ATHEISTIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL VIS-A-VIS THOMAS AQUINAS THEODICY. A PHILOSOPHICAL EVALUATION

ABSTRACT hot as the wond beauty and good are comenon in the field of ethios and aniology, no also in the word evil in the fold of philosophy of religion. Evil is a devastating word that is une to asociatr things that are generally had or not good in them or lack of goodness in a being. This word has been used by many ancient, modern, contemporary and most especially the medieval philosophers who battled so much about the concept of evil in relation to God's existence. The problems people suffered and the kinds of unfortunate situations that happen to mankind are believed to be caused by a Supreme Being or that the Supreme Being is not powerful mough to ther mitigate or alleviate the evil suffered or done in the world. However, there is still a lot of controversies between atheists and theists regarding the problem of evil and it origin. The main aim of this work is to philosophically evaluate the atheistic perspectives of the problem of evil and also use Thomas Aquinas to analyze the atheistic argument. This work adopted descriptive and analytic methodology in the sense that, it will evaluate both parties in contest in thes argpament. This work doductively concludes that, the problem of evil is as a result of man's imperfection and defect of the principle of reason. Until there is synergy between faith and reason, the existence of God will still be questioned.