Solutions to the problem of evil and suffering, put forward by religious believers:
Probably the best counter-argument for the problem of evil and suffering is that of ‘the Freewill Defense’. An argument based on evil and suffering being as a result of human freedom. This is specifically true of Gods purpose to create beings in his own image, who possess free will. But creatures that possess freedom are free not only to love God but also to hate or ignore Him. Yet without free will we would be incapable of entering into a personal relationship with Him. Human freedom is essential to sustaining a personal relationship with God.
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St Augustine came up with one of the oldest forms of this defense. He claimed that God made a perfect world, but that humans turned away from God of their own free will, and that that is how evil came into the world. This obviously has a biblical basis in the story of Adam committing the original sin of eating the apple, and as, according to Augustine, we were all 'seminally present' in Adam, we are all bear the guilt of his sin. This is why there is natural evil in the world, with earthquakes and volcanoes, as we are all being punished for this original sin. The idea of this “Original Sin” is very important to the defense, as it is the first example of human freedom of choice having a bad outcome, and in a way made a path for others to follow.
Richard Swinburne was the other who used this defense. He argued that the criticism of God not intervening in large-scale disasters is not a valid point. He states that if God gets involved he limits human freedom, and removes human responsibility, therefore limits human development. Swinburne took the example of ‘death’, and argued that, despite the suffering it causes, it is never the less essential to freewill defence. This is because death means that life, and the chances that each life contains, are limited.
But there are a number of problems with this freewill defence argument. First of all, it is hard to see how God's creation went so wrong if God created it perfect. As the philosopher Schleiermacher pointed out, the evil must have come from somewhere, but if God created the whole world, including us, perfect (as was clearly possible for an omnipotent being, and as Augustine claims) there could be no way for it to have gone wrong.
Secondly, and most importantly, Augustine's argument has simply been superceded by science. Volcanoes have been on the surface of the earth for millions of years before humans ever emerged and are governed by natural laws that neither know nor care that they cause human suffering. The blind, uncaring nature of these natural laws and of nature generally make this look very unlike the sort of world God would create. And of course Adam and Eve never existed, so there was no original sin. Even if there had been, it is today recognised as a very morally suspect notion that children should be punished for the sins of their parents, and we were not all seminally present in Adam, so we could not be responsible for his sin.
Another response to the problem of evil that has been offered is the Irenaean theodicy. Irenaeus (c130-202 AD) was an early Christian, earlier than Augustine, but unlike Augustine, Irenaeus said that God had not made humans or the world flawless. This was because he thought that genuine human perfection could not come about except through humans achieving it through their own free will, in an imperfect world in which there was a very real possibility of evil.
Irenaeus’s interpretation of Genesis 1:26 was ‘Let us make man in Gods image, after Gods likeness’. He said that at first humans were created in Gods image, and only later will they develop into Gods likeness. Evil is essential means to this transformation, as evil enables us to see what good is. If God were to intervene to stop evil, then there would not be any freedom, and the learning and transforming process will be ruined. In heaven, everyone will have developed into Gods likeness, and suffering of the earth will have been forgotten.
This theodicy is in many ways much closer to the modern conception of how the problem of evil can be answered, but it suffers from several flaws and weaknesses. It is certainly plausible that freewill adds something of value to human existence, and if God had created controlled humans, that would have been less worthwhile. A knowledge of good and bad might also be worthwhile, and this would require some bad to be available to be known (i.e. evil must be present so that we know what it is). It is also true that without natural 'evil' to some extent, there would not be so much opportunity for people to make moral choices, as there would be no need to compete and less opportunity for putting people in a position where they could be harmed. These are important points, and create an idea against the image of an idyllic paradise world being ideal - it would make us too like contented animals.
However, as with the Augustinian theodicy, the world just doesn't fit this model. Much of the suffering we see is clearly indiscriminate and gratuitous and, as stated earlier, often the result of blind earthquakes and the like, which point to a natural world not constructed for us (not designed to suit us). Many people face disproportionally tougher lives due to accidents of geography (i.e. Bangladesh is prone to floods, so people living there will suffer more than those will elsewhere). It is difficult so see how children who die at an early age get much of a chance at Irenaeus's 'soul-making' transformation into Gods likeness. It is not difficult to see how the design/ make-up of the world could be changed to avoid this. Also, a big flaw in Irenaeus's model is how hundreds of earlier generations have had to go through much suffering so that later generations can achieve the perfection he thinks they ultimately will.
This leads onto a broader flaw in both this theodicy and the main free will defence. Both of these assume that humans can eventually reach a state of high (maximum) goodness, where they always choose to do good out of their own free will. If this is the case, then why couldn't God have created us this way to start with? It would obviously be possible, and just a matter of duplicating the sort of humans we are bound to eventually achieve. It could be thought that the journey is more valuable than the actual arrival, but can the value of passing through a period of suffering actually be shown or pointed out It is difficult to see how a common saying about anticipation of something can justify millions of human deaths in events like the Holocaust. The concluding question is; Have these events really achieved something which balances out the atrocities/tragedies involved? While it is possible for good to come out of suffering, equally good people can come out of thinking, sensitivity and a good upbringing.
