On Evil In Christian Philosophy

The problem of good and evil are the fundamental problem of ethics. It is always a focus of humankind, too. Different understanding of good and evil has an important influence on people's attitude to the world and their methodology of governing the world. For ethics, the problem of evil and the problem of good are all the same, they are all significant problems.Belief in God has emerged in human conscious history long time ago because of the huge sufferings they have experienced and the need to break the reign of evil. The desire to break away from the evil in the temporal world and the suffering of the existence is the origin of Christian religions. Basically, in Christian religion, people are allowed to break away from the evil and the sufferings coming from it. Meanwhile God in Christianity is omniscient omnipotent and wholly good.Then how to explain conflict the problem of evil and attributes of God become an important theory question in Christian philosophy.In the western world, especially in the western society which takes Christianity as their primary belief, belief in God is their culture background and primary world view. In Christian understanding, man is firstly a man in the face of God and then a man between each other. In the eye of such Christian view, existence of evil in the real world is not only a theoretical problem of western Christian theologian and philosopher, but also a practical problem concerning individual belief.View of the world is quite different in western and eastern cultures. And because of that, people's understanding about the problem of good and evil, and their way of studying it are quite different. The emphasis on the problem of evil in traditional Chinese philosophy is the good and evil of human nature. And where this evil comes? It seems that Confucian scholars do not have an interest in such a problem. But the study of evil in western world is not limited to human nature. The problem of evil in Christian philosophy is not only about human nature, but also a problem about ontology and theodicy. Attempt is made in this paper to observe the important problem of Christian philosophy, the evil, from the perspective of ethics. Adopting the method of the combination of theory and demonstration, we will unwrap the unique understanding and explanation of the evil in Christian philosophy, and try to trace the intimate connections between the problem of evil in western culture and western modern civilization in order to find the mainstream clues and its characteristics. Help the readers to have a historical and philosophical understanding of the problem of evil in Christian philosophy. See Christian philosophy on overcoming of evil and its positive impact on the western civilization. The Christian understanding of evil has a profound influence on modern western law and political system. That is the positive influence of evil in the real world, while it brings pain and unrest to human kind.Maybe people grow up here in China, which is completely different from the western culture, have no way to clearly understand the belief and bewilderment of westerners. But as a culture study and a respect to another civilization, it is reasonable for us to explore and ponder the secret inside and the meaning behind it.