If God, Why Evil?

My grandfather committed suicide at fifty-nine. For about a year beforehand, he endured severe back pain that debilitated him to the point where he could no longer work or participate in many of the activities—like hunting and fishing—that had long defined his life and brought him great joy. Continual doctor visits and medical testing provided no concrete reason for his pain, and, as it was the late eighties, diagnostic techniques were more limited and provided less information than today. I can only imagine the frustration and despair he must have felt to come to the point of taking such an action. By all accounts, anyone who knew him would say that he was a good man who loved his family and did things the “right” way. Why, then, would a loving God allow such suffering and despair to come to someone who seemingly did nothing to deserve it?

I begin with this story because the answer to the problem of evil and suffering is not easy—and moreover, it is not just an intellectual problem. Precious few people get very far into life before they experience something of the coldness and injustice of the world; I was only nine. When we come face to face with the harsh realities of existence, it is not only our minds that recoil from the trauma but our hearts as well. We do not so much merely ask God why such things happen as we often accuse Him of not caring about our pain or perhaps worse, of being asleep at the wheel. For many, the most logical and emotionally safe conclusion is to tell themselves that God is a myth—that He doesn’t really exist—and that despair and pain are present in the world simply because everything is random and there is, indeed, no one “driving the bus.”

Because the problem of pain is both logical and emotional, it is essential to address both sides effectively in order to develop a coherent worldview that can reconcile God and the reality of evil. I believe the starting point for the logical argument begins with understanding the nature of God and the nature of who He created us to be as humans. I have often heard people say that “God is love,” but I would submit—and I think it is an important distinction—that the statement should be reversed. God is not love; rather, love is God. That is to say, love itself flows from and is defined by the character of God. Love does note exist as a separate idea from God. There can be no love apart from Him, for He is its source.

Why do I make this distinction? Because when we understand the nature of love, we understand something of the personality of God—though not necessarily the whole. Nevertheless, we can look to some of the attributes of love to help us understand why God operates as He does. Two important facets stand out. First, love by its very nature is relational; it desires to love and to be loved in return. Second, love longs to live in communion with the one it loves; it desires not just quality but also quantity of time. These two aspects are important because they underscore one of the primary purposes for which God created us: He desired to create beings who would love Him in return and live forever in His presence, in perfect relationship with Him and with one another.

One thing we must consider, which is often overlooked, is that in order for a loving relationship to exist, both parties must be free to choose to love. Love cannot be forced or coerced. Freedom of will is an absolute, non-negotiable necessity for a loving relationship to exist. This is the crux of the discussion because it is this fact on which everything else turns. If God desires to create beings who love Him and can exist in an eternal loving relationship with Him, they must also be free to choose the opposite. In other words, evil—defined here as the rejection of God’s call to relationship—must, in principle, be a viable option for humanity.

The question then becomes: how does one create a world of perfect loving relationship while still maintaining the freedom to reject that world? The obvious answer is that those who are created must be given the option to choose whether they wish to enter into such a relationship—and those who reject it must be separated. Looking closely at the narrative of the Bible and what God has disclosed to us; this is exactly the scenario we find ourselves in. Our present lives serve as a decision point—whether we choose to love God and live according to His terms in relationship with Him forever, or to reject Him and eventually be separated from His presence. In effect, we find ourselves in the only logically consistent world that could exist, given what God has purposed to create.

I realize that while such an argument may help soothe the intellectual struggle of why God and evil can coexist, it does little to ease the emotional pain we feel when we see evil touch the innocent and not just those who reject God. This part of the discussion is perhaps the most difficult and complex to answer. The Bible gives us several reasons why this is the case, including the truth that none of us are innocent, that creation itself is under a curse which affects all of creation, and that one of the insidious aspects of evil and sin is that they do not just touch the offender but also those around them. I would like to go a step further and suggest that the feelings of pain and injustice we experience are not merely unfortunate byproducts of evil and sin that we are tasked by God to endure as a result of our rebellion, but that they actually serve a greater purpose—one which ultimately leads us back to God and makes sense of our emotions once properly understood.

CIPA (Chronic Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis) is a rare genetic disorder that inhibits a person’s ability to feel pain, temperature, or to sweat. At first glance, this might seem like a dream disorder—for who over the age of forty wouldn’t jump at the chance to be free of bodily pain? However, it doesn’t take much thought to realize the immense dangers of such a condition. Imagine placing your hand on a hot stove and being unable to feel the heat as it sears your skin. Imagine stepping on a nail that drives through the sole of your foot and feeling nothing. The reality for people with this disorder is that they must live under constant vigilance because they cannot tell when they’ve been injured or when something is wrong with their body.

From a biological standpoint, pain is an essential part of our experience. It tells us that something is wrong—that something is out of place. It is my contention that the emotional pain we feel from evil serves the same purpose in the spirit that physical pain does in the body. It tells us that something is wrong, that things are not as they should be. It is rare that we question why we are happy or joyful—it feels almost like the natural state we were created to live in. Sometimes our joy rises so far above our normal experience that we express awe and gratitude; however, we rarely stop to question its source. Not so with pain. We are acutely aware that such a state is not how we ought to be living.

This, I believe, is the heart of the matter: God allows pain to confirm to us that there is indeed something wrong with the world—that things are not as they are intended to be. C. S. Lewis makes a statement in his book The Problem of Pain that encapsulates this idea beautifully: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” The pain we feel is not in vain. It exists to awaken us to the reality that the world is not as it should be and to prod us to seek a solution—ultimately leading us back to God Himself.

In the end, such justifications may do little to dull the pain we feel from sin and evil. Yet this underscores the seriousness of the consequences of sin and evil, which God communicates through His Word. Nevertheless, the Gospel not only gives us a way to understand this reality but also provides a cure. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It is curious, I think, that God chose pain and evil—in the form of Jesus’ death on the cross—as the ultimate remedy. It seems that God specializes in taking what is bad and turning it on its head to produce good.

If you find yourself hurting and questioning whether God sees you or is even there, I pray that you consider that perhaps what you are feeling is not the reality of the world as it is, but a marker pointing you to the world as it should be, one that is ultimately filled with perfect love and free from pain and evil—one that God has made a way to reach through the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross.