The Problem of Evil Sets

The problem of Evil sets out a variety of philosophical arguments firstly If God is all powerful and is able to remove evil and suffering if he wishes to. God is wholly good and is aware of all the evil and suffering in the world as he is all knowing. Therefore there must be no evil and suffering, if evil and suffering exists then the wholly good, all powerful, all knowing God does not exist.

St Augustine of Hippo (354-430) came up with two assumptions regarding the problem of evil .Augustine tries to explain the problem of Evil he believed God is the main source of everything he created everything out of nothing (Ex Nihlo). He strongly believed that God did not create no such thing as Evil and it did not exist, God only created "good" things in this world "God saw all that [God] had made, and it was very good. God is wholly good and evil does not come from him Augustine believed that Evil came from the fall in the Genesis 3 Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent to eat from the forbidden tree because of their temptation they are punished by god "Because you have done this, cursed are you". Adam and Eve's disobedience is a result of the punishment of the rest of the creation as we are the lions of Adam.

Augustine's mina argument is based on the misuses of free will God allows his creation to have free will and they choose to misuse this power .Therefore the world has become imperfect because it has been corrupted by humans and other sprits such as fallen angels eg Lucifer was once an angel who disobeyed God's command and was thrown out of heaven for creating evil which turned him against God. The human race similarly has misused free will and turn against God as Augustine states "All evil is sin or either punishment for sin". Creation is created perfectly but fails to live up to the standard of God and this when the perfection is taken away.

Augustine's theory is that evil is not a positive force but a "privation" an example of this is blindness an analogy used by Augustine blindness is an absence of sight however it is not entity. We could also use the example of food, warmth and shelter which is essential for a human being one could be lacking this which links the privation of evil, evil is lacking something. All suffering is linked back to the misuses of free will including both moral and natural evil .

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