Disclaimer: I am Agnostic

The problem of evil is one of, if not the, most famous arguments in philosophy of religion. It capitalizes on the common, Western understanding of God as a force that is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnibenevolent (all-good). If one accepts that their God embodies these three tenets, then the occurrence of evil in the world seems contradictory. Before I dive into my problems with the problem of evil, we must explain the dilemma.
All around the world, evil occurs. This is simply a fact. Every day, hundreds are murdered and billions are starving. This world is full of laughter and pleasure, but also horror, suffering, and violence.
Now, let’s go to the argument. A God that is omnipotent must have the ability to provide food, protection, housing, or safety to anyone—i.e., he can prevent all current evils. If he is omniscient, then he knows exactly how evil will arise in the future and can safeguard against it. And if he is omnibenevolent, then he should logically do all of this to protect people whom he cares for. Yet, evil persists all over the world. So how can this type of God possibly exist?

God gave humans free will; because of that, some evil must exist.
This argument rests on the assumption that God created us as non-deterministic beings—beings that are in control of their fate. The idea that we can control where we end up is ingrained into philosophical discourse—the concepts of heaven and hell cannot exist without it. If we are in control of our fate, we have free will to do things that are either deemed morally right or wrong—and that determines where we spend our afterlives. If this is true, then this seemingly offers us an escape route from the problem of evil.
God, using his omniscience, may have determined that, in the grand sum of the universe, a world where the inhabitants live in the presence of evil but are still able to control their lives is better than a completely perfect world made of deterministic beings. A common counterargument against this is that this still does not take into account natural evils—things like tsunamis or earthquakes that wreak havoc on the general population, causing massive amounts of suffering.
To this I say: is it crazy to say that God may have given the world free will as well? If we are already arguing for a metaphysical being in God, I don’t think it’s as crazy of a stretch to invoke another, like “Mother Nature” or something. If Mother Nature has free will, her natural disasters can be painted as her reacting to environmental destruction or something.
Additionally, a more plausible answer could be that God, being omniscient, uses natural disasters (especially now) to limit population growth and save us from an apocalyptic hell that would cause all of us to suffer in the future. Just as forests need fire and destruction for rebirth, with his infinite knowledge, he may know that natural disasters are needed to (a) keep us in line by asserting nature’s dominance over us and (b) keep a check on our population growth. If God knows everything, he knows what is best for the planet as well. With this knowledge, he may choose to sacrifice some to natural means for a better future.

God Sees Evil Differently
Another plausible argument one could make is that God has a different definition of evil than we do. If we assume that those who are faithful will be infinitely rewarded in heaven, then what we may see as an “evil” might be, on God’s scale, either (a) a temporary harm outweighed by eternal goods or (b) a necessary condition for goods that could not exist otherwise. With this view, earthly suffering is not trivialized, but recalibrated against the moral weight of an infinite afterlife.
Additionally, one could argue that the presence of evil is in fact necessary for God to determine who goes to heaven (assuming we have free will). Traits like struggle, perseverance, and courage cannot arise in a world without evil. In this way, God may see evil not as pain he attempts to inflict on humanity, but as a necessary test—a trial that humans must go through in order for him to see their true character. Of course, some tragic historical events may seem so outrageous they could not possibly be witnessed by a loving God. However, a theist can still argue that the ultimate, infinite compensation of a heavenly life will outweigh any mortal struggles.

God Has a Master Plan
As an all-knowing being, God by necessity contains an intellect that is infinitely larger than ours. If so, then doesn’t it seem a little silly to try to explain his behavior or to suss out his existence with logical axioms? It would be like an ant trying to explain neural networks with its impotent ant vocabulary and tiny ant brain—kind of pointless. As God’s intellect surpasses ours, no matter the logic we employ or the arguments we make, we’ll never even be able to fathom what God has in store for the universe. Because of this, we can accept evil in the world as part of God’s master plan—something unexplained, but something necessary we must believe in.
Additionally, even if we were able to somehow prove God’s existence, one can argue that it would ruin the whole point of belief. Faith is placing one’s trust in something’s existence and doing so decidedly without proof. It can be argued that that leap of faith—believing in something uncertain—would disappear if God were proved, taking with it a key component of spirituality.

Why Does God Have to Be Omnibenevolent?
God is ubiquitously seen as an all-knowing and all-powerful entity. But all-loving? I’m no theologian, but denying God’s all-lovingness seems far less damaging than denying the other two attributes. For example, if God was not all-loving, what would change about the creation of Earth? Or assignment to heaven/hell? Or even something like morality? God doesn’t necessarily need to be a perfect and flawless being to be the supreme creator of everything. Sure, this would probably go against Aquinas’s moral argument and Anselm’s ontological argument. But those arguments aren’t widely accepted anyway…
Moreover, if God isn’t perfectly good, it requires much less “hand-waving” for theologians as they try to balance his existence with the evils of the world. Extending the argument, a parsimonious view would ask what moral perfection explains; if not much, a God with only omniscience and omnipotence makes more sense.
Lastly, I don’t believe that omnibenevolence is a trait developed by omniscience. While some may certainly argue that with infinite knowledge comes knowledge about how to act ethically, an omniscient being would also have knowledge about how to act unethically. These two beliefs don’t necessarily cancel each other out or clash, but it just goes to show that there is a difference between attaining knowledge and actually practicing it, or implementing it into one’s daily life.

All in all, the Problem of Evil is an ongoing discussion. The best path for theists, in my opinion, is just to concede that God may not be omnibenevolent—and then argue that even without perfect goodness, little is changed.