There is No Problem of Evil
There is the oh-so-common atheist argument against the existence of
God that is called The Problem of Evil argument. It looks like it
started with the old Greek philosopher, Epicurus. In short, the
argument says that if God existed He should have made the world a
nicer place than it is. Since the world has plenty of terrible
problems in it, either God does not exist or He is just not a very
nice guy or He is just not powerful enough to stop evil. The
argument is nice and fine and logical given a key assumption that
goes into it. Unfortunately for atheists that key assumption that
starts the argument is just plain wrong. If you start your
reasoning with a false assumption then don't expect the conclusion
to be right!
The faulty assumption is that the world was simply not designed to
be perfect in the way unbelievers think it should be perfect. THIS
world was designed to be educational. God simply has a lot
of souls who He knows will take to sin (selfishness) like ducks take
to water. He places them all here in specially selected locations
in time and then lets them go around doing many of the sinful
(selfish) things that they want. They get to observe how bad the
world is, what with wars, natural disasters, crooked politicians,
greedy people, diseases and so on. These result in plenty of pain
and suffering (in effect, a taste of Hell). If people are sharp
they will notice the selfishness in other people and then notice
that they've got a problem too. They'll get to notice how bad their
own choices are. Others notice that this world without God is empty
and meaningless.
So once people here on Earth have been educated about evil and what
a world without God is like, God basically goes around asking people
if they are happy with this world and themselves or would they
rather be perfect and live in a better, perfect world. This better
world is a world WITH God and it can only be achieved by giving up
your sinful (selfish) nature and asking God to make you over into a
new and perfect person. Clearly some people do accept the lesson
and go on to follow God. They make it to that perfect world.
Clearly other people (the Bible says most people) are content with
the way they are. So they're happy with being sinful (selfish)
people. They go on to Hell, a place that is filled with totally
selfish people.
So the flaw in The Problem of Evil argument comes from the
fact that FIRST, God must educate us about good and evil, which is
to say unselfish and selfish. Once you are educated you are free to
choose the life you want for all eternity. So THIS world is
perfect for God's goal to educate people about good and evil.
Heaven would not be heavenly if it was filled with totally selfish
people. People who want to be selfish have to be "weeded out".
But then, it turns out, there is a REAL Problem of Evil: it's
why so many people want to be sinful (evil) rather than good and why
do so many people not want there to be a God? Why don't people want
to be happy with God? Why would they rather be unhappy without him?
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