Editing Problem of evil (section)

==Definitions==
===Evil===
A broad concept of [[evil]] defines it as any and all pain and suffering,<ref name="Todd Calder">{{cite web |last1=Calder |first1=Todd |title=The Concept of Evil |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/concept-evil/|website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=26 November 2013 |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=17 January 2021}}</ref> yet this definition quickly becomes problematic. [[Marcus George Singer|Marcus Singer]] says that a usable definition of evil must be based on the knowledge that: "If something is really evil, it can't be necessary, and if it is really necessary, it can't be evil".<ref name="Marcus G. Singer2004">{{cite journal |last1=Marcus G. Singer |first1=Marcus G. Singer |title=The Concept of Evil |journal=Philosophy |date=April 2004 |volume=79 |issue=308 |pages=185–214 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3751971 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/S0031819104000233 |jstor=3751971 |s2cid=146121829 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{rp|186}} According to philosopher John Kemp, evil cannot be correctly understood on "a simple hedonic scale on which pleasure appears as a plus, and pain as a minus".<ref name="John Kemp">{{cite journal |last1=Kemp |first1=John |title=Pain and Evil |journal=Philosophy |date=25 February 2009 |volume=29 |issue=108 |page=13 |doi=10.1017/S0031819100022105 |s2cid=144540963 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/philosophy/article/abs/pain-and-evil/F3FF667D770E68BE6A9A56A345FBB7D6 |access-date=8 January 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Todd Calder"/> The [[National Institute of Medicine]] says [[pain]] is essential for survival: "Without pain, the world would be an impossibly dangerous place".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care, and Education |first1=Institute of Medicine (US) |title=Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research. |url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92525/ |website=NCBI Bookshelf |publisher=National Academies Press (US) |access-date=21 February 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Reviews |journal=The Humane Review |date=1901 |volume=2 |issue=5–8 |page=374 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aCUKAAAAIAAJ |publisher=E. Bell}}</ref> 
 
While many of the arguments against an omni-God are based on the broadest definition of evil, "most contemporary philosophers interested in the nature of evil are primarily concerned with evil in a narrower sense".<ref name="Calder 2007">{{cite journal |last1=Calder |first1=Todd C. |title=Is the Privation Theory of Evil Dead? |journal=American Philosophical Quarterly |date=2007 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=371–381 |jstor=20464387 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20464387}}</ref> The narrow concept of evil involves moral condemnation, and is applicable only to moral agents capable of making independent decisions, and their actions; it allows for the existence of some pain and suffering without identifying it as evil.<ref name="Eve Garrard">{{cite journal |last1=Garrard |first1=Eve |title=Evil as an Explanatory Concept |journal=The Monist |date=April 2002 |volume=85 |issue=2 |pages=320–336 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27903775 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.5840/monist200285219 |jstor=27903775 |format=PDF|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{rp|322}} Christianity is based on "the [[wikt:salvific|salvific]] value of suffering".<ref name="Taliaferro">{{cite web |last1=Taliaferro |first1=Charles |title=Philosophy of Religion |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-religion/#ReliEpis |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Sanford University|access-date=7 December 2020|page=3.1}}</ref>

Philosopher Eve Garrard suggests that the term evil cannot be used to describe ordinary wrongdoing, because "there is a ''qualitative'' and not merely a ''quantitative'' difference between evil acts and other wrongful ones; evil acts are not just very bad or wrongful acts, but rather ones possessing some specially horrific quality".<ref name="Eve Garrard"/>{{rp|321}} Calder argues that evil must involve the attempt or desire to inflict significant harm on the victim without moral justification.<ref name="Todd Calder"/>

Evil takes on different meanings when seen from the perspective of different belief systems, and while evil can be viewed in religious terms, it can also be understood in natural or secular terms, such as social vice, egoism, criminality, and sociopathology.<ref name="Rorty"/> [[John Kekes]] writes that an action is evil if "(1) it causes grievous harm to (2) innocent victims, and it is (3) deliberate, (4) malevolently motivated, and (5) morally unjustifiable".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kekes |first1=John |editor1-last=Bar-Am |editor1-first=Nimrod |editor2-last=Gattei |editor2-first=Stefano |title=Encouraging Openness: Essays for Joseph Agassi on the Occasion of His 90th Birthday |date=2017 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9783319576695 |page=351 |chapter=29, The Secular Problem of Evil}}</ref>

