The Problem of Evil: Why Does a Good God Allow Suffering?
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.Job 42:5-6 · World English Bible
Original Language & Text
Isaiah 45:7 is among the most debated single verses on this topic: “I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create calamity (רָע, ra); I am Yahweh, who does all these things.” The Hebrew רָע (ra) has a wide semantic range — moral “evil” is only one sense among several, alongside “harm,” “misfortune,” and “calamity” — and the verse’s own parallel structure (light/darkness, peace/ra) pairs ra against “peace” (shalom) rather than against “righteousness,” which is why most modern translations (NIV, NASB, NRSV) render it “disaster” or “calamity” rather than the KJV’s “evil,” without this being a case of one translation softening an uncomfortable claim — both renderings are linguistically defensible, and the verse’s context (Yahweh’s sovereignty over the Persian king Cyrus’s rise, not a claim about the origin of moral wrongdoing) supports the “calamity” reading. When Yahweh finally answers Job “out of the whirlwind” (מִן הַסְּעָרָה, min ha-se‘arah, Job 38:1), the answer is not an explanation of Job’s suffering at all but a sequence of unanswerable questions about creation itself. In the New Testament, Greek πειρασμός (peirasmos) carries a double sense that James 1 exploits deliberately: “trial” or “test” in verses 2-3 (something that produces endurance), and “temptation” to sin in verses 12-13 (something God is explicitly said not to cause) — the same word covering both, depending on context.
Key Terms in the Original Language
“evil, harm, calamity” (Isa. 45:7)
A wide-ranging Hebrew word covering moral wrongdoing, misfortune, and disaster alike; its pairing with “peace” rather than “righteousness” in Isaiah 45:7 supports reading it as “calamity” there rather than moral evil.
“out of the whirlwind” (Job 38:1)
God's answer to Job comes from a storm and consists of unanswerable questions about creation, not an explanation of Job's suffering.
“trial” / “temptation” (James 1:2-3, 12-13)
A single Greek word covering both a character-building “test” and an enticement to sin, with James distinguishing the two senses within the same chapter.
“justice of God”
Not a biblical term; coined by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1710 from Greek theos ("god") and dike ("justice") for the philosophical project of defending God's goodness given the existence of evil.
History & Authorship
The Book of Job’s own literary form is unusual within the Hebrew Bible: a prose narrative frame (chapters 1-2, 42:7-17) surrounds an extended poetic dialogue in which Job’s three friends offer variations on the assumption that suffering must be a direct consequence of sin — an assumption the book’s own frame narrative explicitly rejects from the outset (Job 1:1, 8) and that God himself rebukes at the end (42:7). Scholars broadly agree Job is a work of wisdom literature staging a deliberate philosophical debate rather than reporting a straightforward historical account, though there is no consensus on when it was composed, with proposals ranging from the patriarchal period suggested by its setting to a post-exilic (6th-4th century BCE) date suggested by its language and theology. The classical philosophical statement of the problem is popularly attributed to Epicurus (3rd century BCE) in the form: if God is willing to prevent evil but not able, he is not omnipotent; if able but not willing, he is malevolent; if both able and willing, why does evil exist? This attribution, however, rests on shaky ground — the earliest surviving source for it is the Christian writer Lactantius, around 318 CE, nearly six centuries after Epicurus, and a 1988 philological study by classicist Reinhold Glei found the argument’s vocabulary and structure more characteristic of the Academic Skeptic Carneades than of Epicurus, whose own surviving writings never state it. The term “theodicy” itself (from Greek theos, “god,” and dike, “justice”) was coined much later still, by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his 1710 Essais de Théodicée, which also introduced the widely misunderstood and often mocked claim that this is “the best of all possible worlds.”
How This Debate Developed
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Wisdom-literature era (disputed date)
Book of Job stages the debate
Job's frame narrative explicitly rejects the friends' assumption that suffering is always direct punishment for sin; God rebukes that assumption at the book's end (42:7).
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c. 318 CE
Trilemma attributed to Epicurus
Christian writer Lactantius records the willing/able trilemma and attributes it to Epicurus -- the earliest surviving source, nearly six centuries after Epicurus's death, and an attribution later philological study found doubtful.
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c. 397-400 CE
Augustine's privation theodicy
Confessions develops evil as privation (absence of good) rather than a positive substance, paired with a free-will account of its origin.
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1710
Leibniz coins “theodicy”
Essais de Théodicée introduces the term and argues this is “the best of all possible worlds.”
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1955
Mackie formalizes the logical problem
J. L. Mackie's “Evil and Omnipotence” (Mind) argues omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence are logically incompatible with evil's existence.
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1966-1979
Hick, Plantinga, and Rowe
Hick's Irenaean soul-making theodicy (1966) and Plantinga's free will defense (1974) respond to the logical problem; Rowe's evidential argument (1979) reframes the debate around apparently gratuitous suffering.
