The Problem of “The Problem of Evil”

“I don’t believe in God or the Bible, because a loving God would not create such a cruel Universe”.

This is an all too common argument put forth by people who do not believe in a God, and specifically, the God of the Bible.

It is, of course, a reasonable statement, that if there is a loving God, then he would not create a place filled with so much suffering (i.e; death, pain, trauma, natural disasters, disease, etc), at the very least not intentionally. And so often it’s said “if there really is a creator God responsible for this world, he is either evil, apathetic, or foolish, and therefore not worthy of worship”.

I find, however, this outlook, specifically when it is used to justify rejection of the Biblical God and the scriptures, to be a highly flawed one, and operates on the fallacy of circular reasoning.

The Existence of Evil does not Debunk the Bible or its God

The reason being, that the Bible itself, informs us that what we call “evil”, pain, injustice, sickness, death, are ‘negative’ things, things that in the Biblical world view God himself hates and wishes to fix, because he’s the originator, the one who ‘defines’ what is good and what is bad. It tells us that the evil in this world originated from human rebellion and Satanic influence, and that God is actively in the process of quelling this rebellion by means of his Son.

• “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world is under the power of the evil one“. – 1 John 5:19
• “The Slanderer (Devil) led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, I will give you all their authority and splendour; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to”. – Luke 4:5-6
• “He [the Slanderer (Devil)] was a murderer from the Beginning“. – John 8:44
• “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment [saying]: ‘How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah. Give justice to the weak and the fatherless ;maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince’. Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!”. – Psalm 82
• “Understand that sin entered the world through one man, and that sin resulted in death. So by this [one] sin, death was passed on to all men for they’ve all sinned… But he, [that is, Adam], was a prototype of the one who was to come… so, since the result of one error was to condemn all mankind, then through this one righteous act [of Yeshua], everyone can be counted righteous so they can live! And as the disobedience of one man caused many to become sinners, through the obedience of this one [man], many will also be counted as righteous!”. – Romans 5:12-15, 18-19
• “…sinners come from the Slanderer (Devil), because the Slanderer has been sinning since ancient times. And the reason why the Son of God was shown [in the flesh] was to wipe away the deeds of the Slanderer“. – 1 John 3:8
• “[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away”. – Revelation 21:4

Thus, the “problem” of evil, the Bible itself has an explanation for, in that it is both not God’s desire, not caused by him, and that he intends to address it.

We see throughout the Bible, God troubled by evil, and hence he punishes it, sometimes very harshly. And likewise when his Son came to Earth, he wept at the pain and death of humanity, and demonstrated his Father’s will to heal the broken (John 5:19, Luke 4:18).

Hence, suffering and evil, cannot be used as a reason to reject the notion of the Biblical God, given that the Bible itself tells us ‘why’ there is evil, and that God is against it. Nevertheless, I have encountered several people who say they reject the Bible’s answer and its God, simply on the basis of that very existence of suffering, which the Bible agrees is evil and is not God’s will.

This being the extremely circular logic of the “Problem of Evil” adherents:

• The Bible: Evil is bad, but currently exists because…
• Atheist: I don’t believe or accept the Bible’s answer to evil because evil exists

This isn’t an intelligent answer.

Whilst one can question ‘why’ the Biblical God of Israel and the Universe has allowed evil to happen for so long, or ‘why’ he invented a universe in which the introduction of evil results in so much pain and suffering (i.e; why did God create humans with a nervous system capable of so much painful feedback if he knew it could be abused in a fallen world), it does not act as something that ‘debunks’ him or the Bible, since the Bible ‘acknowledges’ such things as a part of its whole framework. If there was no evil right now and there never ever was evil in all history, that ironically would be something that ‘would’ debunk the Bible, because the Bible says it does exist and needs to be fixed.

The hard fact of the matter is that one can either accept or reject the Bible, on the basis of the examination of its various cases of evidence. The Bible is either true, or it is false. But the existence of suffering in itself cannot be taken into account as a counter-evidence, if the biblical world-view ‘internally’ explains itself and gives an answer for evil and demonstrates God to not wish for us to experience the physical, emotional, or mental pains of that evil.

If the Bible is proven to be true, and its God true, then we have our answer for the “problem of evil”, for its answer in regard to evil would also be true, and it simply would boil down to ‘trusting’ what God has said on the matter, that the evil we experience is not his original will, but that it is something he is addressing. To do otherwise would only be arrogance regarding our own superiority over the Almighty of how ‘we’ think things ought to be done, or, active scepticism of the Biblical God (i.e; believing he exists and that the Bible is of God, but insisting that he’s a liar, aka; the theology of Gnosticism and Satanism).

