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Religious responses to the problem of evil are concerned with reconciling the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. [1] [2] The problem of evil is acute for monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism whose religion is based on such a God.
The problem of Hell is an ethical problem in the Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam, in which the existence of Hell or Jahannam for the punishment of souls in the afterlife is regarded as inconsistent with the notion of a just, moral, and omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient supreme being.
The problem of evil is acute for monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism that believe in a God who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent; [87] [88] but the question of why evil exists has also been studied in religions that are non-theistic or polytheistic, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.
A defence attempts to demonstrate that the occurrence of evil does not contradict God's existence, but it does not propose that rational beings are able to understand why God permits evil. A theodicy shows that it is reasonable to believe in God despite evidence of evil in the world and offers a framework which can account for why evil exists. [8]
In Christianity and Islam, he is usually seen as a fallen angel or jinn who has rebelled against God, who nevertheless allows him temporary power over the fallen world and a host of demons. In the Quran , Iblis is an evil entity ( shaitan ) made of fire who was cast out of Heaven because he refused to bow before the newly created Adam and ...
It occurs historically in many contexts and cultures, and is given many different names—Satan (Judaism), Lucifer (Christianity), Beelzebub (Judeo-Christian), Mephistopheles (German), Iblis (Islam)—and attributes: it is portrayed as blue, black, or red; it is portrayed as having horns on its head, and without horns, and so on.
The Christian apologist G. K. Chesterton criticized Islam as a heresy or parody of Christianity, [39] [40] David Hume (d. 1776), both a naturalist and a sceptic, [41] considered monotheistic religions to be more "comfortable to sound reason" than polytheism but also found Islam to be more "ruthless" than Christianity. [42]
Christian scholars have offered three main theodicies of why a good God might need to allow evil in the world. These are based on the free will of humankind, [ 103 ] a self-limiting God, [ 104 ] and the observation that suffering has "soul-making" value. [ 105 ]