Problem of Pain

One of the arguments against the God of Christianity is this: God created everything; evil is a thing; Therefore, God created evil. The problem with the argument is that, as Augustine realized, evil is not a thing. It’s like dark. Dark is not a thing; it’s the absence of light. In the same way evil is not a thing in and of itself but simply the absence of good. It’s like a hole in the ground. No one invented the lack of dirt; it just came with the “invention” or rather creation of dirt.

As Gregory Kokul realized, in this way Adam and Eve introduced evil to the human race when they “dug a hole in their goodness”. They did not “get” Satan’s. Just like the absence of light can’t be passed from room to room without the individual action of flipping a switch or blowing out a candle evil is not a thing that can be given from one being to another.
God allowed the possibility of evil when he allowed for free will which we need. If humans did not have free will or the ability to make choices then we would be entirely different creatures, but that’s another issue.

Believe it or not evil does bring about good. For example forgiveness. If people didn’t quarrel and fight there would be no renewal of relationship brought about by forgiveness, and this isn’t the only example of good brought about by evil.

Not only that, but who are we to judge whether or not evil is worth while. We don’t even know the whole picture. How can we justly judge the situation? If we truly believe that God is all-powerful then we must believe that God thinks it’s worth it because evil is still around.
Besides, the purpose of our life is not to be happy but to become people who can spend eternity with God. That process is like refining gold in a fire-it needs heat, or pain.

It’s plain to see that the problem of evil can be easily explained, but it’s still a problem. We don’t wan to accept the answer because the problem is too personal. We’ve attaches baggage to the issue so muich that palin logic can’t convince us any more because logic may cast out logical fallacies but leaves the pain. So, if this article is hard to read I would encourage you to deal with the baggage, seek help in heling the wounds, then read this again with open heart and mind.