On the Problem of Evil: Bertrand Russell vs Leibniz - Assignment Example

The problem of evil refers to the dilemma caused by the mutual coexistence between the undesirable and unfortunate states of affairs in the world, like droughts and wars, and a supreme deity who always means well and has the best intention for His people. 

As a result of this problem, the obvious stance is to hold it improbable or impossible for any deity to be attributed with such qualities as omnipotence, omniscience, and endless benevolence. According to the problem of evil, if indeed there existed an infinitely compassionate creator, then such undesirable outcomes like deathly famines, wars, and other forms of catastrophe – including the notion of hell would not have been present in the universe that He created. Thus, according to the problem of evil, the notion of God’s creations and the perceived act of his judgment upon his creators seem to be contradictory.

If indeed God had the power to create, he equally had the ability to ensure that whatever he created will submit only to His will thus eliminating the possibility of evil. If God existed and he is indeed the creator, then it would be a moral disgrace for him to keep on permitting the many evils that are present in the world – such is the stance taken by Russell. In his article, The Perennial Problem of Evil, Mark Piper best captures this dilemma by equating the coexistence of both God and evil to parents who willfully allow a nursery school to be infested by pedophiles.

Such is the contradicting nature of the existence of a powerful God who always means well and the simultaneous existence of evil that constitutes the problem of evil. Leibniz approaches the problem from the underachiever perspective. This perspective postulates that the only outcome for having a God who is against evil and evil itself in the same world can only mean that God has indeed come short. Such a proposition will further discount the popularly held belief of the existence of an all-powerful and supreme being.

Leibniz argues that God put his best work into creating this world, with the presence of evil or otherwise. As long as humans are not privy to the happenings in any other world out there, then ours will remain the best world, and the existence of evil makes it so. This however does not still explain that natural calamities that continue to befall the world as the such outcomes are ideally still under the control of an all-powerful and well-meaning God.