Q&A: Evil in the World
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Evil in the World
Question
Have you addressed anywhere Leibniz’s question: “If the Holy One, blessed be He, exists, and is good and omnipotent, how can there be evil in the world”?
The answer “it depends on the choice of the wicked” is not sufficient, because he is talking about natural evil—for example, how can it be that an innocent and good person falls into a pit and dies? How can it be that a blameless infant is born blind?
Answer
I’ve addressed this quite a few times. Search for human evil and natural evil. It’s also discussed at length in the second book of the trilogy.
Discussion on Answer
Not exactly. He chose to create a world in which I have choice. The logical connection that if I have free choice then He cannot know is not His creation. That is logic.
I’m reading it today.
I finished the chapter on the will and knowledge of the Holy One, blessed be He. Tell me if I understood correctly:
The conclusion is that you hold like the Shelah: that although the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what is expected to happen, what lies in a person’s power to choose He truly does not know. And this is not a contradiction to His omnipotence, because the fact that He is subject to the laws of logic does not detract from His omnipotence. And He chose to create a world in which the logical law says that if a person has free will, then I have no knowledge of it.
Right?