The existence of evil and suffering is something that has always bothered me about human nature. If this all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving god willfully created human kind, why did it include intentional evil and seemingly random suffering into this very flawed system. Why is it that each one of us, though having the ability to commit totally altruistic acts through our human nature, also have the potential to intentionally inflict harm, pain and suffering on other. members of our own species and members of other species as well.. This aside from the seemingly random occurrences of harm, pain and suffering that seem to arise without being the result of human intent?
I once wrote an essay about the “little boy god” who played with his creatures the way a little boy would play with toy soldiers. Is that what our god does with us? Is our fate the result of a role of the dice on some cosmic game board overseen by both a malevolent and a benevolent player, each of them competing through our created human nature?
What was implanted in Adolph Hitler that motivated him to kill millions of people in the name of some concept of ethnic and cultural superiority? And, perhaps even more significantly, what motivated thousands if not millions of his countrymen to support his evil?
Why would an all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful god not only allow this evil to occur, but to design this evil as part of creation?
Culturally, conflict has been institutionalized by different societies throughout history. Competition and conflict range from the amphitheaters of ancient Rome through the football stadiums of contemporary America. Why as a people do we take delight and
pleasure at seeing individuals compete and triumph over other individuals. In truth society forces us to compete. Everyone of us has, at one time or another, competed for a job. We have won some of those competitions and have lost others but the essence is the same: two or more people are competing for one position. As a result of competition and conflict there are winners and losers. We compete to get into college we compete to get into professional school after college we compete for positions after professional schools we compete within organizations for promotion. This competition is more or less benign in that the losers don’t die and the winners don’t have to kill the losers in order to win.
This competitive aspect of human nature is not always benign though.
Witness the incessant warfare that has engulfed our planet since the beginning of recorded history up through the present day. Men women and children are routinely killed in these competitions… competitions that grow out of the evil nature that is a part of our makeup as human beings, an evil nature that our creator imbued in us.
So am I wrong, or is it a patent contradiction that an all-loving and all-powerful creator created beings who possess such a potentially evil nature?
If our creator is in fact all loving and all powerful how did we end up as such imperfect and defective creatures, creatures with such a great potential for evil encoded within our very souls?
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