GOD, FREE WILL, AND THE GREATER GOOD: A THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ON THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Abstract

Society is filled with evil, leaving mankind surprised as theology says that God created everything and made it perfect, judging from its logical understanding that everything created by God ought to be perfect as God himself is a perfect God. The existence of evil is now questionable as man cannot trace its origin. Clearly, the curiosity of man, it is affirmed that evil exists, for a purpose. The major purpose for the existence of evil is to remind us of the existence of good. Evil is a pervasion of goodness. As a thing that prevents good, it reminds us that there is good and the need to strive towards achieving it. However, using ‘the free will theodicy’, we argue that moral evil is due to human abuse of free will. The value of free will is a great good: the possibility of morally good choices and of human beings imagining God by way of these choices. However, free will has the unfortunate consequence of allowing for the possibility of moral evil. In response to this, we might ask, if free will of this sort is so valuable, then why doesn’t God have it, and why won’t we have it in heaven? So, it is concluded that God created evil solely for reason. The search for the origin of evil is no longer necessary, as its origin is traced to the universal creator of all things.