1) A Response to the Problem of Evil: Introduction

               The movement most commonly known today as the “New Atheist” movement has developed new and increasingly articulate arguments against theism on the basis of evil.  The argument goes as follows:

                1.  An omnipotent God could stop evil

                2.  An omnibenevolent God would stop evil

                3.  Evil exists

                4.  Therefore, there exists no omnipotent and omnibenevolent God

                It is a strong argument, no doubt.  Yet even the atheists making it have conceded that there is no necessary contradiction here.  Even an omnipotent God may not be able to stop evil without thereby tainting some greater good, such as creaturely free will or the ability to develop virtuous character through resistance to evil.  An omnibenevolent God could very easily have good reason for allowing evil, just as a benevolent mother has good reason for letting her child get jabbed in the arm with a syringe.  Because God is a person, not an immutable principle, we cannot with perfect accuracy say what he can or would do.

                I know full well that these brief defenses stir up a whole host of questions: what of natural evil?  What of gratuitous evil?  If evil is required for the acquisition of good, doesn’t that make good dependent on evil?  Does God exist, yet he is not omnipotent or not omnibenevolent?  There are plenty of sources that can help to answer these questions, but this essay is not one of them.  To answer all of them would be to write an encyclopedia, and I am neither inclined to nor capable of such a feat. 

An additional reason for which I refrain from answering such questions is that I do not believe that they are at the center of the issue.  They are all peripheral, derivative from questions which are much more ultimate; questions that have gone blatantly uncontemplated by those who need to seriously consider them.  They are as follows: what do we mean when we say that something is evil?  What are the implications of believing in evil?  Is the affirmation of evil consistent with an atheistic worldview?  These are the questions that I believe must be answered before any meaningful debate can occur between theism and atheism about evil, and they are the questions which this essay seeks to answer.