Here, No Evil

Evil has always been a problem. Obviously it is a practical problem, in the sense that we would like people to be less evil. But it is a conceptual one as well. In fact, for over two thousand years theologians and philosophers have been puzzled by what they call “the problem of evil.”

One can see how the difficulty arises just by contemplating the traditional Christian view that God is perfectly good and infinitely powerful. If so, then it becomes a bit hard to see how so much suffering and woe managed to find its way into the world. If God is so good, why did he not create a world without evil?

The contradiction is obvious enough that it is often noticed by children. Parents usually respond by telling them that “God works in mysterious ways,” and that what we perceive to be evil may actually be good, when seen from a broader perspective. This is usually enough to silence children, but it’s not an answer that has satisfied many...