Then whence cometh evil?

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
--Epicurus

 

I don't know Greek, this comes from the internet, and I don't know how accurate the translation is. It's all over the place in about this form, however. I think some sort of modernization must have happened, as the Greeks were (nominally) polytheist, although I know by some point the strict polytheism did kind of give way into an idea of one overarching and all-powerful deity. Nonetheless, this to me, as it stands, however accurate a translation it may be, definitely stands out as a fairly accurate (if simplistic) account of the pop understanding of a God (or Gods, I suppose) today (and probably for many millennia) in the anthropomorphized, personal-God-who-pays-attention-to-human-concerns-directly sense.