"If God is all-powerful, then he must be able to abolish evil; if God is all-loving, then he must wish to abolish evil; but evil exists, therefore God cannot be both all-powerful and all-loving." (John Hick)

The first 200 words of this essay...

God and Evil

"If God is all-powerful, then he must be able to abolish evil; if God is all-loving, then he must wish to abolish evil; but evil exists, therefore God cannot be both all-powerful and all-loving." (John Hick)

The problem of evil is the difficulty of reconciling the existence of suffering and other evils in the world with the existence of God. There are two kinds of evil that philosophers have distinguished between; moral evil which consists of the bad actions and their unfortunate results for which humans or other moral agents are morally responsible. The second kind is natural evil which consists of the suffering to humans and animals that results from natural causes such as genetic defects, diseases, and natural disasters.

The significance of the problem of evil to the philosophy of religion is that it cannot be answered by one person; it needs the attention of the whole human "faculty" to come to a conclusion. Evil is a big part of the philosophy of religion because one main question is why would God cause suffering on humans that do no wrong? Doesn't suffering break the soul instead of make the