How Could a Good God Allow Evil?
How Could a Good God Allow Evil?
How to answer one of the biggest objections to Christianity
So…how could a good God allow evil in the world. The mass shootings, the natural disasters, the rapists, the torturers…all of it?
Wouldn’t a good God who is all-powerful stop that evil? Wouldn’t he prevent it from happening at all? Wouldn’t our world be like heaven if God was truly in control?
Even though this is one of the toughest objections to Christianity, it has a very simple answer. I won’t spoil it for you, so let’s dive right in.
What is the Problem of Evil?
The problem of evil goes like this:
1. The Christian God is all-powerful and all-loving
2. If an all-powerful and all-loving God existed, there would be no evil
3. There is evil in the world
4. Therefore, the Christian God does not exist
Although this problem can get very emotional, at it’s heart, it’s a logical problem. Anyone bringing up this issue is trying to say God contradicts himself.
5 Bad Responses to Unbelievers
So how do we answer this objection? What do we say to the unbeliever while being faithful to Jesus?
First, lets go through 5 common bad responses to this question.
Remember; some of these responses are fine for Christians to use with each other, but when talking to an unbeliever, they are not adequate
“Evil is a Necessary Counterpart to Good”
Some have said that evil is a necessary counterpart to good, saying if you’re going to have good, you have to have evil by necessity to define it.
The problem with this answer is, you make God evil by necessity. A good God must also be evil in this view.
So now…you don't have a good God, so you don't have the problem of evil.
“Evil is A Means to the Good”
Others will say that evil is a means to the good. God is making better people out of us and “wearing off the rough edges.”
But the question to ask is; “Is God limited to those means?”
Does God HAVE to obtain good through evil? Can’t he just obtain the same good another way?
If he can’t do it another way, he's not all-powerful, if he's not all-powerful, there's no problem of evil.
This also means evil is necessary to make us better people, so we need to keep evil. Of course that would be absurd in light of the Christian scriptures. God detests evil, and there will be no evil in heaven.
“God Warns Us/Punishes Us”
Others claim our sin deserves punishment, and we are to be warned of that punishment by the evil we see in the world.
The unbelieving skeptic may continue
“Well if that’s how God brings people to himself, its the most ineffective way he could have thought of. The problem of evil turns people against God, not to him.”
Is there a more positive way for God to draw people to himself?
Finally, how much suffering someone gets is not proportional to their virtue.
Sometimes children are kidnapped and tortured, while grown adults are not. We couldn’t say that the children had more sin than the adult?
“God Works Through Evil”
Others would say God works through evil and eventually will eliminate it.
We’re basically saying “God’s going to clear up the mess” But the question is not “Will God take care of it” The question is “Why did God allow it?”
Why is there a mess to begin with? Why did he allow sin to be possible? What is accomplished by Hell after all?
The skeptics will continue to say that, if God is all-powerful, he technically could have just made heaven the starting point.
“Free Will”
As Christians agree, man freely chose evil, and that originated evil into this world.
The problem is that in Heaven, it’s not possible to sin. Yet, we are all free, we will not be a robot.
If you’re free in heaven, and controlled by God so you do not sin, evil is not necessary for free will. It is consistent to say that men will freely do good forever in Heaven.
So the question is still “Why didn’t God provide that state of affairs from the very beginning?”
The Answer
Now that we’ve gone through some bad responses to this problem, what’s a good one? With so many popular responses being inadequate, what do we have left?
Well, there’s a very important keyword in this argument that I’m going to highlight below:
1. The Christian God is all-powerful and all-loving
2. If an all-powerful and all-loving God existed, there would be no evil
3. There is evil in the world
4. Therefore, the Christian God does not exist
Evil.
For someone to challenge you with this question, they have to answer this question first:
What do you mean by evil?
On the atheist view, we all just evolved from rocks over billions of years. There is no ‘good’ or ‘evil’.
You ever see 2 rocks bump into each other? There’s nothing wrong with it. They’re just doing rock things.
That is what humans are reduced to in atheism; if we really got here by accident, there is no evil to begin with.
On atheism’s own terms, it cannot provide a clear definition of good or evil.
Now What?
This is all great to point out, but what’s the real answer? Why does the all-powerful all-good God allow evil in this world?
The best answer we get from scripture about this is in the book of Job.
For a reason we do not know, God allows Satan to destroy most of Job’s life. (family, possessions, his own body).
After Job asked to talk to God face to face multiple times, God answers him.
And God puts him to shame. He takes Job on a tour of the cosmos, and the vast detail of his creation.
He asks Job if he can even conquer the creatures that God himself made, let alone conquer God. He
God was showing Job that he is not in a position to judge the events of what happens. Job is not all powerful, all seeing, or all knowing. Job, like us, is just a mere creature who is only alive because God is allowing him to be.
With those sobering words of God coming to a finish, Job replies:
“Then Job replied to the Lord:
I know that you can do anything and no plan of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, “Who is this who conceals my counsel with ignorance?” Surely
I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wondrous for me to know.
You said, “Listen now, and I will speak. When I question you, you will inform me.”
I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore, I reject my words and am sorry for them; I am dust and ashes”
Job 42:1–6, CSB