The Problem of Evil: Why Is There Evil if a Good God Exists? | Prof. Gloria Frost
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2022
⏱️ 60 minutes
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Summary
This lecture was given on March 22, 2022 to the University of North Texas. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Gloria Frost is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. Her areas of research are medieval philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and the history of science. She is an assistant editor for the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly and on the executive councils for the American Catholic Philosophical Association and the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy. She is married to Jake Frost, author of "Catholic Dad" and the "Happy Jar," and they have four children.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This talk is brought to you by the Thomistic Institute. For more talks like this, visit us at |
| 0:06.0 | tamistic institute.org. So our world is full of pain and suffering. Nearly every day, |
| 0:15.8 | we read about horrific acts of violence and devastating natural disasters. In addition to the terrible |
| 0:22.9 | events that fill the news, there are many hidden personal sufferings that don't make the headlines. |
| 0:28.1 | Many of us are our loved ones who suffer from physical and mental illness, financial hardship, |
| 0:33.2 | abuse, neglect, or failed relationships. It's obvious that our world includes much suffering. |
| 0:40.1 | And this obvious fact is the starting point of one of the oldest and most compelling arguments |
| 0:45.0 | against the existence of God. Why you might ask, do many people think that the existence of God |
| 0:50.7 | is incompatible with evil? Well, if God is supposed to be all-knowing, as traditional |
| 0:55.8 | religions say, then God would be aware of all the evils happening in the world. For example, |
| 1:01.6 | God would know about the terrorist plot before the attack happened. Furthermore, if God is all-powerful, |
| 1:08.3 | God would be able to stop all evil. An omnipotent being like God could wipe out not just terrorists, but also ailments like |
| 1:15.4 | childhood cancer. |
| 1:17.4 | And finally, if God is supposed to be all good, as traditional religions say, wouldn't |
| 1:21.8 | God want to stop all the evils in our world? |
| 1:25.0 | So if God is the sort of being who would know about all evil, be able to stop |
| 1:28.8 | all evil, and want to stop all evil, then it follows that if there were a good God, then all |
| 1:34.4 | evil should have been eliminated. But clearly there is evil in our world. So therefore, |
| 1:39.3 | it seems that there can't also be an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God. Variations of this argument |
| 1:46.4 | have been put forth by philosophers and theologians for centuries, an attempt to undermine |
| 1:51.6 | belief in God. So in our talk tonight, I want to look to the great philosopher and theologian |
| 1:56.6 | Thomas Aquinas for wisdom on the question of why there's evil in the world given that the world |
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