Abstract:
If we step outside the rational paradigm and move closer to the emotional and affective paradigm, the problem of evil will not be of a logical type (the logical problem of evil) or a philosophical type (the evidential problem of evil), but rather of an emotional and existential type; the simple form of this problem is that a relationship with God, more than any other personal relationship, requires trust, security, satisfaction, peace, and hope. However, by observing excessive evil in their own lives, humans are psychologically unable to continue their loving relationship with God and His worship. Their emotions have been hurt by God, and they experience a sense of God's absence, silence, and neglect. In this state, the logical answers (defenses) and philosophical answers (theodicies) given to the problem of evil are irrelevant and ineffective. In this emotional space, instead of needing to resolve the inconsistency between God and evil or arguing to justify evil, humans need heart healing and the restoration of their relationship with God. It is in this space that one of the solutions to their problem can be giving meaning to suffering. The meaningfulness of suffering will be able to re-infuse meaning into their relationship with God and preserve their faith. In this article, we introduce and analyze the meanings of suffering that theologians have found based on the Christian Bible in response to the problem of existential evil.
Machine summary:
It is obvious that the answer theology must provide to this problem is of the same type as the problem itself; meaning it is only necessary to resolve the claimed inconsistency and contradiction by finding a logically possible and compatible state of affairs in which both God and evil exist; this response is called a defense.
Rick Rood, in the book God and Evil, believes that when God takes the hand of a human being in the midst of painful circumstances, He is actually manifesting His attributes of mercy, faithfulness, and love for them.
Rick Rood, in the book The Problem of Evil, also cites this very meaning of suffering from the Bible and maintains that Jesus Christ also confirms this meaning: و وقتیکه ميرفت، كوري مادرزادی ديد و شاگردانش از او سؤال كرده، گفتند: اي استاد، گناه كه كرد، اين شخص يا والدين او كه كور زاييده شد؟ عيسي جواب داد كه گناه نه اين person, nor his parents, but so that the works of God might be displayed in him (John, 9: 1 - 3; Rood, 2000: 209).
Another theologian who has addressed the issue of evil as an instrument for achieving good is Rick Rood; in his two works, God and Evil, How a Good God Can Allow Evil to Exist?, and also in the book The Problem of Evil, he considers one of the things that brings peace to a person in suffering to be the belief that God will work for the good of humanity.
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