The Origin of Evil and the Problem of Suffering
The Goodness of Creation and the Problem of Evil
Catholic theology begins with a conviction: God is perfectly good, and everything God creates is good. Genesis 1:31 records God looking at all that he had made and declaring it “very good.” Yet the world plainly contains suffering, cruelty and death. How can a good God be the Creator of a world that includes evil? This is called the problem of evil, and it is one of the oldest questions in religious thought.
Catholic theology distinguishes two kinds of evil. Moral evil is evil caused by human choices — murder, cruelty, oppression. Natural evil is suffering arising from natural processes — earthquakes, floods, disease, famine. The distinction matters because the explanations available differ: moral evil can be traced to human freedom; natural evil is harder to explain without reference to God’s purposes.
Moral evil results from human free choices (e.g. murder, war, injustice). Natural evil results from natural processes (e.g. earthquakes, cancer, floods). Catholic theology treats these differently: moral evil points to the misuse of free will; natural evil raises deeper questions about God’s purposes in creation.
Original Sin: The Catholic Account
The Catholic answer to the origin of moral evil centres on the doctrine of Original Sin. The Genesis account (chapters 2–3) describes the first humans choosing to disobey God, seeking to become “like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). This act of pride and disobedience is understood in Catholic theology as introducing a rupture into the relationship between humanity and God, and as having consequences for all of humanity that followed.
Original Sin does not mean that every person commits the first sin personally. Rather, it describes a condition of damaged human nature — a tendency towards self-centredness, a weakening of the will, a darkening of the intellect — into which every human being is born. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Original Sin is a universal truth about the human condition: it explains why people often choose wrong even when they know what is right. Baptism is the sacrament through which Original Sin is removed and a person enters the life of grace.
St Augustine of Hippo (354–430) made a foundational contribution to Catholic thinking on evil. In the Enchiridion (3:11), Augustine argued that evil is not a substance or a thing that God created. God created all things, and all things he created are good. Evil is therefore a privation — an absence, a corruption, a falling-short of the good that should be there. Blindness is not a thing; it is the absence of sight. Cruelty is not a substance; it is the corruption of the love that should be there. Evil exists as a parasite on the good, not as an independent reality.
This analysis allows Augustine to maintain that God is not the author of evil. God created only good things. Evil enters through the free choices of rational beings — first through the pride of fallen angels, then through the disobedience of Adam and Eve. The world God made was entirely good; the evil within it is the result of creaturely freedom misused. Augustine developed this further in his concept of Original Sin: humanity’s fallen nature is a privation of the original integrity and goodness in which we were created.
The Free Will Defence
If God is all-powerful, why does he not simply prevent evil? The most influential Catholic response is the free will defence. God, in creating human beings in his image, gave them genuine freedom. A world of beings who could only do good — programmed, like machines — would not be a world of moral agents. It would not be a world of love, because love requires free choice. God allowed the possibility of evil as the price of creating beings capable of real moral life and genuine relationship with him.
This response handles moral evil well: human cruelty results from human freedom, not from God’s will. Natural evil is harder. Some Catholic thinkers argue that natural evil is connected to the fallen state of the world consequent on Original Sin — creation itself is “subject to frustration” (Romans 8:20–21) and awaits renewal. Others argue that natural processes, including those that cause suffering, are part of a creation that is genuinely independent of God — and that an independent creation necessarily includes risk and contingency.
Not all Christians share the Augustinian account. Some Protestant theologians follow the tradition associated with the early Church thinker Irenaeus (c.130–202), who saw the Fall not as a catastrophic corruption of perfection but as part of a growth process: humanity was created immature and is meant to develop morally and spiritually through the experience of a world containing both good and evil. This is sometimes called the “soul-making” view. Evil and suffering, on this account, are conditions for moral and spiritual growth rather than simply consequences of sin.
From a non-religious perspective, the problem of evil is often seen as a decisive argument against the existence of God. If a perfectly good, all-knowing and all-powerful God exists, there should be no evil; since evil exists, such a God does not. Philosophers such as J. L. Mackie have formalised this as the “logical problem of evil.” Atheists argue that evil and suffering are simply features of a natural world without purpose or design — they require no theological explanation because there is no Creator whose character they might call into question.
The Meaning of Suffering: The Catholic Response
The Catholic response to suffering is not merely theoretical. The tradition holds that suffering, while genuinely terrible, can have redemptive meaning when united with the suffering of Christ. Isaiah 53 — the “Suffering Servant” passage — describes a figure whose suffering brings healing to others. Catholics see this as fulfilled in Jesus, whose suffering and death on the Cross was not a tragedy without purpose but the means of human salvation.
Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris (“On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering”, 1984) addresses this directly. At paragraph 13, John Paul II teaches that the true answer to the question “why suffering?” is found only by looking to the revelation of divine love. Love is the fullest source of the meaning of suffering. At paragraph 23, he calls on sufferers to participate in the redemptive suffering of Christ: when a person unites their pain to Christ’s suffering, it can become spiritually fruitful. This does not mean Catholics celebrate suffering or refuse to alleviate it — the tradition of Catholic hospitals and hospices testifies to the opposite. But it does mean suffering is never simply meaningless.
In Salvifici Doloris (1984), Pope John Paul II teaches (paragraphs 13 and 23) that suffering, when united with the suffering of Christ, can have redemptive meaning. Catholics are called to respond to suffering both by alleviating it (corporal works of mercy) and by understanding it in the light of Christ’s Cross.