Throughout this course, in class discussion we have again and again touched upon the dilemma of God's character with relevance to the existence of evil. Various authors have tried to address this problem, taking many different approaches to try and reconcile the existence of an all-powerful, all knowing, and all loving God with the existence of evil. Bad things happen to people all the time and many wonder why these things happen. Many wonder why bad things happen to good people. Why did a mother, wife, and daughter, who were loved by many people, die only a half-mile from her house in a car accident, why didn't anyone see her? Why are her child and her husband left behind to go on with life without her? The person I am speaking about is a woman who I went to school with. The entire community wondered how this could happen and regardless of whether one knew her or not, everyone was affected and everyone wondered why.
             No one can answer these questions, but several have tried. It is the problem of evil. Why do bad things happen in this world? Not just death, but disasters and war that kill hundreds and thousands at a time and cause destruction. Why does God allow these things to fall onto his children? God's character in Christianity is seen as being omni-benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient: all loving/good, all-powerful, and all knowing. This picture of God is deeply complex and the cause of debate when Evil is considered. If Evil exists in the world, which I believe it does, then God, in his omniscience, knew that when he created the world evil would become a part of it. If God knew that evil would occur, in his all-powerful nature, he could have prevented it, and did not, which calls into question his goodness. Or, if he did know evil would occur, and in his goodness did not want it to occur, but it happened anyway, his power is called into question. Or, if he did not want evil to occur, and could ...