Theism says that we know evil exists, for God, the creator of all, opposes it—and works only and totally for good.
It refers to evil as a problem for those who believe in an all-good and all-loving God.
It warns that if we say there is no God because evil exists, then we are left with no way of knowing what we mean by good.
So if we deny God over the problem of evil, we end up with a new problem—the problem of good.
Then there are two problems: the problem of evil and the problem of good.
Does it matter which one we start with? Are they just two sides of the same coin anyway? Surely to say yes to one is to say yes implicitly to the other.
Human nature does not think like that, and good and evil are seen as being in combat. So we must ask which one we need to treat as the default and as that which comes first for examination.
What if it had to be one or the other, logically?
The matter is so serious that we cannot just assume things. An assumption in the face of great evil is presumptuous and cold. We need to think—or get evidence if possible.
GOD BELIEF IMPLIES WE MUST PUT THE PROBLEM OF GOOD FIRST
Here is now putting the problem of good before the problem of evil counts the most if there is a God.
God is said to tolerate evil in order that we might overcome it and become virtuous.
So good is the goal—therefore, the problem of good comes first. If there was a problem to forget, if it had to be one or the other, it would be the problem of evil.
But this ignores the journey too much. The goal and the journey are assessed together. The whole scheme contains evil in places - and containing means co-operating with it.
If so, it is wrong to simply assume there is a problem of evil. We must see the good first and then be led to see if there is a problem of evil. Failing to do so insults God. This is about God, not suffering people.
Respect for good matters more than fighting evil, though that matters as well.
Religion, in some way, equates God with goodness itself. So God alone matters by definition. If God alone matters ultimately—or comes first by definition—if we should love only Him or love Him most, we need the problem of good to be more important than the problem of evil. It matters more that we look for answers to the problem of good than the problem of evil.
God alone matters, so the problem of good matters most—not the problem of evil.
BUT A “BUT” IS COMING.
WHY PUT THE PROBLEM OF EVIL FIRST?
Looking at the good all the time is bad. It leads to a callous disregard for the suffering of the innocent. The problem of evil would not matter at all. That is nothing more than an attempt to condone the evil.
Thomas sees a little girl being beaten by her mother regularly. Yet most of the time she is a kind mother. Thomas is letting the abuse continue by letting himself be confused about how she is both good and bad. Or by even concentrating on the good mostly.
If he reasons that God, is doing something wonderful despite appearances, he is putting a new problem of evil there. There already is one with this woman - who seems to be good under it all.
He should throw out both problems of evil for he does not have overwhelming evidence that God or the mother is a good person.
He is in the league of pious do-gooders who love God for letting harm come to people they do not like while they refuse to admit it is bad. They condone and praise.
How does it affect people if we look at the good in the evil they endure more than the evil itself? It will tear them apart. No woman whose husband breaks her heart wants to hear about how good the pain is, and that at least now she is rid of him and can learn to cope on her own, etc. Those who look at the advantages of what terrible things happen to others are training themselves in insensitivity and callousness.
If you hold that there is a problem of good, looking at human suffering this way adds a twist. "God loves us totally and thus to hurt his children is to hurt him - though we may not know what that means. I look at the suffering of children as evil for what it does to the God who lives in them and who makes them somehow part of himself." This despite appearances is not a problem of evil. It is a problem of good.
GO AND LEARN WHAT GOOD IS FIRST!
Before religionists start thinking there is a problem of good, they should go and learn what is good, what is not, and what is neither. This they cannot do, for they disagree among themselves about what is good and what is morally good. And you have different religions all arguing with each other.
Believers regard God’s rules as part of Him, as being of His nature and essence. For example, it is true to say the Catholic God is the wrongness of contraception. The Protestant God is the rightness of contraception. The Antinomian Christian God doesn’t care if you use contraception or not.
The Christian God, in general, is the moral perfection of Jesus Christ as judged by his followers. The Hindu God Krishna is amoral and about fun, so these form the character of this God. God’s goodness—or whatever it is—is His character, and His character makes Him God, which is why, in essentials, the Hindu, Christian, and Islamist God are really three different Gods. But other than that, those who have the "true" God only do so to different degrees. Just because they have the one God does not mean their moral errors about him are trivial.
A Buddhist refusing to steal on religious grounds and a Christian refusing to steal on religious grounds does not entitle one to say, “They agree on the core values, such as refraining from stealing.” Two things happening together do not make them, in any way, the same thing. The actions being the same does not mean that the principles behind the action have anything in common.
Believers should be more interested in discerning good than God, because God can’t be discerned until good is discerned first. The emphasis put on God, even to the point of ordering people to love God with all their being as Jesus did, is without excuse.
FINALLY
Good exists even if God does not. It is good if nothing exists, for then there is nobody to suffer. Trying to make a problem of good—which is what faith in God tries to do—is wrong and worthy of condemnation.
Evil, by definition, is what should not be. So the idea of a God who makes things fall short of the goodness they could have—or who makes evil for a good reason—is incoherent, insensitive, and blind to the horror of the suffering of others. The Christian will never suffer as much as other creatures in the world do, and therefore has no right to say this evil should be allowed to happen by God. Experience it all first—which is impossible—and then decide. There is something vulgar about a person who has a healthy life saying God sent Angie some cancer for a noble reason! Nobody can tell anybody they know how they feel, or that they should feel it is agreeable with the existence of a loving God. Yet religion teaches people to pretend that they know that all the evil in the world can be ultimately justified or condoned.