Evil is Always Problematic, Part 1.
The problem of evil.
It’s possible you’ve never thought about the problem of evil. But you’ve certainly experienced it.
It is apparent to all of us. The world is not the way it’s supposed to be.
In the book of Job, we meet this man who is totally devoted to God. He is honorable and righteous and worships God according to the prescription provided. Job is an example of faith and his life seems to reap the reward of faithfulness.
Suddenly, the narrator takes us to a new setting. Immediately, we are watching a throne room experience in which God is conversing with the heavenly host and Satan is there.
Satan seeks to question whether or not one of God’s faithful, Job, can really be considered faithful since, up until that point, God had showered him with enormous blessings. So God entertains Satan’s question. God allows Satan to launch his worst attack against Job, though he is not permitted to touch him directly.
As we return with the narrator to Job, devastation unfolds. All that was good in his life seemed to collapse immediately. In an instant, Job became a broken man.
In his suffering, would he still honor and trust God?
The problem of evil and suffering is a challenging topic to approach.
On the one hand, it’s delicate.
Evil and suffering are never only theoretical. We have each experienced or at least observed closely, something awful, something unfair, something tragic.
Some of us, right now, are walking through what may be the hardest parts of our lives.
On the other hand, the topic of the problem of evil is complex and hard to wrap our minds around.
With this topic, we dive into deep theology, and theology should always be a worshipful endeavor. This is a matter, not merely of our minds but of our hearts.
What is the problem of evil?
Evil and suffering have been around for a long time—though they are not eternal.
And evil and suffering, since they have existed, have been problematic.
But the phrase, “problem of evil” is not terribly old. Most historians agree that the phrase was first popularized by philosopher David Hume as he offered his own commentary on a tragic earthquake that killed thousands of people in Lisbon in 1755.
He basically asked the question, “why didn’t God prevent this? Either he didn’t want to, or he didn’t have the power to do so. Either way, what kind of God is that?”
This has been curated over time to what we now understand as the “problem of evil.” And it breaks down like this:
A. If God is all good, then he would prevent any evil.
B. If God is all-powerful, then he can prevent any evil.
C. Evil exists
D. Therefore, either A or B, or both, cannot be true.
David Hume, and others, use this framework to argue against the existence of God.
But, before we get carried away, if we’re honest, the existence of good is harder to explain if there is no such thing as God.
Good and evil are moral categories. When we see a tragedy unfold before us, we don’t coldly acknowledge that pain as if it’s mere objective fact.
We feel.
We have an emotional response.
Our sadness reminds us that things are not the way they are supposed to be.
For an atheist, there is no such thing as “the way things are supposed to be. This world must be all random, all chaos, all blind luck, no purpose.
For an atheist, morality has to be a social construct.
For example, “if we all agree that murder is bad, then it must be bad.”
But, we know that murder is bad because God has in-wired us to see the value of human life and to see that any disruption of life is wrong.
C. S. Lewis (who was an atheist early in life) said this: “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”
If there is no God, then there is no explanation for good.
Theology of Experience
Here’s the thing: the problem of evil is never primarily philosophical.
It doesn’t really address the question, "Is there a God to believe in?”
Instead, it causes us to question, “Do we trust the God who is in charge?”
The problem is not so much philosophical, as it is experiential.
And now, we come to a biblical concept: Trust, or perhaps the more direct word, Faith.
Faith is hard because we can’t always see the value proposition—we can’t always see why it’s worth it.
Faith is hard because we forget, our minds are cloudy, we’re easily distracted.
But we’re called to be a people of faith.
God exists, but so does evil.
We have to wrestle with whether or not we trust Him.
What is Evil?
Evil is real, and it takes three forms.
Natural Disaster
If we’re honest, the world seems to be collapsing onto itself at times. And it seems to be less forgiving with every passing year.
Even within past 6 months we have seen the earth and its inhabitants ravaged by various storms and uncontrollable forces. Hurricane Helene, California Wildfires, you name it.
Human Frailty
Every person will experience a body that will fail them.
Raise your hand if you’ve taken a sick day in the last month. Decay and physical decline come swiftly and do not relent. This doesn’t even take into account things that were once rarified that are now normalized. Food allergies are on the rise. Mental health maladies are off the charts.
Our bodies, top to bottom, are broken.
Sin (or spiritual evil)
Spiritual evil is direct and outright rebellion against God and His moral standard.
Spiritual evil is something we might expect of a demon, or Satan.
But let’s not try to excuse ourselves. When we sin, we are participating in spiritual evil.
And most of the time, our sin creates suffering for others.
The Root of Evil
Theologically, we know that each of these forms of evil has one origin—Genesis 3, the initial rebellion in the garden.
I sin because I inherited it from my great-granddaddy Adam, and so did Hitler and Mother Theresa alike.
But also, I’m going to die one day because of my great-granddaddy Adam.
I need glasses, allergy pills, and all that because of his decision. My body is in slow decay, just like yours, as a consequence that carries through all generations.
There are tsunamis that wipe out thousands and earthquakes that devastate entire civilizations because of our first ancestor disrupted the shalom of the garden (Romans 8:19-22).
And for some people, that’s the end of the conversation.
Whose fault is all this evil? Adam and Eve!
But it’s not so neat and tidy. We’ve got to remember the circumstances.
How did Adam and Eve arrive at the decision?
They were tempted by a serpent, the devil.
Okay, so it’s his fault. That makes sense.
1 John 5:19, “... the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
Ephesians 2:2, “... the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”
But again, it’s not so simple.
Immediately, we ask a set of cascading questions:
Why was the serpent in the garden? Why did God allow that?
Why was the devil, the fallen angel, opposed to God? Why did God allow that?
Why did God create the devil? Why did God choose this way?
Even amidst these questions, the overwhelming echo of Scripture is that, even though evil exists, God is, at the same time, still all-powerful and all-good.
This is a matter of faith, not philosophy.
*Be on the lookout for Part 2 of this post in the coming days.