The problem with, "The Problem of Evil"

 

We begin with a syllogism, which is fancy way to say a thought map that points at a conclusion. 

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
5. Evil exists.
6. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil.
7. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

Here is the problem, If 1-4 are correct, can 5 be considered a true premise?

I suppose if we separate the existence of God from the existence of evil in such a way that disallows God from being around evil, then this remains true, except, now we've put limits on God.

Anything we do to resolve this thought map to non-contradiction results in another contradiction. Why? Because we introduced a contradiction in step 5. If God is all those things from 1-4 then evil cannot exist.

End of story, problem solved. There is no evil.

Wait! What?! No Evil? But I can think of at least one evil person and at least 10 evil acts...how can it be that evil doesn't exist?

Well just with the argument presented, 5 cannot be true if 1-4 are true.

But perhaps this where there is a disconnect is in the way 1-4 set God up to have rules, but evil just is. Without saying it, Epicurus, (the greek philosopher credited with the above syllogism,) has either overperformed in his definition of God or underperformed in his definition of evil.

Let me see if I can put your finger on what I think is happening. If evil just exists, then it must have some nature about it. It's a word we might use to describe things like murder and rape. But there must be something about those acts that is of a certain nature such that we created a word to describe the acts.

You might say it's unnatural, it's not respecting the other people's right to not be murdered and raped. Okay, so lets reframe this back to points 1-4. If murder is evil then God wants to stop it, he knows when it will happen, and he is powerful enough to prevent it.

But as we already stated if 1-4 is true, then there would be no murder...because if 1-4 were true, 5 wouldn't be true. So we are still in this broken definition. 

But lets say God really did want to stop murder. What could compel something or someone to defy what God wanted?

Let me introduce my friend, WILL.

See only in a system in which God is not the only entity 1-4 makes sense with 5. See, if evil was driven by a will to not be stopped could it still perpetrate murder or rape. And in particular it would have to be freewill. That is, agents must be able to freely choose to do evil and not have their freewill diminished, only then could evil exist, in consideration of 1-4.

Is there a formal belief system that proposes such a relationship? Let me redefine it.

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
5. God creates man in his own image, having freewill to accept or reject him.
6. Man rejects God by their denial of God's sovereignty.
7. This rejection of God is evil.
8. Willful denial of God exemplifies itself in actions against God
9. This manifests itself in the denial of sovereignty of God's image bearers.
10. Therefore, evil existing cannot show that God doesn’t exist.

At this point you may want to call upon Occam's Razor to dismiss my longer explanation, however, number of premises don't dictate the rightness of a thing. I've already stated that 5 cannot be true if 1-4 is true. 

I offered the explanation that 1-4 being true along with 5 being true is only possibly if evil is given a nature, which namely is human freewill, that allows 1-4 to be true.

To answer the question, the formal belief system is that of the Judeo-Christian faiths. 

Sure I used language strongly tied to my own bias of a Christian faith, but I challenge you to find another faith that deals with the problem of evil so swiftly.