Introduction
A couple weeks ago a commenter asked a short series of questions about evil that I think deserve more than just a comment. The questions were posed on my article "
Pain, Suffering, and Purpose". I was already in a conversation with another commenter about leaving a legacy from the Christian and the atheistic worldviews, and it seems that these questions tie right into that conversation. Here they are:
- Are we (humans-Christians or non-christians) created to solve the problem evil?
- Can we make this world a better place?
- Can our legacy be to make it better than we found it?
Given the series of questions, this appears to be a question not about the logical problem of evil or even the emotional problem of evil, but the eradication of evil- was man created to remove evil? The logical problem of evil merely poses the challenge of the idea that an all-loving and all-powerful God is incompatible with the existence of evil. It assumes that evil exists. The emotional problem of evil focuses on the psychological effects that we experience from seeing the evil in the world. It is used to fertilize the ground for planting the logical problem of evil. This, too, assumes the existence of evil in the world. But neither of these really appear to be the commenter's concern. Rather "what are we going to do about it?".
