Three Approaches:
There are three basic ways in which the problem of evil can be cashed out. For the pantheist, who claims that all is God and God is all, evil is merely an illusion, it’s not something that actually exists. So the pantheist says that God exists but evil does not. The atheist says that evil exists but God does not. The theist says both evil and God exist, which is a problem; how do you reconcile an all-powerful and all-loving God with the existence of evil? But our view is not the only one for which the problem of evil is actually a problem. The pantheist says that evil is just an illusion and has no real basis in reality, but this seems unrealistic. If evil is not real then why does it seem so real? Why do death and hatred and cancer feel so real? Where did the illusion come from, and how come we all share the same illusion? And finally, if it is just an illusion, why can’t we simply make it go away? To illustrate this point, Craig Hazen uses this example[1]: what if you were talking to an elderly lady and it turns out that this old lady was a Holocaust survivor. When she was a child her whole family was taken away to a death camp and she was the only survivor. On the pantheistic view, all the suffering she endured is but an illusion. What should we say to her to comfort her? Your pain isn’t real? Pantheism simply doesn’t make sense of reality!
The atheist faces what philosophers call the ‘grounding problem’: in what do you ground your morality? C.S. Lewis was an atheist for many years before becoming a Christian and he identified this problem when he said, “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. What was I comparing the universe with when I called it unjust?”[2] If we have identified something as being wrong then there must be a standard of right with which we are comparing it; a Moral Law needs a Moral Law Giver! For the theist, this is God and his standard; for the atheist there is no God and no standard (see Puzzle Pieces 7 and 8 for an in depth discussion on the existence of morality). As we saw last time, some atheists are surprisingly frank in admitting this. Remember Michael Ruse from the last Piece who said “Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction . . . And any deeper meaning is illusory”. [3] Richard Dawkins has also been quite candid at times about the morality that atheistic evolution provides. In a debate, Dawkins’ opponent makes this statement, “There’s a large group of people who simply are uncomfortable with accepting evolution because it leads to what they perceive as a moral vacuum, in which their best impulses have no basis in nature” to which Dawkins replies, “All I can say is, that’s just tough. We have to face up to the truth”. [4] Both of these men acknowledge that their atheistic worldview cannot support any real morality, and without a real moral standard you cannot have evil, because evil is a failure to meet a moral standard. STRPlace’s Brett Kunkle annually takes a group of students to the University of California Berkeley Campus to engage with atheists. Let’s see how one of them tries to explain suffering on his worldview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uspq6_XUCFg, or the vid below.
This brings us to the theistic response. Christian philosopher Dr Norman Geisler says that “evil cries out for God” in three ways: firstly, to explain how we know it’s evil, and we’ve dealt with that above. Secondly, to comfort us. Without a God there is nothing to comfort us when we are suffering. This point was brought out brilliantly by Dr William Lane Craig when he commented on atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russel’s famous statement that, “no one can sit at the bedside of a dying child and still believe in God." But, as Dr Craig points out, “What is Bertrand Russell going to say when he is kneeling at the bed of a dying child? Tough luck? Too bad? That’s the way it goes?” Only the theist can offer words of comfort to that child, because only the theist has a belief in a better future after death. For the atheist, this world is all there is, and if you get dealt a bad hand...it’s just too bad! As Dr Geisler says, when you are suffering it’s not the time to cry out against God, but the time to cry out for him. And thirdly, as a solution to evil. God is what makes a victory over evil possible (more on this later).
The Problem of Evil for Believers:
Here’s the problem for Christians: we believe that God is all-good and opposes evil. We believe that God is all-knowing and that he knew that evil was going to happen – the fall didn’t catch him by surprise![5] But if you have an all-good all-powerful God then why does he permit evil? This is our problem, and this problem actually has a number of sides. Let’s look at them individually.
The Nature of Evil:
This part of the problem can be summed up in the following argument:
A) God created all things
B) Evil is something, therefore
C) God created evil.
