Suffering can refer to any type of hardship that is present in the universe, such as physical pain or the destruction caused by natural disasters. Suffering can be considered to be the result of evil. Evil is usually defined in two categories – natural evil and moral evil. Natural evil is natural phenomena such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions that does not have a clear instigator. Moral evil is caused by sentient beings, including God, and is any evil event which a rational being can be held responsible for, such as a decision to purposefully hurt someone.
God is generally considered to be omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent however many believe that the existence of suffering on Earth is incompatible with the existence of this God. This is known as the inconsistent triad. The general view is that if God is omniscient, he would want to stop evil, if God is omnipotent he would have the power to stop evil and if he is omnibenevolent he would want to stop evil. However he does not. For some, this is undeniable proof that God cannot exist or at least not in the way that he is traditionally characterised. One solution is to let go of one or more of the traits usually associated with God and accept that He may not be all good. Natural disasters are completely unpreventable by humans because they are an essential part of how our planet functions so surely an omnibenevolent God, who supposedly designed the universe, would not have made such suffering necessary. Furthermore, the God that is portrayed in the Bible does not appear to be omnibenevolent at all as seen in the line ‘I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all
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Hume concluded therefore, based on his principles about empirical evidence, that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God cannot