Problem of Evil

[chris1000bc]

Having grown up in church all my life like many of you, I didn't have many of the problems with faith that new converts might have when coming to Christ. For example, I didn't have a problem with the idea of miracles such as the sun standing still for Joshua or the children of Israel passing through the Red Sea.

However, one thing that has remained a problem for me is evil. For those of you still Christians, how do you deal with this problem? Is it a problem at all for you?

Thanks.

[Tony Mel]

As a believer in God's sovereignty, I believe that only in evil can good show itself as good to fallen creatures. This is only a philosophical framework, however.

[captain_solo]

Yeah, any answer to that is pretty much philosophical - but even that goes back to the nature of God. As finite creatures we are not equipped to process the answers to questions with that much depth even if God shared the answers. The last few chapters of Job cover this pretty well.

If you think about the fall in the garden as an example, God's mercy would never have been evident to man unless sin made it necessary.

A.A. Hodge says..."it is obvious that (a) God has permitted sin, and (b) hence it was right for Him to do so. But why it was right must ever remain in mystery demanding submission and denying solution"

[exIFB]

To me, it's pretty simple. But maybe my answer is the pat answer.

God is good - man is fallen - earth is cursed. Fallen man in a cursed earth without a good God will do evil. Evil is allowed by God in his supremacy but is not God's will, and God takes no glory from it.

By one man sin entered the world and death entered by sin - the soul that sins shall die. Man without God is sinful and capable of all kinds of evil. The fact that some men are a few magnitudes of evil above everyone else in terms of what they do is a fact I cannot understand. They are not more sinful - ie, I am just as much a sinner as Charles Manson - but in terms of evil actions and motivations, I don't know why some people do what they do. Yet I know God allows it. However, I do not believe he made them do it, or even coerced their will into wanting to do it.

[LMcC]

My admittedly partial solution to the issue of evil has been a completely different understanding about it.

Most people in Western Culture see evil as the opposite of good, this mirror image entity, a thing in itself. It's part of the dualist mentality we got from the ancient Greeks. Of course, that opens up questions like "how was evil created?", makes people divide things up into "good" and "evil" where no need for it exists, and in some ways makes it easy for people to commit all kinds of sins and hide behind God.

A few years ago, all these things started crossing my path about evil not being the opposite of good, but the absence of good or a distortion of good. It was no longer a "thing". It made much more sense Scripturally and in what I was really seeing around me. God did create all things good. Satan is a destroyer, not a creator, and therefore only capable of damaging what already exists instead of creating something new. It becomes harder to commit sin and hide behind God once it's OK to look past an action (whether my own or another's) at distorted or absent motives. It makes it easier to examine my own thoughts and actions as well and propels me to a higher standard than the dualism of Fundamentalism ever did.

Does it answer questions like why things like violence and tragedy happen to me or to someone else? No. I don't know if we'll ever find that answer this side of eternity as much as any person of conscience wants it. I can't answer what, if anything, we can do to the problem of evil around us. The only thing we can do is work on ourselves and (excuse the cliche) be the change we want to see around us, then hope others think about it and do the same.

[chris1000bc]

I appreciate your answers. Here is my answer so far:

The problem of evil ultimately makes me doubt the goodness of God. But passages like Romans 8:32 remind me or re-persuade me of God's goodness. Romans 8:32a (ESV) "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all..." If God gave his Son for me, how can I doubt his goodness?

Also, Romans 9:22-24 helps me see that God has a purpose in allowing evil.

[Historian]

I think Timothy Keller has some great insight into this question. He agrees that evil is a problem for the Christian, but that is a far greater problem for the unbeliever. C.S. Lewis describes how he initially rejected the concept of God because of evil, but then realized it was even more problematic for his disbelief. He said:

"My argument against God was that the universe seemed too cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of "just" and "unjust?" What was I comparing this universe to when I called it unjust?...Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too–for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies."

Keller points out that we believe that people shouldn't suffer, should be abused, shouldn't be murdered or exterminated, shouldn't get cancer. But actually without God creating and overruling the evolutionary theory of man is very unsatisfactory. Evolution and natural selection depend on death, on destruction. They depend on the concept of the strong destroying the weak. Death and disease and suffering, even deliberately caused by another animal, are essential to weeding out the useless corrupters of the gene pool. Evolution and natural selection should cause us to feel nothing when we get cancer: nature is weeding out the impure and weak. We should be impervious to emotion when whole people groups are repressed and exterminated by other groups: if that people group is too weak to defend itself do we really want them polluting the human gene? We want the strong, the ruthless. As Keller says, "The nonbeliever in God doesn't have a good basis for being outraged at injustice, which...was the reason for objecting to God in the first place. If you are sure that this natural world is unjust and filled with evil, you are assuming the reality of some extra-natural (or supernatural) standard by which to make your judgment."