How should the Christian respond to this? We cannot deny the first premise; to do that would be to give up God’s omnipotence and his role in creation. It would also imply that evil has always existed since it was never created, making it co-eternal with God. We can’t say that evil isn’t real (premise B) because that would put us in the same place as the pantheist above. But if we can’t deny the first two premises it looks like we must affirm the conclusion that God created evil. The correct way to answer this challenge is to show that one of the premises is false, and this is actually a very old response. It comes from St Augustine at the turn of the fifth century AD. He denied the second premise and said that evil is not a thing – it is a corruption of a good thing. God made only good things, and evil is the corruption of the good things that God has made. In this sense, Dr Geisler says, evil is like rust in a car – first you have the car then the rust corrupts it. But you must have the car first – you can’t have rust without it. In the same way, God made good things, and evil corrupted these good things. Our response to the above challenge should look like this:
A) God created only good things
B) Evil is not a thing, therefore
C) God did not create evil.
It’s important at this point to notice that we are not arguing that evil isn’t real, it is real, but it’s the absence of something, the lack of something. Apologist Greg Koukl says it’s like the hole in a doughnut – it’s not a thing, it’s simply the place where the doughnut is not, where the doughnut is lacking. Similarly, cold is not a thing, scientifically speaking, it’s just the absence of heat. So too darkness – it’s the absence of light. Darkness is real, but it’s not a thing; it’s a way of describing something that isn’t there.
So the next question then becomes, “where did this lack come from?” If God made only good things, where did evil come from? It came about because God imbued his perfect creations with a characteristic that made evil possible – free will. When God created the angels he gave them a good thing (the ability to choose) and he gave us the same power. So evil resulted when a morally perfect being freely chose his own will over the will of his Creator – Christians call this being Satan. Satan had no evil in his environment, no tempter, but he had free will, free choice to either obey or disobey. As Dr Geisler says, “if you’re free to love God you are also free to hate him. If you’re free to praise God you’re also free to blaspheme him. Freedom is the ability to do otherwise. And to do otherwise than good is to do evil.” This is how a perfect being with no evil around him could choose to do evil. There’s no way that God could have forced Satan to freely choose to do good rather than evil – that’s the nature of being free! There’s a great example of this in the movie Bruce Almighty when Jim Carey’s character Bruce, who has been given the powers of God, asks God “How can you make someone love you if you can not effect free will?” to which God answers “Welcome to my world, son.” God could have made robots instead of free creatures, or puppets, but they can’t choose to love. So you can see how a perfect creature without any evil in his environment can choose to do evil. But doesn’t this mean that God made evil possible? Absolutely. But who makes evil actual? We do. Dr Geisler goes on to offer this analogy, “Henry Ford mass produced a car. He made a lot of evil possible...but he’s not responsible for every accident [or drunk driver]. He’s not responsible for everyone who misuses the automobile.” God made a good thing, and we choose to use that good thing for evil purposes.
The Persistence of Evil:
This part of the problem deals with why God hasn’t defeated evil; why is persists. This is often used by atheists as an attack on not just God’s existence but also his power:
A) If God is all-good, he would defeat evil
B) If God is all-powerful, he could defeat evil
C) But evil is not defeated, therefore
D) No such God exists.
What should be the Christian’s response to this challenge? We must agree with the first two premises, that God both would and could defeat evil. It is the third premise that we must take issue with, and we should add one little word to it: “yet”. Evil is not yet defeated. Does this then mean that evil will never be defeated? Of course not, just that it hasn’t been yet. We don’t know when God will choose to defeat evil; it could be tomorrow or next year or next millennium. The fact that evil isn’t yet defeated cannot be used to prove that it will never be. After all, as Dr Geisler points out, the fact that you are in the middle of a novel doesn’t mean that it has no proper ending, does it? Therefore, the conclusion that “no such God exists” does not follow. See how powerful this three letter word is? The whole argument collapses because of it.[6]
Sometimes the comeback against this is for the atheist to rework his argument into this:
A) If God is all-good, he would defeat evil
B) If God is all-powerful, he could defeat evil
C) Evil will never be defeated, therefore
D) No such God exists.
Spot the problem with this new third premise? There is absolutely no way anyone could know that evil will never be defeated...unless he was God. You’d have to know everything that is going to happen in the future to know that. In other words, you’d have to be omniscient. This means that in order for the atheist to defeat God he would have to be God!
How, then, should the Christian respond to the persistence of evil in the world? Our argument should look like this:
A) If God is all-good, he would defeat evil
B) If God is all-powerful, he could defeat evil
C) Evil has not yet been defeated, therefore
D) God will one-day defeat evil.
How do we know that the conclusion is valid? The nature of the God of the Bible guarantees it. He’s all-powerful and can do it and he’s all-good and wants to do it, and one day he will. Which leads us into our next point: the solution.
