The "problem of evil" in broadest terms is the problem of how to account for the existence of evil within systems of thought that would seem to exclude it -- that may identify reality with goodness in one way or another. Within Christian thought these efforts are generally called "theodicy.' But the problem precedes Christian efforts. Plato, for example, postulated a Form of the Good that is the most real of realities. This means that he starkly identified Good with Real, and THAT raises the question of -- why isn't it? Or not so much. When the neoplatonists came along a couple of centuries later and strove to put Platon's thoughts into more systematic form, tried to make linear treatises out of hints from not especially linear dialogs, they found this question staring at them. If the Good is the sun (Plato's metaphor in his culminating story of an escape from the cave) then evil is presumably the darkness: shade. Yet how decode this metaphor? What is...
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The word "good" is sometimes contrasted with "evil" and at other times with "bad." I might ask you, as I watch you sip a glass of wine, whether the wine is good. The negative answer would be, "no, quite bad, vinegary even!" Or I might ask you whether you think Donald Trump a good President. There the negative answer could well be that you think him, and/or his presidency, and/or its existing or likely consequences, "evil." Some writers have made heavy water out of this. They have said that the “good” in the phrase “good versus evil” is a moral good whereas the “good” in the phrase “good or bad” is a non-moral good. Thus, morality only deals with one particular sort of good out of the vast realm of possible goods, it only deals with the contrast-to-evil sort of good. I don’t propose to go down that route. Insofar as neurologically normal, full function adults are concerned, my own view is that all good is moral good...