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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 in monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism whose religion is based on such a God.
Christian mortalism is the doctrine that all men and women, including Christians, must die, and do not continue and are not conscious after death. Therefore, annihilationism includes the doctrine that "the wicked" are also destroyed rather than tormented forever in traditional "Hell" or the lake of fire.
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; [88] [89] 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.
While Christianity and Islam hold their recollections of Jesus's teachings as gospel and share narratives from the first five books of the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible), the sacred text of Christianity also includes the later additions to the Bible while the primary sacred text of Islam instead is the Quran.
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]
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.
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 ...