The Solution to the Problem of Evil:
How will God finally defeat evil? Firstly, he allows everyone to freely choose their eternal destiny, which preserves freedom. He allows everyone to decide which way they want to go - his way or theirs. Secondly, someday he will defeat evil by separating it from good, quarantining it away. How do we stop diseases from spreading? We quarantine the sick. How do we keep society safe? We quarantine the violent and the dangerous. There has to be a hell, or there’s no solution to the problem of evil! There has to be a place where evil is separated from good. Dr Geisler makes this observation: “heaven is a place where there will be no more evil to frustrate good people...hell is a place where there is no more good people to frustrate evil people.” When the final judgement is done people will forever be where they want to be, where they choose to be. Good must be rewarded and evil must be punished or a truly just solution has not occurred. If God does not punish people for the evil acts they perpetrated then justice has not been served.
Further, God will defeat evil by defeating the last and greatest evil: death. His solution is already in place – it’s the Resurrection of Jesus! According to the Bible God has achieved this victory when Christ came the first time, but his victory won’t be actualised until Christ’s return. Colossians 2: 13-15 says that:
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Hebrews 2: 14-15 tells us that Jesus has already defeated evil on the cross:
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
So Jesus has already defeated the last and greatest evil, but when will he put his victory into action? Not until his second coming:
I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war...The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron sceptre. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty (Revelation 19: 11, 14-15).
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea... he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away (Revelation 21: 1, 4).
So evil has already been officially defeated at the cross, and it will be actually defeated at the second coming of Christ.
The Purpose of Evil:
This is our third last point in this topic, and we need to move from merely looking at the presence of evil as being an entirely bad thing and look at some of the ways that it can actually lead to good. Let’s look at another argument:
A) An all-good God must have a good purpose for everything
B) But there is no good purpose for some suffering (useless or innocent suffering, like a child dying of cancer)
C) Therefore, there cannot be an all-good God.
This seems to resonate with a lot of people because it’s not hard to look around us and see some kind of evil or suffering for which we can find no good purpose. For many people, this kind of suffering leads them to think that God, if he even exists, must be finite and not powerful enough to do anything about the suffering in the world. So how should we respond to this? It seems that the best response would be to admit that we don’t know the purpose for all suffering, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one! There is an assumption built into the second premise of this argument, and that is that if we don’t know the purpose of suffering then no-body knows. But if God is all-knowing, doesn’t that mean that he would know? Just because we don’t know what the good purpose of evil is, that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist, just that our knowledge is limited. After all, we are only finite creatures. An all-good, all-loving God must have a good purpose for everything (premise A) – we just don’t always know what it is. The Bible is clear that God knows things we don’t. Look at Deuteronomy 29:29, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” We don’t know why some things happen to us, but at least we know why we don’t know – God knows the secret things, we know only what has been revealed to us. Also Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” There are instances in the Bible of sufferings that God has used for good purposes. Think of Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers, he spent years in prison but God used his situation to bring about the saving of countless lives, not just in his family, but in the whole country and region and through his family the establishment of the nation of Israel. As he said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). God allowed his suffering because it would produce a greater good.
It is impossible for us finite humans to understand the ripple effect that any given event will have on history, but we can get an idea from some event of the past that we can now see have resulted in a good purpose. Take, for example, the bombing of Pearl Harbour. This resulted in the death and suffering of many thousands of people – but it brought America into World War Two and their added strength shortened the war by years and resulted in fewer deaths overall. That’s just one short-term good that resulted from the evil act at Pearl Harbour, and who knows what other good that event has caused? It is impossible for us to tell, but God knows. Let’s look at another example. In his book The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel recounts the story of a man who watched his wife accidentally back the car over his own daughter, killing her. Let’s see what he says:
So deep was Marc’s initial despair that he had to ask God to help him breathe, to help him function at the most fundamental level. Otherwise, he was paralysed by the emotional pain. But he increasingly felt God’s presence, his grace, his warmth, his comfort, and very slowly, over time, his wounds began to heal.
Having experienced God at his point of greatest need, Marc would emerge from this crucible a changed person, abandoning his career in business to attend seminary [Bible College]. Through his suffering – though he never would have chosen it, though it was horribly painful, though it was life-shattering at the time – Marc has been transformed into someone who would devote the rest of life to bringing God’s compassion to others who are alone in their desperation.