===Omni-qualities===
[[Omniscience]] is "maximal knowledge".<ref name="Wierenga">{{cite web|last=Wierenga|first=Edward|title=Omniscience|publisher=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|year=2020|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|url = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/omniscience/|access-date=22 February 2021}}</ref> According to Edward Wierenga, a classics scholar and doctor of philosophy and religion at the University of Massachusetts, ''maximal'' is not unlimited but limited to "God knowing what is knowable".<ref name="Wierenga1989">{{cite book |last1=Wierenga |first1=Edward R. |title=The Nature of God: An Inquiry Into Divine Attributes |date=1989 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=9780801488504 |pages=202–205}}</ref>{{rp|25}} This is the most widely accepted view of omniscience among scholars of the twenty-first century, and is what [[William Hasker]] calls ''freewill-theism''. Within this view, future events that depend upon choices made by individuals with free will are unknowable until they occur.<ref name="Hasker omniscience">{{cite book |last1=Hasker |first1=William |title=Providence, Evil and the Openness of God |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415329491}}</ref>{{rp|104; 137}}<ref name="Wierenga"/>{{rp|18–20}}

[[Omnipotence]] is maximal power to bring about events within the limits of possibility, but again ''maximal'' is not unlimited.<ref name="Hoffman and Rosenkrantz">{{cite web |last1=Hoffman |first1=Joshua |last2=Rosenkrantz |first2=Gary |title=Omnipotence |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/omnipotence/ |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=22 February 2021}}</ref>  According to the philosophers Hoffman and Rosenkrantz: "An omnipotent agent is not required to bring about an impossible state of affairs... maximal power has logical and temporal limitations, including the limitation that an omnipotent agent cannot bring about, i.e., cause, another agent's free decision".<ref name="Hoffman and Rosenkrantz"/>

[[Omnibenevolence]] sees God as all-loving. If God is omnibenevolent, he acts according to what is [[wikt:best|best]], but if there is no best available, God attempts, if possible, to bring about states of affairs that are creatable and are optimal within the limitations of physical reality.<ref name="Haji">{{cite journal |last1=Haji |first1=Ishtiyaque |title=A Conundrum Concerning Creation |journal=Sophia |date=2009 |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=1–14 |doi=10.1007/s11841-008-0062-7 |s2cid=144025073 |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/203892905|id={{ProQuest|203892905}} |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Defenses and theodicies===
[[Religious responses to the problem of evil|Responses to the problem of evil]] have occasionally been classified as ''defences'' or ''[[Theodicy|theodicies]]'' although authors disagree on the exact definitions.<ref name="Stanford"/><ref name="IepEvidential"/><ref>{{cite encyclopaedia |first=Ted |last=Honderich |author-link=Ted Honderich |year=2005 |title=theodicy |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |isbn=978-0-19-926479-7 |quote=[[John Hick]], for example, proposes a theodicy, while [[Alvin Plantinga]] formulates a defence. The idea of human free will often appears in a both of these strategies, but in different ways.}}</ref> Generally, a defense refers to attempts to address the logical argument of evil that says "it is logically impossible – not just unlikely – that God exists".<ref name="IepEvidential"/> A defense does not require a full explanation of evil, and it need not be true, or even probable; it need only be possible, since possibility invalidates the logic of impossibility.<ref>For more explanation regarding contradictory propositions and possible worlds, see Plantinga's "God, Freedom and Evil" (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1974), 24–29.</ref><ref name="IepLogical">The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "[https://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evil-log.htm The Logical Problem of Evil]", James R. Beebe</ref>

A theodicy, on the other hand, is more ambitious, since it attempts to provide a plausible justification – a morally or philosophically sufficient reason – for the existence of evil. This is intended to weaken the evidential argument which uses the reality of evil to argue that the existence of God is unlikely.<ref name="IepEvidential"/><ref name="Harvey2013p141">{{cite book|first=Peter |last=Harvey |title=An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u0sg9LV_rEgC |year=2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-85942-4 |pages=37, 141 }}</ref>

===Secularism===
In philosopher Forrest E. Baird's view, one can have a secular problem of evil whenever humans seek to explain why evil exists and its relationship to the world.<ref name="Mitchell">{{cite web |last1=Mitchell |title=Theodicy: An Overview |url=https://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/documents/TheodicyOverview_009.pdf |website=dbu.edu/mitchell |publisher=Dallas Baptist University |access-date=14 April 2021}}</ref> He adds that any experience that "calls into question our basic trust in the order and structure of our world" can be seen as evil,<ref name="Mitchell"/> therefore, according to [[Peter L. Berger]], humans need explanations of evil "for social structures to stay themselves against chaotic forces".<ref name="Peter L. Berger">{{cite book |last1=Berger |first1=Peter L. |title=The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion |date=1990 |publisher=Anchor |isbn=978-0385073059 |page=53 |edition=Illustrated}}</ref>