Pals with the Big G- The Problem of Evil

Another philosophically/ religion-themed post, this was is my attempt at answering "The Problem of Evil." While the answer to the question is fully formed in my mind, putting it into words has been somewhat difficult, though I think what I've written gets the gist of my idea down. That said, I feel that this piece is a work in process that will need more work to be fully developed.

Proposed solution to “The Problem of Evil”- Evil as done on a human-to-human basis is a by-product of free will. Both the action and the motivation behind said action are determined on a individual basis as was intended by God, thus, any direct involvement by God to stop actions deemed “evil” would invalidate the free will being asserted by that person. Furthermore, actions can only be called “evil” if the individual committing these actions are aware that what they are doing is wrong.

In terms of “natural evils”, I believe the term is a misnomer used to assign human context to systematic or random events of nature, though the human suffering resulting from the phenomena is obviously very real and painful. I posit that the reason for God's lack of overt intervention in these situations are to promote human community through empathy and compassion for eachother's suffering. If God were to take overt action in these circumstances it would not only undermine His intent to give us free will (by virtue of us having concrete knowledge of His existence), but also allow us to take that safeguard for granted and hinder our ability to relate to one other- which could have some very different implications for human society.