In the pulpit for the first time, Marc was able to draw on his own experiences with God in the depths of sorrow. People were captivated because his own loss had given him special insights, empathy, and credibility. In the end, dozens of them responded by saying they too wanted to know this Jesus, this God of tears. Now other hearts were being healed because of Marc’s having been broken. From one couple’s despair emerges new hope for many.[7]
So we can see that God can use even the most heart-breaking sorrow and suffering to bring about some good purposes. Just because we can’t always see what it might be doesn’t mean that no good can come from it.
Pain – Can it be Good?
But even more than just being able to use our pain to achieve some good purpose, pain can actually be a good in itself. The physical pain that you feel when you put your hand on a hot stove causes you to take your hand away and prevents you from suffering serious burns. The pain responses of our bodies are part of our built-in warning system. You’ve got a pain in your tooth – better go and see a dentist. Got a pain in your ankle? Better take it easy for a few days so your body can repair itself. Not all pain is bad!
Also, as Dr Geisler points out, pain is a much better teacher than pleasure. We often learn lessons that will benefit us for the rest of our lives through pain, but very rarely do we do so through pleasure. C.S. Lewis characterises it this way, “God whispers to us in our pleasure, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. It’s God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” God will often allow things to happen to us that are painful because he knows that sometimes that is what we need to focus our attention where it should be – on him. He brings us to a place where our only hope is him, and it is in that place that we cry out to him. Pain is God’s megaphone. Hebrews 12:11 characterises it like this, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4: 16-18:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
And Paul would know. He tells us elsewhere what he has been through:
I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked (2 Corinthians 11:23-27).
Paul realised that the suffering he was experiencing could be used by God to achieve a great good. Sometimes we will never live to see the good. It may happen years or decades later as the ripples spread out from our suffering, but we know that God can and will use it for good.
God cannot force free creatures to love him – that’s a contradiction in terms that we saw clearly in the quote above from Bruce Almighty. Lewis also saw it clearly when he wrote:
I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully "All will be saved." But my reason retorts, "Without their will, or with it?" If I say "Without their will" I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say "With their will," my reason replies "How if they will not give in?"[8]
God is love, and love persuades, not forces. God will allow you to experience many things and through these experiences he will be trying to persuade you to focus on him, to follow him, to surrender to him. But he won’t force you. And this brings us back to hell. Hell exists not simply because God is just and must punish evil, but because he so loving he won’t force people against their will. Lewis sums it up nicely: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it”.[9]
Logic vs. Emotions:
One final thought before finishing this Piece. Christian philosopher and theologian Dr William Lane Craig breaks the Problem of Evil down into two parts: the logical problem and the emotional problem. The logical problem is how we fit the reality of evil and suffering together with the Christian view of an all-powerful, all-loving God in a way that is logical, not contradictory. Almost everything in this Piece so far has been addressing the logical problem, but we can’t end our discussion without visiting the emotional side of this problem.
There aren’t any arguments that can be made with regards to the emotional problem; the emotions that one experiences when one goes through or witnesses suffering are too individual and personal. Only two things can really be said about this side of the problem. Firstly, decisions about the goodness or existence of God cannot be made on the basis of an emotional reaction. Emotions cannot tell you anything about the truth of a belief, merely how palatable you find it. Secondly, in order for you to cope better with the emotional problems that evil presents you need to have a firm grasp on the logical side. That way, when the bottom drops out, when something bad happens to you or someone you know you are equipped to properly understand why it happened and, more importantly, why God allowed it to happen. This will allow you to recognise the emotional response you are having as something temporary and will allow you to look at the issue in the proper way.
[1] Interview with Craig Hazen by Jim Wallace on Stand to Reason Podcast 13th July 2010.
[2] Mere Christianity, pp41-42
[3] “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics," in The Darwinian Paradigm, London: Routledge, 1989, pp. 262-269
[4] Evolution: The dissent of Darwin,’ Psychology Today 30(1):62, Jan-Feb 1997, cited in Creation, 20 (3): 44, June 1998
[5] There are some theologians today who claim that the fall did take God by surprise, that he doesn’t have all knowledge and that he is basically playing catch-up. These theologians are called “open theists” and their ideas are contrary to Biblical teachings.
[6] Another extremely powerful tiny word is “so”. See Greg Koukl’s excellent article entitled “The Power of One Word” at http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8221.
[7] p. 73
