THE PROBLEM OF EVIL AND SUFFERING

There are two different types of evil. Moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is caused by humans misusing their free will, an example of this is war, and natural evil is suffering that has not been caused by humans, for example earthquakes.

Most religious people believe that god is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent.

KEY WORDS

• Omnipotent: the belief that god is all powerful.
• Omniscient: the belief that god knows everything.
• Omni-benevolent: the belief that god is all good.

Some people think that if god was omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent he would stop things and prevent them from happening.

This causes some people to not believe in god.

However, some Christians believe that there is a good and an evil and that god cannot mess with free will.

Some Christians use the phrase 'god works in mysterious ways' to say that god must have a reason for his actions.