A dispute · spans 3 eras
The Problem of Evil
If God is all-good and all-powerful, why does suffering exist?
Stated sharply by the Epicureans, but the great answers come later. Augustine: evil is privation, not substance, and the result of free will misused. Aquinas refined this within a teleological framework. Leibniz argued this is the best of all possible worlds and evil is the necessary cost of the maximal good. After the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Voltaire shredded Leibniz in Candide; after Auschwitz, theodicy in any form seems harder to many to maintain with a straight face. The problem is the most powerful philosophical argument against classical theism.
◇ ◇ ◇