The Problem of Evil

A number of months ago I happened upon a blog wherein the authors were attempting to "debunk" Christianity. I find it interesting that they were attempting to use a blog to provide incontrovertible evidence that Christianity is false, and that we are all a bunch of dolts for believing it--this religion that has survived centuries of persecution and hijacking by psychopaths. Nevertheless, there was an argument that I had run across on this blog: the problem of evil.

I don't really know all that much about this kind of an argument. I only visited the website a few times. But there are a number of folks out there who believe that since evil exists in the world, then one of three things must be true: If God exists, since he won't step in and stop gross evils from happening to people, then He is malevolent. Or, if God exists, he is incapable of stopping the gross evils that happen to people, which means He is not all-powerful. Or God simply does not exist. In other words, why do bad things happen to good people?

I've heard this kind of argument before from people with whom I tried to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. The reasoning goes something like this: 'If God exists, then why is there evil in the world? Why doesn't He just step in and stop this or that from happening to people?'--The thinking being that since these evils exist, God does not exist, and therefore I do not have to consider religious matters.

It's a clever argument...but it cannot beyond the shadow of a doubt prove that God does not exist. It's more of an argument for trying to convince oneself that God does not exist, and since He doesn't, I can live my life in the fashion I want. I'm not responsible to God because some poor kid in Africa is dying of AIDS and God won't do anything about it.

My problem with this line of reasoning is that I don't think we are as well-informed about these kinds of spiritual matters as much as we think we are. I think it's much more highly probable that we just don't know what we're talking about, rather than that since evil exists God doesn't. Besides that, if an infinite God exists, I'm not so sure we can apply our high school geometry class logical reasoning to such spiritual matters higher than ourselves. We approach the argument with the assumption that we can understand the supernatural through mere logic, which is patently ridiculous. The supernatural is exactly that: beyond nature, beyond human logic and reason.

Anyway, these thoughts came to mind the other day as I considered these things:

God may not necessarily intervene and stop horrendous situations from happening. With respect to that, He continues to regard the free will of men: hence Adam's sin and the curse. However, God is the Master of taking intensely horrible situations and using them for the greatest good. Because of this, we should not look to God and say, "Why don't you stop this or do that?" but rather we should say, "This horrible thing has happened (which by the way, is probably a result of the curse we brought on this earth because of our rebellion against what God said). Will You please look upon the situation and use it for Your glory?"

Our God is a God of love not because He will stop bad things from happening, but because He can more than restore to us the years that famine, pestilence, and disease have stolen from us. He can work peace in the midst of disaster. This is how He is. To say that He doesn't exist just because He won't operate the way we want Him to operate proves nothing--actually, it proves that a god of our own fancy doesn't exist. The invention of our imaginations, our genie-god, doesn't exist. Thank God.

Our God is a God of love...and we are all idiots.

~

WJS