The Problem of Evil in the World
Humanity, God, and Free Will
The claim is made that free will is, in some sense, God's compensation to humans for the evils that humans experience. What is the rate of exchange between free will and the amount of evil we can tolerate? When we distinguish between human or moral evils and physical or natural evils, the very best one could claim is that free will is compensation for only a small amount of evil. It cannot compensate for the extent of pain and suffering from natural evils like earthquakes and brain tumors, which bear no relationship to human volition.
Is it not plausible that restraining the free will of Hitler on one or two occasions, say, turning him into a florist in 1917 rather than a politician would have prevented a tremendous amount of evil? Why, then, would a God who knew what was going to happen permit Hitler's horrific evils to occur? The notion that some mysterious level of free will intrinsically compensates for any amount of human moral evil seems absurd. Of course, there is no such compensation for natural evils, other than perhaps as "soul-building," to encourage us to know God. This trade-off is also ridiculous, as it makes God appear to be a sadist who will whip his creatures just so they know how good they have it. In the end, believers desperately avoid facing the difficulty of evil in the world. They retreat to a sort of mystery position, which holds that God has unknowable reasons for permitting evil and mere humans are not in a position to make sense of it all. This "mystery maneuver" indirectly admits that religious belief ultimately is irrational and has irrational consequences.
God could even be evil. In fact, when one considers all the events that occur daily on the earth, there appears to be more evidence to support an evil nature than a benevolent one. Consider the possibility of a malevolent creator. A malevolent spirit would desire a universe with intelligent life no less than would a benevolent spirit, since the realization of moral evil requires the existence of intelligent life no less than does the realization of moral good. A spirit cannot exercise its malevolence on inanimate matter but has abundant opportunity to be cruel if there are intelligent creatures capable of suffering harm and death. The same argument can be said about humanity's experience with natural evils. The ultimate irony is that such a being has induced many humans to think they will be rewarded with eternal life.
Conclusion
When one examines the theistic arguments used to defend the existence of evil, they are all found wanting. They provide support for the thesis that, if God exists, he is not all good or not all powerful. The recurring failure of the defenders of the rationale for the existence of evil in the world to provide a sufficient rational explanation for their case is a compelling reason to conclude that the existence of evil furnishes strong evidence for the non-existence of Jehovah, the Christian God, or the Islamic Allah.
ENDNOTES
1. In fact, God Himself has admitted that He created evil:
2. Depending on circumstances, war can be a moral and/or physical evil.