The Popular / Mainstream View
Historically, the most influential Christian response has been Augustine’s: evil is not a positive substance God created but a privation, a corruption or absence of the good, and its ultimate source is the misuse of the genuine free will God gave rational creatures — a position Thomas Aquinas largely followed and that remains foundational to much of Western Christian theology. In its contemporary philosophical form, Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense (God, Freedom, and Evil, 1974) is widely regarded, even among non-Christian philosophers, as having successfully answered the strict logical version of the problem — that God’s existence is strictly incompatible with any evil at all — by showing it is at least possible that a world with free creatures who sometimes choose evil is better than a world without genuine freedom at all.
Minority & Alternative Views
Irenaean “soul-making” theodicy
Named for the 2nd-century church father Irenaeus and developed influentially by 20th-century philosopher John Hick (Evil and the God of Love, 1966), this view holds that humanity was created immature rather than perfect, and that a world containing real difficulty and struggle is necessary for people to develop into fully mature moral and spiritual beings — suffering is not merely tolerated as a side effect of free will but serves a positive, character-forming purpose. Critics note this view struggles to explain suffering that appears to destroy rather than build character, and that it can seem to justify horrific evil as instrumentally necessary in a way many find troubling.
The evidential problem and gratuitous suffering
Philosopher William Rowe’s influential 1979 paper reframed the debate away from strict logical contradiction and toward evidence: some suffering — Rowe’s example involves a fawn burned in a forest fire, dying slowly with no one to witness or benefit from it — appears entirely pointless, serving no discernible greater good, which Rowe argued counts as genuine evidence against (though not strict logical disproof of) an all-powerful, all-good God. Most contemporary philosophical discussion of the problem of evil, for and against theism alike, now centers on this evidential version rather than the logical version Plantinga is credited with answering.
Open theism and process theology
A minority but serious theological position, associated with open theists like Gregory Boyd and Clark Pinnock, holds that God’s foreknowledge of free creatures’ choices is genuinely open rather than exhaustively settled in advance, which changes how divine responsibility for evil is understood, since God takes real risks rather than certainly foreknowing and permitting every specific evil. Process theology, associated with Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, goes further still, holding that God’s power is inherently persuasive rather than coercive and that God cannot simply override creaturely freedom or natural processes to prevent evil — a position most classical Christian traditions consider outside orthodox bounds precisely because it redefines omnipotence rather than merely explaining its use.
What Scholars Say
It’s worth being precise about what different responses to this problem actually claim to accomplish. Plantinga’s free will defense targets the logical problem specifically — it aims only to show a contradiction isn’t strictly provable, not to explain why any particular evil happened — and most philosophers, theist and atheist alike, now consider the strict logical argument unsuccessful for this reason. The much harder evidential problem — why the amount, distribution, and apparent pointlessness of suffering in the actual world looks the way it does — remains genuinely contested, with “skeptical theists” arguing humans are in no position to judge whether apparently gratuitous suffering really is pointless given God’s presumably vast knowledge, and others finding that response unsatisfying as an answer to lived experience. The Book of Job itself is notable for ending without ever explaining Job’s suffering to him at all — Job never learns about the opening scene’s wager, and God’s answer “from the whirlwind” is a series of questions about creation’s grandeur rather than a justification, which many readers take as the book’s own deliberate refusal to offer a tidy theodicy. See the Afterlife topic for the related question of how ultimate justice and suffering are reconciled beyond this life.
Sources & Further Reading
- Augustine, Confessions, Book VII (c. 397-400 CE)
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Essais de Théodicée (1710)
- C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940)
- John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (1966)
- Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (1974)
- William L. Rowe, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979)
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Study & Discussion Questions
- Augustine held that evil has no independent existence, only ever being a corruption or privation of a good that God did create. Does understanding evil as “absence” rather than a “thing” change how you think about its origin or its solution?
- The book of Job never actually explains to Job why he suffered -- he's never told about the wager in heaven, and God's answer is a series of questions about creation rather than a direct justification. What do you make of a book about suffering that refuses to resolve the reader's (or the sufferer's) actual question?
- Rowe's evidential argument focuses on suffering that appears to serve no discernible greater purpose at all -- a fawn dying alone in a forest fire, unseen and unremembered. Does the free will defense, which explains moral evil through human choices, have anything to say about this kind of apparently pointless natural suffering?
- The Irenaean “soul-making” theodicy holds that struggle and difficulty are necessary for genuine moral and spiritual growth. Where do you think this explanation holds up best, and where does it seem to strain against the actual severity of some suffering?
- Isaiah 45:7 has been translated both “I create evil” and “I create calamity” for the same Hebrew word. Does the choice between these translations change what the verse is actually claiming about God's relationship to evil?
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