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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.
Evil, according to Clement, does not exist as a positive, but exists as a negative or as a "lack of good". [58] Clement's idea was criticised for its inability to explain suffering in the world, if evil did not exist. He was also pressed by Gnostics scholars with the question as to why God did not create creatures that "did not lack the good".
Judaism teaches that the soul continues to exist after death, and that it is subject to both reward and punishment after death. [11] However, this punishment is held to be temporary, normally only lasting up to 12 months after death. [12] After this period, the soul is able to enjoy the light of God in the afterlife.
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]
Judaism teaches that to sin is a part of life, since there is no perfect human and everyone has an inclination to do evil "from youth", though people are born sinless. [1] Sin has many classifications and degrees.
Such sins are described as removal from God's presence. The devil's sin does not give evil a positive value, since evil is, according to Augustinian theodicy, merely a byproduct of creation. The spirits have all been created in the love of God, but the devil valued himself more, thereby abandoning his position for a lower good.
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Christian Universalism teaches that an eternal Hell does not exist and is a later creation of the church with no biblical support. Reasoning by Christian Universalists includes that an eternal Hell is against the nature, character and attributes of a loving God, human nature, sin's nature of destruction rather than perpetual misery, the nature ...