Great IdeasGod and the soul
Why there is evil
Suffering and wrongdoing, and how thinkers have tried to explain them.
The question
Why is there evil and suffering in the world? Where does wrongdoing come from?
How the books answer
Oldest first. Each stop is our own short summary of what the author argued; follow the link to the rung for the whole lesson.
c. 390s–380s BC
Plato, Gorgias
Socrates argues that doing wrong is worse than suffering it, because it damages the wrongdoer's own soul. He also holds that no one does wrong willingly; evil comes from ignorance of what is truly good. His listeners find this hard to believe.
AD 413–426
Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
Augustine argues that evil is not a thing God made but the lack or twisting of something good, like sickness in a body. Moral evil comes from free wills turning away from God toward lesser goods. God, he says, can bring good even out of evil.
1265–1274 (unfinished)
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part
Aquinas faces the objection that if God is all good and all powerful, there should be no evil. He answers, following Augustine, that God permits evil only because he can bring a greater good from it.
“Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.”
c. 1308–1314
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno
Dante's Hell is arranged by kinds of wrongdoing, from weakness to violence to fraud, which he thought worst because it misuses reason. Each punishment fits the sin. The journey through Hell is the first stage of a pilgrim's return to the good.
c. 1606
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Macbeth shows evil growing in a good man, step by step. The witches tempt him, his wife urges him, but he chooses. Once he starts, each crime leads to the next, until his life seems to him to mean nothing.
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair:”
1667
John Milton, Paradise Lost
Milton tells of Satan's rebellion and the fall of Adam and Eve. He sets out to show that God is just in allowing evil, because creatures made free must be able to choose wrongly. Many readers find Satan the most vivid character, which has fueled centuries of argument.
“That, to the height of this great argument, I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.”
1759
Voltaire, Candide
After a great earthquake destroyed Lisbon in 1755, Voltaire wrote Candide to mock the claim that this is the best of all possible worlds. His characters suffer one disaster after another while Dr. Pangloss explains it is all for the best. Voltaire's answer is practical: stop theorizing and tend your garden.
“He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that, in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible Baronesses.”
Part One 1808; Part Two 1832
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Parts One and Two
Goethe's devil, Mephistopheles, calls himself part of the power that always wants evil and always ends up doing good. Faust makes a bargain with him, and wrong follows. Goethe suggests that striving and love can still win out over evil.
“Part of that Power, not understood, Which always wills the Bad, and always works the Good.”
1879–1880
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Ivan Karamazov lists true stories of cruelty to children and says no future harmony could justify them. It is one of the strongest statements of the problem of evil ever written. Dostoevsky, a Christian, answers through the elder Zosima's teaching of active, forgiving love.
1899
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Marlow travels up an African river to find Kurtz, a European trader who has given in to greed and power. Conrad suggests that the darkness lies not in a place but in the human heart, and in the greed of the empire Marlow serves. The story has mature themes, best for older readers.
For young readers
Evil means something very bad, like being cruel or hurting people on purpose. Suffering means being hurt, sad or sick. People have always asked: why do bad things happen?
Some writers say people choose wrong when they forget what is truly good. Others say suffering can lead to something good, the way a hard time can make us stronger or kinder. Voltaire said: stop arguing and help make the world better, like tending a garden.
Talk about it
- Why do you think people sometimes choose to do wrong?
- Socrates says doing wrong hurts the wrongdoer most. How could that be?
- Macbeth's first wrong choice led to more. Why does one bad choice make the next easier?
- Voltaire says 'tend your garden.' What could you do to make things better around you?
- Can something good ever come from something bad? Share an example.
Where else on the site
Every rung tagged with this idea:
These pages are our own short synthesis, written for families. They were inspired by Mortimer J. Adler's Syntopicon, the index of great ideas in volumes 1 and 2 of Great Books of the Western World, but the questions, summaries and groupings are ours, not the Syntopicon's. Short excerpts come from public-domain translations, credited where they appear.