2 Answers

  1. The problem of theodicy, that is, the simultaneous existence of an all-good, all-powerful God and evil, is solved in different religions (and even in different versions of one religion) in different ways.

    In paganism, for example, evil is explained by the presence of different gods, whose spheres of influence overlap. At the same time, strictly speaking, absolutely omnipotent and all-good gods do not exist, so there is no problem of justifying evil.

    In dualistic religions such as Zoroastrianism/Gnosticism/Manichaeism, evil is either an equal principle with good, or prevails in the earthly world due to its extreme remoteness from the deity.

    In monotheism (for example, Christianity), different options are possible. Based on the concept of free will, evil is the result of the fall, an independent choice of a person. God wants there to be no evil, but He expects man to make his own choice in favor of good.

    Or so: there is no evil. What we perceive as evil is part of God's great plan for everyone's life, and evil is either a test or a punishment for sin. “It's all for the best in this best of all worlds.”

    A Gnostic interpretation is also possible within the framework of Christianity (evil is the machinations of the devil, who is the prince of this world), but I am not sure whether it can be recognized as canonical. After all, Satan is also God's creation.

  2. Not every religious (in a broad sense) worldview includes the concepts of “Good” and “Evil” in the same sense that people in our culture are used to.

    Examples can be found both in extremely ancient, proto-pagan belief systems(I don't remember exactly what the name of an African tribe is, in the language of which there are no concepts of “good” and “bad” – it made a lot of noise after a certain Christian missionary who tried to convert this tribe rejected his beliefs, imbued with their worldview and wrote a book about it – who remembers what the name of the missionary, book or tribe was, please tell me in the comments),

    But even in the more common religions of Abrahamic or Hindu origin, many philosophers successfully solve the problem of evil in various ways.

    In Christianity, in principle, the basic ideas of theodicy have not changed since the time of Augustine-evil is a gradation of good(the notorious copy-paste about Einstein is a good illustration of this idea, called “Christian optimism”).

    In addition, other ideas are also common: “there is no evil in nature, evil exists only in man, as the only being capable of disobeying the will of God”, “there is no evil, evil is only an illusion arising from the imperfection of human consciousness”, “there is no evil, everything is predestined, and since Good will eventually prevail, evil is only an instrument of Good, and thus is not really evil”, “there is no evil, since the whole world known by man is only an illusion”, and much more.

    By the way, in my opinion, in religion, unlike secular philosophy, there are no unsolvable problems at all. Religions, they are also religions, because in them “you can find answers to all questions.” There is a “correct” point of view on some problem that becomes a dogma, that is, the problem of finding the right solution in religion is not worth it, all religious philosophy is reduced to the interpretation of dogmas. If there is a question that is not clearly answered in the dogmas , this question is declared to lie outside the sphere of interests of religion.

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