As others have pointed out, though, the ultimate consideration is that God, through Jesus Christ, experienced all kinds of evil. He is not a puppet master working from above to bring suffering to hapless humans–"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." From his birth in a barn, to painful rejection, to active persecution to torture and murder, Jesus experienced evil and suffering. He really felt it, too. He is described as "deeply distressed and troubled" and asking God for a way out of His suffering. On the cross He cries out that He has been forsaken by His Father. Not only has God endured evil and suffering, but He also promises to make all things new. He promises to ultimately be the revenger of the helpless. "Jesus said to them, 'I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne.'"

[captain_solo]

One of the questions asked (and supposedly answered) by "The Shack" is can God suffer. The short answer is yes and no.

The amazing significance of the incarnation of Christ is that God the Son did suffer, humanly he suffered physical death, and he suffered spiritual death when the father turned his face away He (the Son) suffered eternal separation from God (the Father) in an instant.

Now there are some problems there, since There is one God. There is a sense in which the Father and Son cannot be divided, yet in that moment during the crucifixion, there was an estrangement of some kind. To say only Jesus human nature suffered is troublesome since Christ's natures are contained in a single person and are also inseparable in a way. To say that God (the three persons of the trinity) suffered on the cross because they were "there on the cross with Him" (the answer seemingly given in "The Shack") - comes dangerously close to modalism or patripassionism which are both heresies from the early church. Plus just from a practical standpoint, this view minimizes and almost makes unecessary the incarnation. I tend to hold it in higher regard and praise God for it, so I agree that the suffering of Christ, as both human and divine, gives God a unique perspective, a personal perspective on evil, and gives us confidence that he understands our pain because of it. And in fact because God is sovereign, he understands it more deeply because he sees his overarching purpose for everything that happens in the world. And being eternal, he experiences human suffering in its eternal context, not as something having possible benefit in the future which is the only sensible way for us to see it (and even that is presumptuous on our part)

I've been chewing on this one for a while as you can see! Not only a fun intellectual exercise, but incredibly powerful spiritual truth as well.

[Exfundy_Philosopher]

I consider the POE to be the most forceful objection to Christian theism. However, I also believe that the problem can be satisfactorily resolved (at least rationally).

There are actually two version of the problem: the logical problem of evil and the evidential problem of evil. The former attempts to demonstrate that the existence of God and evil are logically incompatible. That is, the existence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God cannot be reconciled with the existence of evil and suffering.

It is widely accepted that the Christian philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, successfully demonstrated that the logical problem of evil is an invalid argument (in his book God, Freedom, and Evil). Plantinga provides what he calls a "free will defense". Basically, he argues that as long as it is possible that God has a morally sufficient reason for permitting evil and suffering, then the logical POE is unsuccessful. Plantinga shows that the existence of morally significant human freewill is a possible reason that God could have for permitting evil and suffering.

The evidential problem of evil is a bit tougher. It is most famously set forth by the philosopher William Rowe. Rowe argues that, if God exists, then gratuitous evil should not exist. Since we seem to encounter gratuitous evil all the time, it is most likely that God does not exist. However, it seems impossible for finite humans to know for certain that any instance of evil and suffering is unnecessary. In order for a human to know this she would have to foresee the complete causal chain precipitated by an evil act. In other words, how can we know that an apparent unnecessary instance of evil or suffering will not eventually lead to a great greater good?

Another reply to the problem of evil is the "Irenaean Theodicy" (most famously defended by the theist philosopher John Hick and based upon the thought of the church father, Irenaeus). This reply to the POE argues that the existence of evil and suffering is actually "soul making". God permits evil and suffering in order to allow for the moral development of human persons that could not have occurred otherwise. For example, it seems that great virtues such as grace, mercy, courage, forgiveness, etc. could not have existed in a world without evil.

Of course, all of the arguments may not be able to console the individual who has personally experienced great evil or suffering, but I think the problem can be resolved rationally.

That's just my two cents

[chris1000bc]

I know this isn't the book section so if you are into following the rules strictly (I know where you might have went to school), forgive me for not. But there are two books that I have read on this subject that I really liked.

The first one is by Don Carson, and it is called "How Long O Lord." Tim Keller wrote a book called Reason for God. Others have mentioned it. In his defense of faith, Keller does deal with the problem of evil some.

You can go so many directions with this conversation. It really can be interesting to read the thoughts of others on it.