he can eliminate any evil state of affairs.
6) Thus, if God exists, there would be no evil.
7) However, evil exists.
8) Therefore, God cannot exist.

Now it is important to bare in mind that a logical contradiction is not merely a tricky situation or a problem that can be seen in two ways; if something is logically contradictory, it is 100% impossible, like a square circle. A square cannot be a circle, for by its very definition it is four sided, whereas a circle is one sided. In the same way, to say that the concept of God logically is contradictory is to say there is no possible doubt one could raise against such an objection which makes sense, and that there is no possible state of affairs where God could foreseeable exist with evil.

However, the argument provided does not with logical certainty prove that the concept of God is impossible provided evil exists. All a theist would need to believe is that God has a morally justified reason for permitting evil, which fits in with premises 1 to 6 in a consistent way, and this would show that you can consistently doubt the claim that the existence of evil shows the concept of God existing is logically impossible, and thus makes the concept of God logically possible.

What this morally justifiable reason could be is not certain, but indeed it does not need to be clarified, for we have already produced a defeater for the Problem of Evil in its logical sense. It could be the need for freedom, the production of spiritual growth or even something else our tiny, ignorant minds haven't grasped. Whatever it is, logically this problem is redundant, its power has been lost, for the premise that God exists and evil exists are compatible. That does not mean that it is true that God exists, all it means is it is logically possible. But if it is logically possible, there is no inherent contradiction. And if there is no contradiction, there is no more threat to a theists belief.

I hope I have convinced you that the existence of God is not found to be contradictory by the problem of evil. If you would like to explore the possible justifications God has for permitting evil, I would recommend reading the work of St. Augustine, St. Iranaeus and Alvin Plantinga. All three are highly significant in this field and would be good sources to start with.

Just to point out, this article is purely addressing the logical problem of evil, no other version of the problem.