I was reading some answers to what is known as the problem of evil, that logical problem that states that the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient God is incompatible with evil, because if such a God exists, it is assumed that he would have the power, intention, and knowledge to end evil. But since evil exists, or so it seems, such a God must not exist. One of the most famous answers to this problem is the free will defense, where it is argued that evil exists because we were created with free will, and having free will means that we can choose to do evil, therefore, evil must exist so that we can be free, and since a world where freedom and evil exist is better than a world where neither of them exist, then the problem should be solved. However, I believe that this solution does not solve the problem completely, and it is because this argument tells us, namely, why evil can be done (because we can choose to do it), and this explains why evil can exist, but not it explains why evil is done, that is, why it exists. In this way it would be understood why God is compatible with evil, however, it would not be answered why evil exists, why people choose to do so.
And we cannot say that people choose to do evil because they are evil, because if so, evil will exist before they choose and therefore it has nothing to do with free will. The question would be: why do people who are not evil choose to do evil? Ultimately, why does evil exist? And at this point I think that all people could be interested in answering this question, not only followers of Abrahamic religions, but people of all kinds of religions and beliefs, and even atheists or agnostics, anyone who wants to understand why the world is the way it is, because everything that exists has a reason for being.
In my opinion, it is a mistake to associate freedom and free will with evil, people don't do evil because they have the freedom to do so, nor does freedom exist for us to do evil, and to believe that evil is born from freedom is believing that its opposite, slavery, is exempt from all evil, which is absurd for more than one reason. That people have the freedom to do something does not mean that they will do it and therefore freedom is not the reason why people act in such a way. If you asked me what would be the reason why people do evil, I would say that I subscribe to the current of thought that says that evil is the product of ignorance. People who do evil are not doing it precisely because they are bad, but because they are ignorant, because they ignore the harm they are doing to others, the harm they are doing to themselves, and the harm they are doing to the world in general, they may know that they are causing harm to others, but they fail to feel and understand the harm they are doing.
Evil is a product of ignorance, not freedom. Now an attentive observer might hear this and say, "So if evil exists because of ignorance, why does ignorance exist?" And that too, I think, responds to a reason. There is a reason why we must ignore things and not know everything, why we are not omniscient, and it is because, if we knew everything, the excess of knowledge that we would have, and that would inevitably increase as the seconds pass, would be rather a obstacle in us that would not allow us to act normally, there is knowledge that simply hinders us and does not help us at all, knowledge that it would be better not to have, and for that ignorance is necessary. The best thing is that, instead of being completely omniscient, people are born ignoring things, and choose the information that is useful to know, and discard the rest, in a way that could be called decentralized, because each agent decides for their own account which is the best for them. Of course, this has the consequence that some people ignore what they should not do and do evil, but the benefit of it being this way is much greater.
In conclusion, I would say that ignorance is not bad per se, because it is better to ignore vain knowledge. It is not bad to ignore, because we are all ignorant in some sense, which is inevitable, but it is bad to do those things of which we are ignorant, for this is the root of all evil.
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