Problem of Evil 2 of 3: Christian Philosophical Problems
If, we are speaking with someone—or ourselves—grappling with the apparent philosophical contradiction of a good, powerful God who allows evil to continue and flourish, we might take a more philosophical approach. We need to understand how two apparently contradictory ideas both can exist.
One introduction to the solution is to read the first three chapters (Genesis 1-3) and the last three chapters (Revelation 20-22) of the Bible in one sitting. Besides being aesthetically pleasing, demonstrating how the basic conflict of the scriptural narrative is first posed and then resolved at the beginning and ending of time, this approach has the advantage of succinctly summarizing both the problem and the solution of evil.
An obvious observation: if there is no God, how do we know what evil is? Is it just stuff that we don’t like? “I really don’t like all of this pain and suffering in the world. It annoys me!” That most certainly is not what the skeptic is saying. Our moral sensibilities are offended by evil. An atheist friend once argued with me about the injustice of traffic cameras. “What’s wrong with traffic cameras?” I asked. “I have no chance to confront my accuser,” he replied. My friend was appealing to a non-material rule of justice. If it was unjust for him to be accused and convicted of a traffic violation without being able to confront his accuser, then there must be something right and wrong about the principle, something which is actually non-material. It’s not just what traffic cameras do; it’s that they shouldn’t do it. As soon as we say “should” we are appealing to something beyond the natural world. If there’s nothing right or wrong about the principle, if it is only what my friend didn’t like, I suppose we could respond, “Well who cares about that anyway?” Of course, my friend was claiming to be treated unjustly, in a transcendent sense. Similarly, the skeptic’s complaint about evil in the world appeals to a sense of non-material injustice. It’s not just a matter of taste; it’s wrong. We could reply, “Exactly! People ought not to be treated like that. God doesn’t like it.” That in a nutshell is an answer to the problem of evil. Bad stuff happens; God doesn’t like it. So, the problem of evil is, in a way, an affirmation not a denial of God’s existence.
The problem of evil certainly raises a couple of very important issues. First, what does God owe us in terms of happiness, explanations, and our desires? My oldest son said it well. His skeptical friends seem to think that God owes us something. However, he thinks, and I agree with him, that God does not owe us anything at all. On the contrary, we owe him everything. If we start with the assumption that God owes us something, we will have a hard time hearing any explanation of evil. Nothing can heal the soul wounded by frustrated entitlement.
The most frequent expression of the theodicy defense seems to be human free will and the consequences of our choices. That is, the old-fashioned word sin illuminates the source of moral evil in this world. The child who suffers abuse at the hands of her father is suffering because of the father’s sin, and the father may be inflicting suffering because of abuse he suffered as a child. While I’m not entirely certain about how “free” our wills are, the Bible certainly does teach choice: we have choices and God has choices.
This raises two questions. First, most people don’t think that they are that bad. Yes, nobody’s perfect but most of us aren’t serial killers. So, we are suffering unjustly even though we are pretty much innocent. We don’t deserve to be treated as badly as we often are. We’re pretty much good people, so we believe, who are treated worse than we deserve.
Second, why does God tolerate this intolerable state of affairs, allowing evil to fester and grow? Why doesn’t he wipe it out if he is so loving and powerful?
I’m quite sure that I cannot address these two questions to everyone’s satisfaction. However, as an oversimplification, I can observe the following about the two questions. First, the notion that we aren’t that bad directly contradicts the biblical view of sin. If, as I am suggesting, our own sin is worse than we think, then as a consequence we are contributing more pain and suffering to the state of affairs in this world than we are willing to acknowledge, or perhaps are even aware.
The notion that sin consists primarily of doing bad things—like shoplifting or lying or saying nasty things about others or hurting people—is mistaken, from a biblical standpoint. Those are all symptoms of the great sin of which we humans are pretty much universally guilty. That great sin is refusing to devoutly acknowledge and live with reverence toward the Creator.
This is no trivial transgression. It would be as if I refused to acknowledge that you exist, or perhaps I acknowledge that you exist but don’t matter at all, or as if a country refused to acknowledge that another country existed. Under such circumstances a relationship would be pretty much impossible. All too often we humans see God and Jesus as disruptions at best, if we even acknowledge the Creator’s presence at all. Obviously, this state of affairs results in all kinds of transgressions, toward our fellow humans (whom we would treat with respect and love if we really were devoted to the Creator), because we don’t acknowledge the Creator’s superior wisdom when it comes to how we should treat one another. This is a big problem. It is like children who refuse to respect or even acknowledge their parents, or a classroom full of students who ignore their teacher. This is not a side issue. On the contrary, there is no relationship even possible with the parent or the teacher if that is the children’s or students’ posture. Cutting oneself off from one’s parents or teacher is bad enough; cutting oneself off from the Creator is terminal. So, my first answer is that sin is considerably worse than we would like to admit, with commensurate consequences in this life, to say nothing of the next. When the Bible says, “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:9) it is speaking, I believe, of the sin of refusing to devoutly acknowledge and live with reverence toward the Creator.
The second question is why doesn’t God just wipe out evil? While I suppose he could, he seems to be interested in postponing the destruction of evil. And please be aware that the question seems to presume that there is such a thing as evil that God could wipe out. Evil doesn’t really exist by itself. While people do evil things, the evil doesn’t exist outside of our actions. We can’t really locate the hiding place of evil, as if it was a kind of bacteria or infection, we could eradicate by firebombing it. Even so, according to the Bible, there was a time when God completely wiped out all evil, which he accomplished by destroying all of humanity (Genesis 6:1-7:4) and there will come a time when he does it again, after his plan has worked its way out (2 Peter 3:8-13). If, as I have said, the Bible presents evil as rebellion against God, and God wipes out all evil, and we’re all pretty much stubbornly committed devotees to this kind of evil, he’d have to wipe us all out. His alternative is to allow evil to continue until a time of his choosing, until an adequate measure of people have repented and turned to him. We live in the meantime, when evil continues to flourish—and people continue to turn to him. During this life we can choose to align ourselves with God or not. If the Bible is true, it’s not so much a philosophical choice as it is a matter of choosing personal survival or destruction.
This article is second of three blog pieces on the problem of evil, a problem that some skeptics consider to be philosophically problematic or even contradictory. It is an excerpt from my book Five Languages of Evidence: How to Speak about Reasons for Christianity in a Post-truth World. Not yet published; available upon request.
Next post: Christian Philosophical Problems: the problem of evil 3