Dr Paul Allen

Portrait of Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), German philosopher (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It has been called the Achilles’ heel of the Christian faith . Of course, I’m referring to the classical problem of the existence of evil . Philosophers such as John Stuart Mill have argued that the existence of evil demonstrates that God is either not omnipotent or not good and loving — the reasoning being that if evil exists apart from the sovereign power of God, then by resistless logic, God cannot be deemed omnipotent.  On the other hand, if God does have the power to prevent evil but fails to do it, then this would reflect upon His character, indicating that He is neither good nor loving.  Because of the persistence of this problem, the church has seen countless attempts at what is called theodicy. The term theodicy involves the combining of two Greek words: the word for God, theos, and the word for justification, dikaios. Hence, a theodicy is an attempt to justify God for the existen

Image via Wikipedia It has been called the Achilles ’ heel of  the Christian faith . Of course, I’m referring  to the classical problem of the existence of evil .  Philosophers such as John Stuart Mill have argued that the existence of evil demonstrates that God is either not omnipotent or not good and loving — the reasoning being that if evil exists apart from the sovereign power of God, then by resistless logic, God cannot be deemed omnipotent.  On the other hand, if God does have the power to prevent evil but fails to do it, then this would reflect upon His character, indicating that He is neither good nor loving. Because of the persistence of this problem, the church has seen countless attempts at what is called theodicy.  The term  theodicy  involves the combining of two Greek words : the word for God, theos , and the word for justification,  dikaios . Hence, a theodicy is an attempt to justify God for the existence of evil (as seen, for instance, in John Milton’s  Paradise Los