All the Things I Didn't Say on My Philosophy Quiz

It is a pretty commonly accepted presumption, at least in Western thought, that God can be defined in three essential characteristics:
1. He is all powerful
2. He is all knowing
3. He is all loving/caring/good/etc.

It is also accepted, and I would assume rarely doubted, that evil exists in the world. Murder, rape, lying, cheating, hate, lust, toying with people's emotions, bitterness, and all the other millions of things we as humans often instigate in our own lives and add on to the heap of evil.

So, all of this leads to the philosophical argument of, "If God is so good, and so powerful, and so knowledgeable then why does evil exist in the world; and furthermore, if He is aware of the evil and has the all power, why does he allow evil to exist?"

It's a good question, one that a lot of Christians would mark of simply with the concept of free will and one that non-believers could use to try to appease the own pain in their lives, pushing off their own misfortunes onto God and not accepting the human role in anything.

But, for arguments sake, obviously if evil exists AND we have God to be an all powerful, all knowing, all loving God--something doesn't match up. Both cannot exist in their described fullness, and since evil undoubtedly exists, God therefore cannot be all He was previously defined all, or at least not to the degree of "all" that was previously ascribed. Therefore, we are posed with the question of "which of the three characteristics must be weakened or lessened to make up for the evil that is in the world?" This was our task on the quiz.

From my standpoint, most people are willing to accept God's power and knowledge. Most people can handle the idea that God has ultimate power, that He created the world, basically manages it, and it the producer and conductor of most of life's affairs. They are ok with the idea of some "faceless being" being "in charge" of things. Afterall, just because one has power doesn't mean one has to use it, so therefore, God could just choose NOT to act in instances of evil. And people are willing to accept that God is all knowledgable, that He is aware of all things, including evil, and all the things going on in their lives, but knowing doesn't do much with action or heart. So that leaves the all loving/caring/good/etc. category. That seems to be where people have the issue with God.

They ask questions of "If God is so loving then why do I have to endure such hard times or why did so and so have to die or why does no one love me" or "If God knows some terrible natural disaster is going to destroy millions of people why doesn't He stop it, if He's so powerful."

Now, free will does play a role, no doubt, but it's not just some scapegoat excuse for what might be conceived as God's inaction. God knows us as his creation, and on my observations I know something about people, and it is this...I have not met one person, who likes to feel like he or she doesn't have control of their own life, it's what makes Christianity so hard, giving up control, and even some of the most Godly people still have areas of their lives that are hard to surrender to God. WE LIKE TO BE IN CONTROL, or at least think we are in control. God did not create us to be thinking, feeling, free beings just to have Him make all of our decisions for us, it would defeat the purpose of our creation. God's already chosen us, but He wants us to chose Him. I mean, no one wants to be loved out of obligation, it should be freely given and received. And that is why God gives us the choice...and because we are imperfect yet strangly confident in our ability we screw things up, we hurt people, we hurt ourselves, we make messes.

But if God were to just step in and fix everything that we mess up, it would undermind what He created us to be, not to mention He already has made arrangements for all the time we screw up.

So the problem of evil is not an issue of God's not wanting to use his power and knowledge and love to save His children, it's a call for us, His children, to use the facilities He has given us to combat evil and make a choice to love Him.