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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.
In Islam, Jahannam (hell) is the final destiny and place of punishment in Afterlife for those guilty of disbelief and (according to some interpretations) evil doing in their lives on earth. [34] Hell is regarded as necessary for Allah 's (God's) divine justice and justified by God's absolute sovereignty, and an "integral part of Islamic ...
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]
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]
[23] In the same vein, Christian theologian Ron Rhodes has remarked that "it is impossible to distinguish evil from good unless one has an infinite reference point which is absolutely good". [24] Thomas Dixon states, "Religions certainly do provide a framework within which people can learn the difference between right and wrong." [23]
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 ]
Natural evil (also non-moral or surd evil) is a term generally used in discussions of the problem of evil and theodicy that refers to states of affairs which, considered in themselves, are those that are part of the natural world, and so are independent of the intervention of a human agent.