Is a god reconcilable with evil? In order to understand if a god is compatible with evil, we must first define which god we mean, and what its attributes are. In this essay, we will disprove a god who is omnipotent, omniscient and omni benevolent, such as Christians will often claim their god is. A god who is not defined by these criteria, is obviously not disproven by the existence of evil, and will not be addressed.
It is easy to understand that there is evil in the world. In this world, we've seen flooding destroy crops and houses, we've seen infertility hurt those who long to be parents, we've seen good people be killed by drunk drivers, we've seen soldiers killed defending their respective countries, we've seen the deaths of hundreds of innocent people on 9/11, we've seen, recently, an earthquake and tsunami ravage Japan, destroying nuclear facilities that leave even survivors at high risk of contracting deadly diseases from exposure to fallout, and, closer to home, in every community, we've seen children raped and beaten by the people who are supposed to love them most. If there was a loving god,goddess, or genderless deity he/she/xe would simply fix these things, unless of course, he didn't have the power. But, that would disprove an omnipotent god. What if, perhaps, this god was unwilling to fix them? That would disprove him or her by the malice that he or she should lack by basic definition. Is he/she/xe unaware that these awful things are occurring? Again, this excludes such a deity from existing, based on his lack of omniscience, which is one of the central defining characteristics of this being.
(for length purposes, and because commonly, these deities are male in the mythology, we will use "god" and masculine pronouns from here on out)
One of the most commonly heard answers for how this evil came to be and is allowed to exist is the complication of free will. The story goes that the perfect christian god wanted humans to have free will, but as we are not perfect, like this god, we (referring to humans in general) used it to create evil. It seems to make sense as an excuse upon early examination. But it is not as simple as that. There are several problems with this defense.
First of all, if this god was truly all powerful, why would he create us with the capacity to hurt one another? Why wouldn’t he create us perfect, like him, so we did not have to hurt? If we act as if we have misused our free will, we forget to address the idea of why we have the will to choose evil in the first place. A god who loves us would simply avoid giving us the will to do evil. It makes no sense for god to purposefully create beings with flaws. We run into the same problems as we do with the argument before free will is added. Creating the capacity and the desire to do evil should be judged on the same terms that creating evil itself. If god did not intend to, he made a mistake and cannot be omnipotent, if he purposefully created this desire, he is malevolent, and if he was unaware, he cannot be truly all knowing.
Many will try to refute this, saying that their god had to create the capacity and desire to do evil in order to give us true free will, and without true free will, we could never be happy, but if this god was real, and all powerful, he is the one who made the previous statement true. The free will dilemma plays on our emotions as well, appealing specifically to fear. We all hate the idea of having no choice at all, so we think of this removal of free will as something terrifying and horrible in itself. But, our fear of lack of free will proves nothing. Lack of free will does not indicate suffering, and therefore does not indicate evil. In itself, lack of free will harms no one and it is only our desire to be free that makes this bad, and, again, with an all powerful god, our desire to have free will could have not been created, making us happy with our lack thereof free will. If we claim that free will simply cannot be true without the choice for evil, we leave the definition of true free will outside of god’s power. A god that is good would not knowingly make something that caused all sorts of horrible suffering the only way to true happiness, and a powerful god wouldn’t be powerless to change the definition of true happiness.
A second problem with the free will argument is that many evil things are not controllable by humans. Drought, flooding, tornados, tsunamis and other natural disasters fall into this category. These things, despite being unable to attribute to free will, cause death, destruction and heartache. The recent earthquake in Japan is a strong example of this. No human causes could be said to have created this earthquake; so obviously, free will had nothing to do with this destruction. Did god make them happen, if so, how can he still be all loving? Obviously the answer is that he can not.
Attempts are made to explain evil as deserved, or a natural consequence of defying the perfect god, because it was all part of this perfect being's plan. This works okay for fornicators who, now married cannot conceive and for those who do not worship a god and have lost their money or power. But it is inconceivable that a loving god is punishing the 6 year old who prays to him every night to make her daddy stop raping her, or the teenage boy who gets beaten every day, and beaten more often if he cries about it, who goes to church and thanks his god that his parents haven't killed him yet, or even the god fearing, churchgoing woman who prayed for a baby and conceived, but her child died before he had a chance to be born. If evil was a punishment for our own misdeeds, we would see only bad people hurt. We would see no one who follows god be harmed and everyone who does not listen live an entirely miserable life. This is in stark contrast with what we see happening in reality. The randomized application of painful circumstance is irreconcilable with a perfect plan. No god who would willingly inflict such an awful life on people who have done everything he asked of them can be considered truly loving.
