Problem Of Evil Quotes

• Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

  Epicurus

  God, Spiritual, Religious

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• My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

  C. S. Lewis

  God, Christian, Atheist

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

  Epicurus

  Atheist, Faith Religion, Omnipotence

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• Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

  Epicurus

  Atheist, Omnipotence, If There Is A God

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• A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.

  C. S. Lewis

  Men, Ideas, Atheism

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.37, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Jesus doesn't give an explanation for the pain and sorrow of the world. He comes where the pain is most acute and takes it upon himself. Jesus doesn't explain why there is suffering, illness, and death in the world. He brings healing and hope. He doesn't allow the problem of evil to be the subject of a seminar. He allows evil to do its worst to him. He exhausts it, drains its power, and emerges with new life.

  N. T. Wright

  Death, Christian, Hope

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• Almost everyone agrees the world is not the way it ought to be. It's called the problem of evil.

  Greg Koukl

  Evil, World, Way

  Source: www.biblegateway.com

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• We live in the best of all possible worlds

  Gottfried Leibniz

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Optimistic

  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (2008). “Discourse on Metaphysics and the Monadology”, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Why bad things happen to good people

  Harold S. Kushner

  Erosion, Everything Happens For A Reason, People

  When Bad Things Happen to Good People ch. 1 (1981)

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• Let us remember that every worldview-not just Christianity's-must give an explanation or an answer for evil and suffering...this is not just a problem distinctive to Christianity. It will not do for the challenger just to raise the question. This problem of evil is one to which we all must offer an answer, regardless of the belief system to which we subscribe.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Evil, Giving, Suffering

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• If God seems to be in no hurry to make the problem of evil go away, maybe we shouldn't be, either. Maybe our compulsion to wash God's hands for him is a service he doesn't appreciate. Maybe - all theodicies and nearly all theologians to the contrary - evil is where we meet God. Maybe he isn't bothered by showing up dirty for his dates with creation. Maybe - just maybe - if we ever solved the problem, we'd have talked ourselves out of a lover.

  Robert Farrar Capon

  Pain, Dirty, Hands

  Robert Farrar Capon (1967). “The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair with Theology : Three Books”, p.170, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• The best answer to the problem of evil is not one so much found on paper but on wood.

  Peter Kreeft

  Evil, Answers, Paper

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• To be willing to suffer in order to create is one thing; to realize that one's creation necessitates one's suffering, that suffering is one of the greatest of God's gifts, is almost to reach a mystical solution of the problem of evil.

  J. W. N. Sullivan

  Creativity, Order, Ideas

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• Trouble, hardship, difficulty, pain, suffering, conflict, tragedy, evil - they're all part of the [Christian] Story. Indeed, the problem of evil is the reason there's any Story at all.

  Greg Koukl

  Christian, Pain, Evil

  Source: www.biblegateway.com

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• The great human problem of evil stems from the illusion of separateness. Whenever this illusion is overcome, we behave lovingly to one another.

  Barbara Marx Hubbard

  Evil, Unity, Overcoming

  Barbara Marx Hubbard (2010). “Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential”, p.203, New World Library

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• The answer to the problem of evil does not lie in trying to establish its point of origin, for that is simply not revealed to us. Rather, in the moment of the cross, it becomes clear that evil is utterly subverted for good.... If God can take the greatest of evils and turn them for the greatest of goods, then how much more can he take the lesser evils which litter human history, from individual tragedies to international disasters, and turn them to his good purpose as well.

  Carl R Trueman

  Lying, Evil, Tragedy

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• The problem of evil is raised more often by spectators of life than the actual combatants. You will hardly ever find that the great sufferers are the great skeptics.

  James Stewart

  Evil, Joy, Suffering

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• If I did not believe, if I did not make what is called an act of faith (and each act of faith increases our faith, and our capacity for faith), if I did not have faith that the works of mercy do lighten the sum total of suffering in the world, so that those who are suffering on both sides of this ghastly struggle somehow mysteriously find their pain lifted and some balm of consolation poured on their wounds, if I did not believe these things, the problem of evil would indeed be overwhelming.

  Dorothy Day

  Pain, Believe, Struggle

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• The problem of good and evil is not the problem of good and evil, but only the problem of evil. In opposition to good there are evil characters, but there are no good characters in opposition to evil. Evil is arguable, but good is not. Therefore the Devil always wins the argument.

  Laura Riding

  Character, Winning, Evil

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• Most Christians who've been around for a while have their Story in bits and pieces, but have never seen how powerful it really is when assembled as a whole. I want them to see how well it fits together and how it offers tremendous explanatory power regarding the world as we actually find it. I want them to see how it resolves the problem of evil, and why God's solution - the God/man Jesus - is the only solution.

  Greg Koukl

  Christian, Jesus, Powerful

  Source: www.biblegateway.com

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• In matter-ism (materialism), there can be nothing wrong with the world since there is no right way for the world to be in the first place. Everything is just matter in motion and that's that. In Mind-ism (monism) there's a different route to the same problem. There cannot be a problem of evil, even in principle, since in Mind-ism even morality is maya; illusion. In neither story, then (if we're to be consistent with their principles), can the issue of evil be raised. But in real life the problem comes up all the time. That's the difficulty.

  Greg Koukl

  Real, Issues, Evil

  Source: www.biblegateway.com

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