The existence of evil and suffering in our world seems to pose a serious challenge to belief in the existence of a perfect God. If God were all knowing, it seems that God would know about all of the horrible things that happen in our world. If God were all-powerful, God would be able to do something about all of the evil and suffering. Furthermore, if God were morally perfect, then surely God would want to do something about it. And yet we find that our world is filled with countless instances of evil and suffering. These facts about evil and suffering seem to conflict with the orthodox theist claim that there exists a perfectly good God. The challenged posed by this apparent conflict has come to be known as the problem of evil.
(from James Bebee, “The Logical Problem of Evil”)
(1) If God existed, then He would be all-knowing, all-powerful, and morally perfect.
(2) If God was all-knowing, then He would be aware of all evil.
(3) If God was all-powerful, then He would be able to prevent all evil.
(4) If God was morally perfect, then He would be motivated to prevent all evil that He is aware of and able to.
(5) If God was aware of all evil, and was able to prevent all evil, and was motivated to prevent all evil that He is aware of and is able to, then there would be no evil.
(6) There is evil.
Difficult to fault the logic ....
LINKS
http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/wasserr/114/Arguments.pdf