Satan: he is one of the easiest excuses people have used. Satan created evil. He is the one who instilled this bloodlust, sadism and vengeance into human kind. Their god can obviously not be blamed for something that he didn't do. So, we can all blame Satan and rejoice in god to help keep ourselves from going astray. Luckily, even if we succumb to the desires that Satan, god is willing to forgive us. This sounds wonderful so far, but as with the other excuses the religious have for still believing, this falls apart under even the slightest scrutiny. We must question why this god made Satan and why he continues to allow Satan to exist when he only causes pain. Is it that he can’t bear to delete him from existence? Why would a god who decided to torture everyone who did not follow him correctly for all of eternity have an issue with ridding the world of the ultimate evil and make suffering disappear. We come around to the willing able and aware dilemma again. Did god intentionally make this thing knowing he was going to create evil? He is malevolent. Was he unaware of what he was doing? He is not omnipotent. Or did he somehow find himself unable to avoid creating him? He is not all-powerful, so this explanation, as the others, falls apart.
Another common response is that without evil, we could not know what good is. This concept is patently ridiculous. Humans do not need to experience pain to know that it exists, or that pleasure is good. Think of it this way: Can people, without having experienced an abusive relationship, know that a loving, respectful, emotionally supportive relationship is good? Most of them, myself included, can understand this perfectly. We can all recognize good and pleasure without experiencing pain. Also, even if we could not recognize good without it. We are limiting god’s power if we assume he can not change this about us. And if he will not change this about us, that makes him evil. Even if we take for granted this is true, and that god for some reason made it so, it is still possible to understand the concept of evil without seeing it occur, that is to say that we need only be able to conceptualize evil and we can do that without it’s existence in the real world. The all powerful creator could have given us the idea of evil without its existence, through stories, or simply our capacity for imagination. To say that god could not let us conceptualize evil without seeing it is to again, limit his power.
Once we acknowledge that god is responsible for the things we call evil, many theists will attempt to explain this away by saying that there is no such thing as evil, or good for that matter. They say that it’s “limiting” to define things this way. So, when we see evil, it’s really good but we don’t realize it. There is a point to this argument. No, all things cannot be blindly attributed to black and white categories, all good and all evil. But there are things we call evil. The most meaningful definition of evil given by dictionary.com is “characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering” and we can see that misfortune and suffering exist. Taking away the power of the word “evil” or showing that good and evil have blurry lines and things that appear good can be evil and that seem evil can be good does not disprove the existence of evil. All that this does is prove that definitions of words are subjective and the world is complicated. This does not address the fact that, if there is a god, he is responsible, directly, or through negligence, for every bit of suffering, physical or emotional, that any being has experienced thus far. He has refused to use his power to prevent this evil from happening. Subjective definitions of evil aside, god allows pain and suffering on this planet, else he doesn't exist.
If it is not that evil is not real, we often hear theists resort to the claim that god can be unwilling to prevent evil, but also not malevolent. He is letting us learn from experience, like parents that would let their child try to do something beyond their skill level and allow them to fail. There are a few different problems with this comparison, though.
The first is that god, unlike a father or mother on earth, supposedly has power to do anything and this includes impart to us the knowledge of what will happen when we do things without making us experience the horrible things. This excuse also has the same problems as with evil being a deserved punishment. It seems like it may make sense for those who choose to do horrible things, and god makes them suffer the consequences. A murderer being jailed, for instance, or more directly, the man who participated in cock fighting, tied razor blades to his chicken and wound up dead from a slit throat. But what did that six month old do wrong, that she had to die from SIDS in her crib. How does the notion that god was just letting her “see the consequences” of her actions go?
Another problem is that more painful evil can not be compared to something as petty as a failed art project or attempt to cross the monkey bars. These are things like the holocaust; people being tortured, day in day out for their entire lives, people being worked and then beaten to death, children being locked in closets to starve and only let out to be hurt, babies being nearly drowned to be supposedly scared into listening to their parents. This sort of cruelty is on a whole different level than letting one’s children try something they aren’t ready to try. If a god would let this go on, it is inexcusable. This sort of thing can not be brushed away with the notion of letting people see what happens to them when they do not use their free will as they were told to.
Despite any attempts to explain this dilemma away, it will always be present that if god could change these things, but won’t, it is cruelty, if he can’t change them, but wants too, he is limited in power, and if he is completely unaware then he cannot be all knowing. Any additions made to this simple statement just create another thing that this god could have changed but didn’t, or something that this god wanted to change but couldn’t , or something of which this god was simply unaware. All of this disproves, by definition, a being many define as their god.
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