Therefore, God does not exist. The first premise follows directly from the theist's definition of God. Thus, in the second premise of the argument from evil, the atheist asserts that the existence of God and the existence of evil are incompatible, since a being who knows when evil will occur and is both able and willing to abolish all evil would necessarily create a world free from serious evil. Yet, a considerable amount of severe evil undeniably exists as evidenced by the appalling depth and range of human wickedness and suffering witnessed during the twentieth century. Hence, according to the atheist, the fact of evil poses a powerful positive objection to belief in God because the existence of evil entails the nonexistence of God.
Moral evil is evil that results from an act, or failure to act, of man.
Without the action, or omission of an action, by a human agent moral evil would not occur. For example, murder is an evil brought about by a human agent, and therefore is a moral evil. Even if the murder victim's death was directly caused by the effect of a poison on his central nervous system, the ultimate agent of the victim's death was the murderer responsible for introducing the poison into his system. Likewise, the mass starvation in Ethiopia is a moral evil resulting from the refusal of Ethiopian government officials to distribute emergency relief food supplies, which would alleviate the famine, or to allocate more of the country's annual budget for agricultural assistance, which would help Ethiopia's farmers produce more food. In contrast to moral evil, natural evil arises through no fault of man.