Unit 3.

Written Assignment

University of the People

PHIL1402 – Introduction to Philosophy

Instructor John Thorburn

Assignment Due Date Feb 15. 2023

Evil and sufferings are present in this world and under certain circumstances, most of the

people suffer or at least observe and learn about these in their lives. It could be in the form of

terrorism, wars, diseases, human trafficking, etc and suddenly some questions arise in our

minds why God allows such bad things to happen especially with good people, or in contrast

why good things happen to bad people considering the fact he knows everything in advance?

Why there are so much suffering to people around us or why it has happened to me? and

based on these common questions in our minds I selected this topic. In this paper, I will

discuss the problem of evil and suffering in the context of philosophical views related to

religion and try to find the answer to the question, “How does a purely good God allow evil

to happen to good people?”

Philosophical Inquiry

First of all, it is important to realize that different people have different thoughts and

perceptions related to evil especially believers and non-believers have opposite thoughts but

in specific situations, the majority agree. Non-believers or Theists use the concept of evil and

suffering against God’s existence by saying that God has not created it for good and raises

questions about why it is permitted by God to happen such evil things as he is omniscient,

omnipresent, and omnipotent (Tooley, 2019). The philosophical thoughts of these people are

that if this evil and suffering are allowed by God then he is not entirely moral, transcendent,

and has no knowledge of everything, and if still he claims to be flawless then evil could not

be justified (Tooley, 2019).

The philosophical thoughts and arguments strengthen the belief of believers by saying that

God created human beings with free will and provided them the ability to think and decide
for themselves. In all religious books from God including The Bible and The Holy Quran he

clearly provided instructions and told about good and evil things and provided free will to

everyone like if someone follows the evil path he allowed it but also informed about the

consequences of this life and afterward. If there is no existence of evil, then we as human

beings are only confined to doing good things and no other option exists which means there is

no free will. By looking at the instructions of God it is quite clear that we have to

differentiate between good and evil by recognizing evil and following a positive path and it is

not possible to combine evil with God’s virtues and question his existence as God is not the

author of evil, in fact, it is the humans who cause evil actions (Thai & Pillay, 2020).

According to philosophical thoughts if God eliminates evil from our lives, our freedom of

thought and free will will also be eliminated and we cannot understand the importance of our

decisions in life. To blame God for the creation of evil and suffering is not the answer in fact

we as human being exercised our right of free will in the wrong way and created evil in the

world. In the Holy book Quran God says that he has made human beings superior to Angels

and all other creatures by providing free will as they have the ability to think for themselves

and do either good or bad things, Angels do not have the ability to perform bad things.

Another argument of philosophy justifies this concept as God has the ability to influence how

much evil and suffering we experience in our life but it weakens our thought of freedom as

Watson (2022) says that when you do things in a great way people start depending on you and

when someone does things flawlessly it becomes difficult for people to believe that it actually

happens and if you stay idle then they start losing trust on you.

Everything in this world has its own importance and without evil existence comparison or

judgment of goodness is also not possible. We cannot comprehend, appreciate, understand,

and judge the magnificence of something without the concept of evil. When we consider the

evil happenings around us it also enables us to think that God has gifted us with many things
which others do not have and results in suffering. Let’s take the example of health as diseases

are also considered as sufferings in life, so health is God-gifted, and one can only realize

when he sees unhealthy people around himself likewise wealth is another example. A

millionaire Andrew Tate said that one can only understand the value of wealth if he

experiences poverty first.

This topic of the philosophy behind the problem of evil still searches for answers from

hundreds of years and students can research to find the answers as it is normally related to the

existence of God and why God permits such actions if he has the power and knowledge.

From time-to-time researchers and philosophers try to justify their thoughts with arguments

and ideas but still, no philosophical theory has justified the questions.

Conclusion

Although nobody wants to have evil and suffering in their lives most of the time it is our

actions that create evil in other lives in the present world we have problems of terrorism,

hatred, abuses, wars, etc which have created evil in the lives of millions of people. We should

not blame God for our actions especially when everything is informed properly. Moreover, to

exercise the freedom of free will evil is necessary for coexistence.

Thai, L. P., & Pillay, J. (2020). Can God create humans with free will who never commit

evil? HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 76(1).

Tooley, M. (2019). The problem of evil. Cambridge University Press.

Watson, A. (2022, October 6). When You Do Things Right, People Won't Be Sure You've Done

Anything at All. LetterPile. https://letterpile.com/personal-essays/When-Youve-Done-

Somthing-Right