What is the Problem of Evil in regards to the existence of God? The classic argument is: If God is all powerful and all good he would prevent all the evil in the world from occurring. From this premise God is then either: All powerful but not good or all good but not all powerful. This is the classic argument and that was the argument the Campus Minster Greg was answering with Christianity and the Bible as a response to the claim.
Before the Christian response was brought up, the establishment of there being Good in the world was established in the forms of love, beauty, and from what I gleaned virtues. Through the good and evil of humanity being recognize, I saw the full human experience given recognition.
The group who came was small. I was one of five people. There were Alex and Ariel who I have done Comparative Religion Contracts with Greg as my co-sponsor. I've enjoyed discussion with them. The other two people were Sandy from Beijing and another student whose name I can't remember.
After Greg had established the premise of the Problem of Evil in relation to God there was a break in which music was played by Alex. It was worship music I've heard at other Churches but felt more powerful since the group was so small. I noticed again how much worship songs sounds like love songs...replace God with someone's name and you have a romantic song being sung to someone you love, which is what worship is built upon, love.
After the music we read John 14 where Jesus tells his apostles he is going to the Father to set up a place for them in the Kingdom. He will always be with them through the Holy Spirit, which will be internal and inside of them. It's in this passage that there is "No one comes to the father except through me." This quote is actually one of the things I find limiting as far as the love not being unconditional and being limited. I'll get to that later though.
My friends discussed their experiences of feeling the Holy Spirit. Like in Church and during prayer and experiencing the peace that Jesus promises to give to his people in John 14. I could relate moments that I've had with family, friends or in different religious communities, like mosques, gurudwaras, synagogues and churches and especially when with girlfriend.
In the end the answer to the Thesis is that God chooses not to destroy Evil in the world because it is up to us to accept God and destroy the evil in ourselves so that we can reach Him and the Good at the end. He wouldn't be good if he took away choice. We experience trials and suffering in order to grow and become virtuous. In doing so, we are always striving for the good to become a part of it.
This could work to an extent, but it discounts those who live virtuously and those who never heard of Jesus during, before and after his existence. Which in the end make the choice existing in the first place not entirely good since other good individuals' goodness does not matter because they don't believe the exact definition of God that John 14 gets at, I find this not loving or fair since there are so many virtuous people of different faiths and virtuous atheists and agnostics.
Suffice to say the exploration of different people and leaders within Christianity's thoughts on this question will allow me to explore the different interpretations on this question more...and see if the dilemma of those who were never given a choice and the virtuous people aren't who aren't Christian is answered. There are other questions to, but this goes along with the exploration of the theme of "The Problem of Evil" in regards to Christianity.
I was grateful to make new friends and get to know old friends as well as getting to experience their faith with them.
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