One of the questions which people often ask is why God lets evil happen in the world when he is supposed to be good. Christianity tries to produce an answer to this question. It also teaches us that one of the most important things about the relationship between people and God is forgiveness. God is always ready to forgive wrong if people are willing to change and follow his laws.
The existence of evil is a problem to a lot of religious believers because it contradicts the Judaic and Christian concept of God, which states that God is all loving, all-powerful, all knowing and everywhere. Evil can be split into two categories, moral and non-moral. Moral evil is that which is brought upon by human being e.g. war, murder, hat, lust, crime, adultery, and terrorism. Non-moral evil is everything else e.g. volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, tidal waves, flood, forest fires, avalanches, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. If God was all loving and all-powerful He would not allow either kind of evil to exist, and so therefore He cannot be the most powerful being.
The Atheist response to the existence of evil comes in two forms. The logical form, which states that evil, is logically incompatible with the idea of God and the evidential form claims that the existence of evil doesn’t prove that God isn’t real, but makes it more likely. Atheists cannot believe in the reality of God because evil contradicts it, pain and suffering would not exist if there were an all-loving higher power
Christians believe that the first sin happened in the Garden of Eden, when Eve was tempted by the serpent to eat the apple from the tree of all knowledge.
As well as the power of good, there is also the power of evil, which most Christians believe is to be Satan or Lucifer, one of the archangels who disobeyed God and thrown out of Heaven to hell. Luke 10:18: ‘I watched how Satan fell, like lightning, out of the sky. And now you see that I have given you the power to tread underfoot snakes and scorpions and all the forces of the enemy, and nothing will ever harm you.’
Christians believe that evil is either a person, a force, or a psychological phenomenon.
A person – evil could be the devil who tempts people into doing evil
A force – evil as a force draws people into doing evil.
A psychological phenomenon – where evil is always in someone’s mind.
Evil and suffering is discussed throughout all religions.
Christians believe that we cannot understand God’s reasons for doing things and so we should not worry about them, and that evil was placed on the earth to test us to see if we are loyal to God and so able to go paradise. Also some believe that there is free will, given to us by God and if we choose to do evil it is not His fault.
Hindu’s believe that suffering is an essential part of the cycle of life and that humans are the main reason for the existence of evil and suffering.
Islam’s believe that evil and suffering are a test from god.
Jews believe that it is a punishment, a test and a way of bringing people closer to God.
Muslims say that although Allah (God) allows this evil force to exist, he wants us to act according to his rules. At the end of the day, Allah judges us on the way in which we have led our lives.
