The Theodicy Dilemm Why Doesn T God Prevent Evil?

The Theodicy Dilemma: Why doesn't God Prevent Evil?

The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued Christians since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words 'theos,' or God, and 'dike,' or justice. Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a world filled with
Anselm defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", and argued that this being must exist in the mind; even in the mind of the person who denies the existence of God. He suggested that, if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality. If it only exists in the mind, then an even greater being must be possible — one which exists both in the mind and in reality. Therefore, this greatest possible being must exist in reality. Seventeenth century French philosopher René Descartes slightly augmented the definition that Anselm proposed. Descartes published several variations of his argument, each of which centred on the idea that God's existence is immediately inferable from a "clear and distinct" idea of a supremely perfect being. In the early eighteenth century, Gottfried Leibniz further changed Descartes' ideas in an attempt to prove that a "supremely perfect" being is a coherent concept. It was in fact Leibniz who first coined the term theodicy in 1710. He was a German mathematician and philosopher, and produced his work, Théodicée, in response to the problem of evil that had been previously proposed. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term 'Theodicy' as, 'the vindication of divine providence in view of the existence of
In Hick's approach, this form of theodicy argues that evil does not exist except as a privation—or corruption of—goodness, and therefore God did not create evil. Augustinian scholars have argued that God created the world perfectly, with no evil or human suffering. Evil entered the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve and the theodicy casts the existence of evil as a just punishment for this original sin. The theodicy argues that humans have an evil nature in as much as it is deprived of its original goodness, form, order, and measure due to the inherited original sin of Adam and Eve, but still ultimately remains good due to existence coming from God, for if a nature was completely evil (deprived of the good), it would cease to exist. It maintains that God remains blameless and good.
Hume on the Problem of Evil
Hume's claim: a posteriori it is not reasonable to believe in God's existence
He argues that since sound a priori arguments for the existence of God don't exist, one must turn to experience to determine if God exists. On this basis, the existence of evil shows that we cannot infer that a benevolent and omnipotent creator exists.
If God were really benevolent and omnipotent, what could he have done differently to produce a world without evil?
Hume's