Hamartiology: The Reality Of Evil In This World - Essay Example

First of all, there are two kinds of evil in this world: moral and natural evil. Moral evil is evil that stems from human action or inaction while Natural evil occurs as a consequence of nature. An example of moral evil is when one commits adulterous acts towards one’s neighbor while an example of natural evil would be earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, diseases, those which are not controlled by man. Having a comparison between these two, one would be able to find Elwell’s argument reasonable when he said that though evil has resulted in a misuse of human free will which was granted by God to humans, God is not to be held responsible for evil in this world even when He knows humans are inclined to abuse it because of the fact that human free will is a gift and only becomes a curse once man uses it in the wrong way.

However, there are other theodicies presented that reflect a faulty reasoning of the presence of evil such as of the Consequentialist account of ethics that presupposes the good or evil of an act is determined by its result. Taking the act of robbery to be able to provide for one’s family as an example, though the end is good, the act towards it clearly is a moral evil that makes it sinful in its entirety. In this case, one could have used human free will to resort to perhaps finding a lowly job to be able to acquire money to feed one’s family instead.

Thus, the Consequentialist theory is indeed faulty and is one of the principles that explain why there is a worsening case of moral evil in our society. Also, another faulty account on this issue would be the argument of atheists that theism and religion, in general, are not worthy of adherence because of its inability to solve the problem of evil. To counter this faulty theory would be to defend that religion in itself is good as it is established to guide people towards what is moral.