Biblical Worldview - Part 9 - Why is there Evil and Suffering?
By Ben Quine
****The way we act is shaped by the way we look at the world. Our lives are shaped by our basic assumptions and convictions. These Worldview Articles will explore what a “worldview” is. Each person has a worldview, whether they know it or not, and it determines every decision and choice a person makes. Do you have a Biblical Worldview or are factors other than the Bible informing your choices and decisions. In this series of articles, we will take an in-depth look at 7 Vital Worldview Questions, as the starting place for building a Biblical Worldview. (These articles are adapted from David Quine’s Answers for Difficult Days “Seven Vital Worldview Questions.” David is Ben’s father and the founder of Cornerstone Curriculum a Biblically based Homeschool Curriculum.)
“I just don’t understand - why did this happen to me??” At some point or another, all of us have had questions to this effect. We all experience suffering, pain, and loss, and sometimes the pain is so great that it can be difficult to understand how God could allow it. We may even question His power or goodness: “If God were all-powerful, but permits evil and suffering to exist, then He must not be all-good. If He were all-good, but all this evil and suffering exists, then He must not be all-powerful!” And we inevitably end up with the question, “Where does all this evil and suffering come from?”
Throughout history, humanity has struggled with the problem of evil and suffering. God’s Word gives us the answers we need. To get our theological grip on this question, let us cover a few foundational concepts:
1. God’s Character
Our starting place is God Himself. Look at how the Bible describes Him:
You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. (Psalm 119:68)
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! (Psalm 34:8)
He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD. (Psalm 33:5)
God is good. He is upright. He is righteous. He is holy. He is just. He is perfect. All His actions reflect these attributes. He is intrinsically good, and He cannot do evil. God loves goodness, righteousness, and justice, and works to foster these characteristics in His children!
2. God’s Creation
What sort of universe would we expect an intrinsically good God to create?
And God saw that the light was good. (Genesis 1:4)
God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:10)
The earth brought forth vegetation, plants… and trees… And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:12)
And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars… And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:16-18)
So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:21)
And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:25)
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them… And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:27, 31)
God created a universe that, according to His own evaluation, was good. After He personally formed humanity in His image from the dust of the ground, God pronounced all of creation to be “very good.”
Did God create an evil world? No, everything He created was good, and the source of evil is not in God.
3. Humanity
And [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great first commandment. (Matthew 22:37-38)
God did give humanity (or “Man”) a very special feature: we were created to have a loving relationship with God.
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)
In the garden of Eden, God gave His children one single prohibition. It was through this command that Adam and Eve would demonstrate their trust in God, their obedience to God, and their love for God.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned (Romans 5:8-21)
Man (Adam and Eve) chose to disobey God. Their rebellion against God brought the curse on creation, ushering in death and pain and hurt.
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children… And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you… By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:16-19)
Did God create humans as robots, with no ability to make personal moral choices? Are we merely acting out our part in a pre-scripted drama, marching against our will into disobedience? No, He made Adam and Eve as free moral beings who could choose to love and obey or choose to rebel.
This is important to establish because if God pre-programmed humanity to sin, He would be responsible. He did not, and therefore He is not the cause or source of evil.
Adam’s disobedience brought evil and suffering into the world. The universe is no longer the “very good” place it once was, at creation. Our sin is responsible for the evil in the world today and for the brokenness of the earth, its creatures, and its produce. Since we were created very well and meant to be in a loving relationship with an intrinsically good God, we can freely acknowledge that suffering is abnormal to the way God intended for us to live.
I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, sending them persistently, saying, ‘Turn now every one of you from his evil way, and amend your deeds, and do not go after other gods to serve them, and then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to you and your fathers.’ But you did not incline your ear or listen to me. (Jeremiah 35:15)
Say to them, As I live, declares the LORD GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 33:11)
God lovingly calls each one of us to turn, to repent. Again and again, He sent prophets to urge His children to return to Him.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (II Corinthians 5:20)
God has urged each one of us to be reconciled to God through the completed work of Jesus Christ.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20)
If you have never accepted God’s free gift of salvation, now is the time: Jesus is standing at the door, ready to come in, if you will only ask him!
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Secular worldviews do not have an answer as to why evil is bad and why suffering is abnormal: Modernism teaches that right or wrong is merely a subjective personal standard, and that “your truth isn’t my truth.” Darwinism holds that all nature is simply moving along the evolutionary process and that all suffering is “natural selection” at work, weeding out the weaker species and selecting “the more favored races.” Pantheism and Dualism teach a yin-yang concept of god— that evil is just the other side of good, like the Force in Star Wars. And that if we truly became one with the universe, we would understand that nothing is either good or bad. “There is no good news or bad news. There is only news.” Polytheism holds that might make right since the stronger gods and stronger humans get to set the rules.
Yet, in spite of the fact that their philosophies teach there is nothing inherently wrong with evil, many people today recognize the wrongness of evil, and point the finger back to God as responsible for their suffering. The problem of evil does not incriminate God.
The Biblical Worldview holds to Scripture’s clear teaching that suffering and death represent the brokenness of God’s universe and that human sin (beginning with Adam and continuing to you and me) has brought terrible consequences into our lives and the lives of those around us. Most of the time our sensibilities fail to grasp the immense gravity and depravity of sin, which gives birth to so much wanton death and destruction. Most of the social issues we face (injustice, oppression, racism, etc.) are the direct result of sin and require a spiritual solution.
So, why doesn’t God simply remove all evil from the world? We’ll talk about that in the next article.
Ben Quine is Vice President of Christians Engaged and is the Director of Curriculum Development and Strategic Ministry Partnerships.
Learn more about Ben on our website: christiansengaged.org/leadership
Find Ben’s corresponding “Answers for Difficult Days” books in our Christians Engaged Store