Illustration:As C.S. Lewis wrote, "The greatest evil is not done in those sordid ’dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint...it is conceived and...moved, seconded, carried, and minuted...in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."
Charles Colson, Against the Night, p. 46.
Quote: Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?
David Hume.
Obviously evil and suffering are a result of free sinful choices of human beings. God gives us a free will and allows us to choose between good and evil.
Why is there evil and suffering in the world?
Joseph said to his brothers, "You meant it for evil but God turned it for good for the saving of many lives." (Gen. 50;20)
God is sovereign and capable of working all things together for good for those who love Him and fit into His plans. (Rom. 8:28,29)
God is in the business of turning all evil and suffering for His greater good, glory and purposes that are beyond human understanding.
Deut. 29:29 says, "The secret or mysterious things belong to the Lord our God, but His commandments are to us and our children that we obey all the words of His promises."
There are many things that the finite mind of humans will never be able to understand until they get in to heaven. God is omniscient and we are not. We must trust Him with the elements of life that are too complex for us to understand.
Isa 55:8,9 says, "For my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts."
The question implies that if a good God exists, then evil shouldn’t because God being all powerful should stop it.
We need to ask and answer two questions.
1. First, what is evil? It is that which is against God. It is anything morally bad or wrong. It is injurious, depraved, wicked. Some acceptable examples might be murder, rape, stealing, lying, and cheating. Second, if we want God to stop evil do we want Him to stop all evil or just some of it? In other words, if just some of it then why? If He were to stop only part of the evil, then we would still be asking the question, "Why is there evil in the world?".
A. Let’s suppose that someone was about to commit murder. God would have to stop him, maybe whisper in his ear, or if that didn’t work do something a little more drastic like have something fall on him, or stop his heart, or make his hands suddenly fall off. Anyway, God would have to do something.
B. What if somebody wanted to steal? God would have to stop him too, right? Undoubtedly, God’s imagination would permit a more practical method than I have suggested, but the end results would be the same.
C. What about lying? If someone were to tell a lie, then to be consistent wouldn’t you want God right there to stop that person from lying? After all, He couldn’t let any evil occur could He?
D. Let’s take it a step further. Suppose someone thought something evil. Then, of course, God would have to step in and prevent him from thinking anything bad at all, right?
The end result would be that God could not allow anyone to think freely. Since everyone thinks and no one thinks only pure thoughts, God would be pretty busy and we wouldn’t be able to think.
Anyway, at what point do we stop, at the murder level, stealing level, lying level, or thinking level? As your questions implies, if you want God to stop evil, you would have to be consistent and want Him to do it everywhere all the time, not just pick and choose. It wouldn’t work.
2. Evil is in this world partly because we give it its place but ultimately because God, in His sovereignty, permits it and keeps it under His control.
Then you might say, "Couldn’t He just make us perfect and that way we wouldn’t sin?" He already did that. He made a perfect angel, Satan, but he sinned. He made a perfect man, Adam, and he sinned. He made a perfect woman, Eve, and she sinned. God knows what He is doing. He made us the way we are for a purpose.
3. We don’t fully understand that purpose, but He does. God is sovereign; He has the right to do as He wishes. He has the right to permit evil for accomplishing His ultimate will. How can He do that? Simple, look at the cross. It was by evil means that men lied and crucified Jesus. Yet God in His infinite wisdom used this evil for good. It was on the cross that Jesus bore our sins in His body (1 Peter. 2:24) and it is because of the cross that we can have forgiveness of sins.
4. Consider the biblical example of Joseph in the Old Testament. He was sold into slavery by his brothers. Though they meant it for evil, God meant it for good (Gen. 50:20). God is so great that nothing happens without His permission, and in that permission His ultimate plan unfolds. In His plan He is able to use for good what man intends for evil. God is in control.
Notes taken from Matthew Slick’s Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, p. 219 (all credit goes to him)
Conclusion:EVIL
"We have met the enemy and he is us."
Pogo.
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If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago.
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As C.S. Lewis wrote, "The greatest evil is not done in those sordid ’dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint...it is conceived and...moved, seconded, carried, and minuted...in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."
Charles Colson, Against the Night, p. 46.
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When asked why God created man when He knew he would sin, Martin Luther replied, "Let us keep clear of these abstract questions and consider the will of God such as it has been revealed to us."
Martin Luther.
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Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?
David Hume.
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On February 15, 1947 Glenn Chambers boarded a plane bound for Quito, Ecuador to begin his ministry in missionary broadcasting. But he never arrived. In a horrible moment, the plane carrying Chambers crashed into a mountain peak and spiraled downward. Later it was learned that before leaving the Miami airport, Chambers wanted to write his mother a letter. All he could find for stationery was a page of advertising on which was written the single word "WHY?" Around that word he hastily scribbled a final note. After Chambers’ mother learned of her son’s death, his letter arrived. She opened the envelope, took out the paper, and unfolded it. Staring her in the face was the question "WHY?"
No doubt this was the questions Jesus’ disciples asked when He was arrested, tried, and crucified. And it was probably the questions Joseph of Arimathea asked himself as he approached Pilate and requested the Lord’s body (v.58). It must have nagged at him as he wrapped the body in a linen cloth, carried it to his own freshly hewn tomb, and rolled the massive stone into its groove over the tomb’s mouth. In the face of his grief, Joseph carried on. He did what he knew he had to do. None of Jesus’ relatives were in a position to claim His body for burial, for they were all Galileans and none of them possessed a tomb in Jerusalem. The disciples weren’t around to help either.
But there was another reason for Joseph’s act of love. In Isaiah 53:9, God directed the prophet to record an important detail about the death of His Messiah. The One who had no place to lay his head would be buried in a rich man’s tomb. Joseph probably didn’t realize that his act fulfilled prophecy. The full answer to the why of Jesus’ death was also several days away for Joseph and the others. All he knew was that he was now a disciple of Jesus -- and that was enough to motivate his gift of love.
Today in the Word, April 18, 1992.
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The story is told of a farmer in a Midwestern state who had a strong disdain for "religious" things. As he plowed his field on Sunday morning, he would shake his fist at the church people who passed by on their way to worship. October came and the farmer had his finest crop ever--the best in the entire county. When the harvest was complete, he placed an advertisement in the local paper which belittled the Christians for their faith in God. Near the end of his diatribe he wrote, "Faith in God must not mean much if someone like me can prosper." The response from the Christians in the community was quiet and polite. In the next edition of the town paper, a small ad appeared. It read simply, "God doesn’t always settle His accounts in October."
William E. Brown in Making Sense of Your Faith.
