Why Does God Allow Evil?
You ask why a good God would allow a negative circumstance to happen; but what would you recommend as the alternative?
Most negative circumstances are direct results of human decisions. While it is true that we can be negatively affected by decisions made by others, which may seem “unfair”, the fact remains that those were human choices, and choices made contrary to God’s right – ness.
So, should God interfere in the decisions of men to prevent every choice that may have a negative impact on other people? Some have said that God should have “stopped” Hitler, or Pol Pot. He should have “stopped” the dozens of school shooters, He should “stop” the drug lords.
How exactly should He stop them? Wipe them out? When should He wipe them out: when they begin to ‘go bad’? Should He prevent them from being born?
What about the punk kid who beats up his peers, or robs his neighbours. Should God stop him? How? Perhaps he should never have been born.
Or the suicide bomber? Or the child molester? Or the extortionist? The polygamist? What about the drug addict that provides the business for the drug lord? What about the occultist that provides the ideological fuel for the Aryan supremacy theories?
What about the person who slanders another person, ruining their reputation, and costing them their career? What about the mother or father who abandons their family, leaving them in despair? And if their children “go bad”, what then?
What about the liar? The drunk? The cheater? The speeder? What should God do about each of these? What about the person who self-abuses, self-medicates, or even kills themselves? Those choices do not hurt only themselves; they devastate, confuse, and deeply wound all who love them.
It’s easy to argue that God should have stopped the despots who destroyed peoples, or the criminals who harm citizens, but what about the ordinary people whose regular choices cause pain and loss and confusion among their family and acquaintances? How should God “stop” them?
What about you? Should God stop you each time your choices have the potential of hurting someone else? How should He stop you? Should He simply over-ride your decisions so that you cannot anything other than what is absolutely right and good? How do you feel about the proposition that your every choice should be minutely controlled to prevent your being able to impact negatively anyone or anything else? Would you approve that “God”, Who controlled your every action – and necessarily your every thought and your very personality – in order to prevent the negative outcomes that your wrong choices will ultimately cause? If that would not please you, what alternative can you propose for God to “do” to prevent the painful outcomes caused by your wicked choices?
God has provided a solution, that does not override human decisions or personality, and ensures that each person will be entirely responsible for all of their own choices. He permits us each to live our lives: to make our choices and take courses of action based on those choices, for as long as we live on this earth. But when it’s time for us to die, God will take a reckoning of everything we have done and said, and everything we have thought, and weigh it all on the scale of absolute right and absolute wrong. For everything that is wrong, whether deed, word, or thought, we shall be held responsible, and will bear the consequence due the offenses.
That means that every one of us shall be judged and found guilty, because every one of us has thought, spoken, and performed evil many times through our lives. Each time was our own decision, and the fact that we anger at the offenses of others is the proof that we knew we were wrong. As guilty, we shall be condemned, and as condemned we must be expelled from the good kingdom of God. We are all guilty; we are all bound for hell.
But because God is patient and loves human kind, God has offered a solution to the “problem of evil”: He has called every one of us to reject evil as evil, and to acknowledge God as God. He has paid the penalty for our sin in the body of Jesus Christ, through His death on the cross, by which He will cover our sin if we will receive Christ, trusting His word, and that His death is sufficient payment for all of our wrongs. Because God was in Christ, Christ’s body did not remain dead; God raised that body up, to demonstrate that He is God, and that He has indeed power over life and death. When we believe Him, He covers the penalty of our sin, and gives us the Holy Spirit to lead us from sin. When the end of this world comes, He will renew the heavens and earth free from sin, and raise us alive as He raised Jesus’ body, to live eternally in that sin-free creation that everyone longs for.
Are you willing to receive God’s solution to ‘the problem of evil’? Will you stop opposing and judging God, and acknowledge yourself as one who does wrong, and God as the source of all right? Will you turn from the wrong thoughts, words, and deeds you have chosen, receiving Jesus Christ as your Saviour and King? Will you accept God’s offer of forgiveness for your evil choices through His payment through the death of Jesus Christ for your sake? Will you be changed by the Holy Spirit of God into a new creation separated from evil, to live a life led by God? If you will – whosoever will may come – then you will enjoy God’s new creation as God intends it to be: free from evil, free from harm, free from illness, injury, pain, or grief, but full of love, joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness, and joy in the presence of the eternal King and Creator of heaven and earth.
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