evil

What is bad for, or harmful to, human beings or animals. Evil is traditionally divided into moral and natural evil. Moral evil originates in human action, whereas natural evil originates independently of human action – for instance, earthquakes or epidemics. The problem of evil is the difficulty of explaining the existence of evil if the world was created by a perfect and omnipotent God. An evil spirit is often referred to as the devil, the name also given to the supreme spirit of evil in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim belief.

Evil can also be seen as illusory or real; and, when real, evil can be either a positive thing (the position of Manichaeism) or a negative thing – the absence of goodness, just as darkness is the absence of light (the position of St Augustine of Hippo).