If the Bible is deemed to be false, then this would have to be concluded upon the basis of evidences against its contents and claims – of which, the existence of evil is not. And in such a case, the very notion of evil still would not preclude to the automatic correctness that atheism is true, for, one could just as readily reason that the Universe was made by an evil god, or a careless god – of course, it would be of an individual’s choice of how to approach such a matter in such a scenario.

It would seem however, that most of these people believe in the Bible ‘just enough’ to ‘hate’ God, but not enough to trust God.

Morality Requires Spirituality

The deeper philosophical fact of the matter, is that, if there is no God or even concept of higher spirituality, then there is also at the heart of the matter, no such thing as evil either, for such notions of “good” and “evil”, would only be invented by the deluded minds and illusions of men and their “animal brains”.

This all playing into the ontological facts of our reality.

We know there is morality, good, evil, etc, because it is innate. But that innateness always calls upon morality as some kind of “higher force”, as if, all humans are bound to it, and that it is not just “one man’s opinion over another’s”. For, even from the most cold, logical, scientific approach to the matter, where one says; “We need morality in nature, for it serves for the survival and propagation of our species”. But, never does such a person go further to ask “why” the propagation of our species is even “necessary” or “good” at all, especially if we live in a purposeless universe.

It might make us “feel” good to be alive, one might say “it is better to be alive than to be dead, for something is always better than nothing”, but, that’s not the existence of morality, in fact it is to ‘beg’ morality, and yet one cannot ‘truly’ say that one thing is “better” or “worse” than another thing, for there would be no metaphysical truth to the matter.

Not killing your neighbour, because you have common decency and empathy, is not morality either. It’s a component of what makes a person what we ‘call’ “good” or “bad” to an extent, but, it still really is not an objective metric of why it is “good” to be “empathetic” so that we can better survive as a species, if all but what we are is meaningless dust from the void of space. So what if hurts your or their feelings? So what if that baby got cancer? So what if we all go extinct? So what if the Universe stopped existing? Why is that ‘bad’? On what ‘authority’ other than your own subjective feelings do you say that bad should not be good, and good should not be bad?

Whilst the God of the Bible would say such a thing is inherently evil (Isaiah 5:20), someone without a higher source or origin of morality, a spiritual one of some kind, cannot even begin to define what is good or bad, or if such concepts have any solidarity in actual universal ‘reality’, for if atoms is all that we are, then our “morality” is just as much as a meaningless mindless atom too.

One could only say that it is some kind of “fluke of evolution”, some random adaptive mutation that happened, just so we can keep surviving as a species… for some… “reason”… that the mindless process would have no need of… other for the sake of its own pointless and empty propagation….

Can we really say an aimless, meaningless universe, give rise to or “begat” ‘meaning and purpose’ from itself? Inasmuch as a tree cannot give birth to a cow? Or that the child born deaf could invent the concept of music?

And yet, what a person cannot do, is deny that morality and a sense of justice and judgment yet exists as a concept without it having been invented by anyone, just as much as one cannot say they can invent a new colour in their mind. Something beyond us, must be responsible, not only for us to ‘justify’ that our own morality is not subjective or absurd, but also that the very notion of morality and meaning, could even be conceived by us, in this Universe, in order that we can even have the ‘ability’ to complain about the Problem of Evil and the notions of a cruel or ignorant God.

In this respect, what we see as good and what we see as bad, such as the Problem of Evil, only can be meaningful ‘if’ things like spirituality or gods exist, as something that is that “higher source” which we all reach out to as the “authority” to which all beings must universally answer to, beyond that of the mere opinion of one person over another.

Therefore, for there to be a “Problem” of “Evil”, “Evil” has to first be defined to be a “Problem”, and for that, we can only appeal to something larger than ourselves. Therefore, what we really have, is the “Problem of Atheism”. For without a God or some other higher immaterial source of true moral justice and standards, there is no such thing as a “problem”.

If then, we confess that Evil is a Problem, then let us also confess that Goodness is Praiseworthy, and in this, let us accept the existence of the Good God that has created us, and has allowed this “Problem” of Evil to transpire, and trust that he will also put a stop to it.

The Simple Truth: “Evil” Affirms God

The ultimate point on the matter is this.

Evil is not something that justifies rejection of God’s existence, or of the authenticty of the Bible, but only can affirm both, just as much that they in turn both affirm our conception of evil.