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The Problem of Evil



I. The Problem

In the chapter "Rebellion" in Dostoyevsky's The Brother's Karamazov, Ivan challenges Alyosha's faith in God by pointing to various horribly evil things that have been done to innocent children. In class, we discussed how this was related to The Problem of Evil. The Problem of Evil claims that the following four propositions cannot be held consistently together:

(1) God is omnipotent (all-powerful)
(2) God is omniscient (all-knowing)
(3) God is omnibenevolent (all-good)
(4) Evil exists.


The idea is that if God were omnipotent, then he would have the power to stop evil wherever it may occur; if he were omniscient, then he would always know where evil was occurring; and if he were omnibenevolent, then he would always want to stop evil whenever he could. So God would have the power, the know-how, and the motivation to eradicate evil, but if (4) is true, evil is NOT eradicated. So, to be......

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Approximate Word Count: 348
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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