“If there is a god, and this god is good, why is there so much evil in the world?” This may be the strongest argument against the existence of God. Christians believe God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, that is, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. So, why is there so much suffering?
There’s certainly plenty of it in the world. A baby dies of a birth defect. A young child dies of leukemia. Children are swept away in a tsunami. Innocent people die in an earthquake. And then there’s the cruelty of war and conflict: in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, and many places throughout the world. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, why does he allow this evil to exist? Christian and non-Christian philosophers have wrestled with this question for ages, and it remains as perhaps our greatest problem in apologetics.
My answer is not fully formed, but I’ll give my thoughts anyway.
Free will in a dynamic world
Imagine an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God who loves His creation and loves His creatures, especially humanity, whom He made in his image. He creates a universe and an earthly home and prepares it for humanity over billions of years through physical processes and evolution, intervening as needed to prepare the way for us (including a meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs). He even put oil and coal in the ground – through natural processes – to power our industry and machines until we are ready to use solar, wind and other renewable energies.
When the earth was ready, God brought forth humanity, endowed with the needed physical attributes – upright walk, articulating thumb to hold tools, a large brain – and reason and consciousness so we could help develop the home God created for us. As our loving father, God wants us to participate creatively in the development process. God wants us to grow – spiritually, of course, and also morally, and intellectually. Growth requires challenge, so God gave us a world that would provide these challenges: a world of great beauty that operates according to natural laws, where food grows to nourish us, and bacteria and viruses can harm or kill us. This suffering is painful and certainly does not make God happy, but it does challenge us and cause us to grow.
God also gave us a free will, which we could use for good (moral growth) or evil. We have done both: evil when focused on our own selfish desires, such as greed and the lust for power, good when focused on making things whole. The world we see, with war, crime, and inadequate response to hunger, poverty, disease, is the world we humans have developed.
And if we’re honest, we know that not all is right with us. We’d prefer to blame others for their wicked acts, but we fail, too. For that reason, religions throughout history have used sacrifices – sometimes of food, sometimes of animals, sometimes of humans – to manipulate and appease an angry god or gods.
God shares our suffering
But God did not leave us alone. He inspired the Hebrew prophets to tell of Him, to give laws for our behavior, to convict us of our errors – sin – and announce God’s forgiveness. God also used great Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, to prepare the way intellectually for His next great move. In the political realm, great empires arose, allowing ideas to spread from land to land and peoples to peoples. Alexander the Great’s conquests, bloody as they were, created a Hellenistic civilization and established a common language in much of the Near East. The Roman Empire then expanded this realm where trade, people, and ideas could flow.
When this was prepared, God took the ultimate step: the incarnation. God the Son Himself, the Logos, became human, taking on our nature completely and experiencing the joys and pains of His fellow humans. When He was ready, Jesus began his ministry, traveling through a small area of Galilee and Judea, preaching God’s reign. His message was one of love and forgiveness, healing and reconciliation. He also proclaimed that we were children of a loving God and citizens of His Kingdom, which would one day reign throughout the world. In doing so, he gave us strength and knowledge to grow spiritually, morally, and intellectually to more resemble what God wants us to be.
But Jesus posed a threat to the religious leaders, who were convinced He opposed the truth. Moreover, He was a blasphemer, claiming he had authority to forgive sins. His miracles caused many to believe He was the promised Messiah. The religious leaders were not convinced and thought He was a false Messiah, who threatened their positions and could bring the wrath of Rome down on all of them. So they decided to get rid of Him and turned him over to the Roman occupiers for execution as a seditionist.
Jesus, both God and human, now suffered greatly at the hands of the people he made. He was betrayed by a follower and friend, Judas, a person he loved. Another follower and friend, Peter, got scared and denied Him. His other followers and friends ran away. Having come to fulfill God’s covenant with the Jewish people, He was brought before their leaders, who owed Him worship, and they struck Him and shamed Him. As he stood before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, the crowd rejected Him as well, so Pilate ordered him painfully and shamefully scourged. The soldiers mocked Him. Then they brutally led him to Golgotha, where He was crucified between two criminals, a painful and shameful execution.
Yes, we live in a world with both good and evil. Our mission is to respond to evil, to overcome it as best we can, and so to grow. God showed us the way by coming to us and suffering with us. But His suffering also fulfilled a greater plan. Through His sufferings, the creator of the universe paid the penalty for our shortcomings, and so He can accept us freely. There is no need for sacrifices on our part to appease an angry God: We simply have to accept God’s free gift of reconciliation. And we should also grow spiritually, morally, and intellectually, and do our best to overcome evil and promote good.
The sufferings of Jesus that we commemorate on Good Friday have a happy ending, which we will celebrate this Sunday. Our sufferings will also ultimately have a happy ending as well.