Problem of evil and suffering

• Catechism 221: 'God's very being is love'
• Catechism 268: 'God rules everything and can do everything'
• Isaiah chapter 45: 'God is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent'
• If God is omnipotent


  He must be able to remove evil and suffering from the world
• If God is omni-benevolent


  He must want to remove evil and suffering from the world because they cause so much unhappiness
• If God is omniscient and everything that happens is part of his divine plan

  He must have known all the evil and suffering that would come from creating the universe in the way he did so he should've created the universe in a different way
• Evil and suffering cause problems for Catholic beliefs about the nature of God
• Why this leads some Christians to examine or

  reject their belief in God

  The existence of evil and suffering challenges Catholic beliefs about

  God, and as these beliefs come from the Bible and the magisterium it

  causes Catholics to examine their beliefs, especially when they come

  into contact with evil or suffering personally. So, if they experience the

  suffering caused by a natural disaster such as an earthquake, or if their

  child dies from a disease, they begin to examine their beliefs.
• Non-religious people such as Atheists and Humanists cannot

  believe that a good God would have designed a world with natural evils

  in it. If they had been God, they would not have created a world with

  floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, cancers, etc. They find it easier to believe

  that these features are a result of the Earth evolving by accident from the

  Big Bang and so they question or reject God’s existence.