Why Does God Allow Evil?
When I look back at my own life, I see that I was deeply disturbed and negatively affected by situations that could be said to be under the influence of satan. Let’s take my parents’ divorce for example. It was an event that set my life on a completely different trajectory, and not a positive one. Some might say that satan destroys marriages. However, we know that God created satan; God foreknew what satan would do; and God willed the existence of evil into creation. Therefore, might we also say that God destroys marriages? This doesn’t account for man’s inherently sinful nature, but let’s roll with it: let’s say that God destroyed the marriage.
God knows the beginning of all things and the end of all things. Without a strong father figure in the home, I began drinking, using drugs, and having sex at an early age. These things damaged my soul and my mind (potentially exacerbating a genetic predisposition to a mental illness that, once triggered, has unleashed absolute hell on Earth for me). I should note that I take responsibility for my actions and will not let myself play victim, but I do think that causes have effects. As humans, when we are sinned against, the result is often for us to, consciously or not, transmit that sin onto others like a deadly, soul-snatching virus that spreads across the world like wildfire.
All things considered, the fallout from one event led to greater and greater degrees of adversity in my life, but the ultimate purpose of all that adversity, viewed through a post-salvation lens, was to bring me closer to God and to make me lean into Him. Therefore, in keeping with the idea that God was at fault for initiating the adversity would lead to something very, very good: the redemption of my soul. Even if a person wants to blame God for the devil’s schemes or for man’s sins, God still comes out the victor because, in this scenario, God is engaging in an act of creation whereby He created adversity that creates a new person (2 Corinthians 5:17 - “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”) and advances the Kingdom here on Earth.
As we can see, what started out as evil has led to adversity, which resulted in God’s glory — God’s glory because what started out as darkness has led to light; what was conceived in sin has led to a person whom God has legally declared to be "right” with him. This idea may be hard to understand for the skeptic who simply casts God as being overly vain, as in, “What kind of God would put men through such pain for His own benefit?” While much philosophical thought has pondered man’s lot in a world full of suffering, some hard Biblical truths are needed to orientate the skeptic:
Adam and Eve sinned against God by violating the one command He gave them; many posit that without giving the command, Adam and Eve would be creatures without free will, which, in my opinion, would make them advanced forms of artificial intelligence. (It is because you have free will that you are welcome to either accept or deny the idea that free will, as endowed by our Creator, is a good idea.) Adam is what is known as our federal head. Through the seed of Adam, sin has been transmitted to every man who has ever lived.
God chose to create you; He birthed you into this world. He is the Creator, and you are but a creature who has inherited sin from Adam. If you want to grow as a responsible, accountable man or woman, you would be wise to acknowledge that God does not owe man anything. (You will find great liberation if you accept that God and the world do not owe you anything, which was a hard-scrabble lesson once taught but seems to be going out of style.) However, in His great love for us, God sent his Son, who was one with Him in eternity past, into the world as a man. That man, Jesus, lived in perfect relationship with the Father, and being born of the Spirit through a virgin, did not inherit Adam’s corrupted seed.
Jesus is man and deity (the God-man), and in the great exchange that took place on the cross, yes, Jesus suffered a horrific death, but what was unfathomably worse was that God Almighty was pleased to crush Jesus with his wrath because Jesus, who was not even acquainted with sin, became sin on our behalf, thereby undoing the curse that started with Adam. Even the wrath of God couldn’t kill Jesus! He rose from the dead and ascended to be with the Father again.
Therefore, to the skeptic, I say, “Why shouldn’t God be glorified?” All of us, whose collective value is less than nothing, swim in sin all day long and deserve God’s wrath, but God sent Jesus, whose value is greater than all of Creation combined, into the world — into this rotting cesspool of a world — so Jesus could, after living a sinless life, die like a criminal on a Roman cross so that you, filthy little you — should you believe — can be seen as blameless in the sight of a holy, holy, holy God.
I urge you to be mindful of your own depravity and do your best to choose what is good. (If evil didn’t exist, we would not have the free will to choose what is good. In that sense, good would also not exist.) My hope is that in doing so, you may become increasingly aware of how good you are not. It is only when you can begin to come to terms with how hopelessly far you have fallen that you can become aware of your need for the Savior. Bear in mind that this is a personal journey of individual accountability; you will be judged based on your own violations of the law of God, so do not follow the culture at large off the edge of the cliff.
God wants to be the center of our lives. That may sound like vanity, and He is a vain and jealous God. He is vain because all Creation was initiated by Him, and He is so big that He upholds the universe in the palm of His “hand”. He is jealous of any other gods or idols that you may have in your life because He is the One who knows exactly how you were knit in your mother’s womb, what you were perfectly designed for, and what you need. He knows the very motivations of your heart, the ones that you’re not remotely aware of. God knows everything that can be known about everything! He is a good, loving Father and expects that we will glorify Him in return or that we would just glorify Him anyway. He wants us to lean on Him so that He can sustain, heal, guide, and protect us.
I know I don’t have a perfect answer to the question of why God allows evil and suffering, but I hope I have given you something to chew on. God is so much, much different that we are; He stands alone. (Isaiah 55:8-9 - "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord.) The introduction of evil into the world can ultimately lead us to Christ and bring greater glory to God. Once we are in Christ, and He in us, we can begin bearing good fruit for the Kingdom. Evil, as God may have created it, does not have to end in evil; it can end in a new creation — your soul as a new creation and the fruit you bear as a new creation.
If you have been inspired or had your curiosity piqued by this message and don’t know what to do, please find a Bible and start reading. You don’t have to be a biblical scholar; open your eyes in wonder to the story of Creation in Genesis or to Jesus’s words in the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). If you’re sick of this world and find it meaningless, read Ecclesiastes. If you yearn for wisdom, read Proverbs. If you need to lean on God in this season, read Psalms. If you want to dive into some deep theology right off the bat, go to Romans. I could go on. Remember: “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." (Isaiah 40:8)
Be blessed.
Photo Credit: https://bvaa.org/2019/06/22/values-of-light-and-dark-in-art-art-show-judging/