The problem of evil has been and remains one of the central problems of philosophy. Thinkers of all times and epochs were extremely interested not interested in this problem and many of them were quite puzzled even by the defining of the notion of evil. Not surprisingly this problem has a great influence on other aspects of philosophy, it is also related to many other philosophical problems which are quite difficult to solve. For some thinkers, even for those who seemed to have quite fundamental religious views the problem of evil made them doubt whether the God exist or not. But at the beginning I would like to dwell upon the problem of evil itself and then analyze it in the context of evil-God relation, particularly in the context of argument from design.

So, it is necessary to underline that we should define to regards on one and the same problem. On the one hand, there is evil that exists that is brought about by natural events and that is not within the human control. In other words we may say that this evil does not depend on humans but either on nature or the God. On the other hand, there is human evil which is brought about by human actions and for which human beings may be held responsible. Judging from this a bit controversial perception of evil we can realize that, for instance, if we analyze them in the context of the argument from design then we’ll find out that they make it quite doubtful the reasoning of the argument. I’ll try to explain my point of view.

First of all, when we admit the argument from design we believe that the God is all-knowing creator of the universe and human beings, moreover, the God is all-good. But we can naturally presuppose that, being so good, the God would not allow evil to exist than evil could hardly exist at all even among humans only. However, the evil exists and this is undeniable fact. Consequently, the natural conclusion that we can make is that the God does not exist or we have to reevaluate our perception either of evil or both evil and God. For instance, we may admit that the God is not all-knowing or probably he is not all-good, but in such a case we ignore the argument from design. On the other hand, we may estimate that evil is a necessary part of our life and it is vitally important as a counterpart in the world or we may regard at evil as a mean to realize what is really good. Furthermore, standing on the religious ground we may simply estimate that the God is a great mystery and we cannot define something as good or evil because only God knows what is what.

Thus, it is obvious that the problem of evil is quite a complicated phenomenon that relates to many other problem, including the problem of the existence of God. The latter may lead to two controversial conclusions, namely they are: we believe in the God or we not. We can hardly solve this controversy because, depending on our personal views and beliefs, we would stick to that point that would be closer to our own. Consequently, it is up to the individual what to define as evil and its relation to the God.