Why Does God Allow Evil & Suffering?
By David Baumgaertal
“Why is there pain and suffering if God is love?”
Emotional vs Logical problems
This is one of the oldest and most significant questions in history. Is a good God compatible with a world full of evil? This is the famous, “Problem of Evil,” and it is by far the most common reason that people give for rejecting Christianity. One helpful way to approach this question is to split it into the logical problem of evil, and the emotional problem of evil. By the logical problem, I mean, it is supposed to question whether the existence of God is logically consistent (or probable) with the existence of evil. There is a “right answer” to this question.
By the emotional problem, I mean, the doubt someone might feel about the goodness of God when they are deeply hurt by some evil. Sometimes the right answer to a logical problem isn't satisfying. After all, humans are not just minds, but hearts, too. The problem of evil isn't just a head scratcher. It hurts. It's personal and traumatic; not academic.
But humans do have minds, and a good answer for the logical problem of evil is not only vital to the mind, but it can help the heart, too. So, in this brief article, I will summarize Christianity’s answer to the logical problem of evil, and then touch on the solution to the emotional problem at the end. This question is far too big for a blog, so be sure to check out the resources listed after the article.
Where did evil come from?
Christianity says: God is all-good, all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-wise. Everything that exists that is not God, is created by God and upheld in existence by God.
Objection 1: If God made everything, and evil is real, then God made evil. If God made evil, then He is partly evil. Therefore God is not all-good, or all-loving.
Answer: Evil is not a thing but a corruption in things, so it was not created by God.
If that makes you go, “huh?” let me try to explain. Evil is real, but it's not a thing. You can't hold evil in your hand or dissect it. There isn't an evil tree that grows evil fruit and no cave where you can mine it; it's not a solid, liquid, or gas. So what is it? Evil is like rot in a tree, blindness in an eye, or rust in a car. Evil is a lack of goodness. It is sort of like how cold is a lack of heat, or darkness a lack of light. Evil is a privation, or corruption, to use some big words. There is no being that is pure evil, just like there is no pure blindness, and there is no such thing as a pile of pure rot. If the car was completely rusted it would no longer be a car; and if a man was pure evil he would no longer be a man.
Evil is real, and God made every thing, but since evil is not a thing, God did not make it. So, where did it come from?
God made good things, but among those good things, God made intelligent creatures with free will, such as angels and humans. When man, whom God created as good, freely chose a lesser good (eating a piece of fruit, the Bible tells us), instead of the higher good (trusting God), evil came to be. God is not the cause of evil; men and angels are.
Why did God allow evil?
Question: if God is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing, then He wasn't surprised by men and angels causing evil, so why did he allow it to happen? And why did he allow it to continue to such an awful extent?
This is a complex question that could fill libraries, but in this brief blog I want to look at a famous passage from the Gospel of John to help us toward an answer:
In John chapter 11, Mary and Martha send for Jesus to come heal their brother, Lazarus. But Jesus arrives after Lazarus has already died. Weeping, Mary greets Jesus as He finally comes and says to Him, "Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died." He continues to the tomb where Lazarus was buried, and there He also weeps. As those at the tomb put it, could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept his friend from dying? Could not God, who made the world, have kept evil from entering into it? Could not God have kept us from suffering?
Jesus tells us in this passage, that God allowed this sickness that the Son of God may be glorified through it. He also declares to Martha that He is the resurrection and the life, and whoever believes in Jesus, though he may die, he shall live again to never die. We know the end of the passage, of course, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.
In the next chapter, Mary is so moved with love and gratitude for Jesus that she took a pound of very costly oil, anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair (an odd gesture to us, maybe, but a very dramatic act of devotion). "And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil."
The Bible's answer to the problem of evil can be summarized like this. God, while not the cause of evil, allows evil and suffering to bring about a greater good (Gen. 50:20, Rom. 8:28, Eph 3:9-10, Job 1, John 9). The nature of humans means that we can learn some things only through experience (John 11). There are vital truths about God that humans can know only through suffering. A person who never tasted suffering would say, "I know you're good, God, but I think I could live on my own."
Objection 2: If God is all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-wise, then He would defeat evil. But it is not defeated. Therefore God cannot be all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-wise (one of them has to be false).
Answer: Yet… It is not yet defeated. God is still allowing evil because we're in the middle of the story. One day the world will be filled with the fragrance of joy and love that would not have been possible unless God first allowed us to go our own way. There was something about God (who is pure goodness itself; that which all things desire)—there was something about God that Mary could not have known unless she experienced the deep pain that He allowed.
Objection 3: If God is good, powerful, knowing, and wise, then He would create the best possible world. This is not the best possible world.
Answer: But it is the best way to the best possible world.
God displays His goodness by defeating evil, but to defeat evil he must first allow it in all its various forms [Check out God, Evil, and Dispensations in the resources below]. Finally, the Bible shows us that God has allowed evil because redemption is more beautiful than innocence. Revelation 21 is not simply a return to Eden as if sin never happened, but it is incomprehensibly more glorious because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. Somehow, God allowed evil because it is worth it.
Jesus and the problem of evil
Since it is the most common objection to Christianity, it really is important for Christians to be aware of the "problem of evil." Being familiar with the answer to the problem also helps us understand God and the scriptures better. The most important reason for thinking about this question, however, is that we all suffer from evil, and that makes this question much more than academic. It's existential.
Knowing the answer to the "logical problem of evil" can help us cope with the days it becomes the "emotional problem of evil." However, there are times when the pain of evil is so particular, so personal, that an answer to the problem in general is hardly any comfort. "How could a good God allow this evil?" In these moments the only answer is faith in Jesus.
Do you remember the shortest verse in the Bible? It is in the same chapter we looked at earlier. Jesus approaches the tomb where Lazarus is and John 11:35 says: "Jesus wept." It’s a shocking verse when we remember who Jesus is. God—the all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise God—wept. (And died on the cross soon after.) In times of suffering, God knows that we can’t see why, but He wants us to trust Him and tells us look at Jesus. Jesus answers the problem of suffering and evil because He suffered, too.
If anyone was in a position to know if suffering is worth enduring, whether God has good reasons for letting you suffer, Jesus does. The book of Hebrews tells us to look to Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.” He defeated death by resurrecting, He will defeat evil by judging it when He returns, and He will redeem all our suffering when He raises us from the dead. Because of Jesus, by faith we can say, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." (Romans 8:18)
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Online Article: “God, Evil, and Dispensations” by Norman L Geisler
Book: If God, Why Evil?
Video: A Testimony of Suffering and Faith