A current discussion I have with a Friend on the problem of Evil

I didn't want to lose this response I wrote, so I'll put it on my blog for safekeeping...

I was asked to give some clarification as to why God allows evil.. and so I used Peter Kreeft, as well as scripture to help.

Hey (friends name), sorry for the delay again... it's been busy as you can imagine.

But I haven't forgotten about your question. To understand the problem of evil in the world, suffering, death and injustice and why a good, all powerful God would allow it begs a couple of questions. First, if God made everything (the universe and everything in it), it stems to reason that God made evil too. But did God make evil? And secondly, what is God going to do with it? Why doesn't he just destroy evil right now. Why do we have to continue suffering if as scripture tells us God is love... "Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love (1 John 4:8)."

To the first question... if God made everything in the universe, did he make evil? We see the beautiful things in creation everyday, from all the things around us to the people whom we love and so on... and we look at those beautiful things and we can reason that our God must be beauty itself and those things participate in His beauty. But then we also see evil things happening all the time too, and it is especially hard to understand when it happens to the most innocent in society, particularly children. Did God make that happen? Did God who is beauty, make evil too?

The answer is no... God made everything, and everything he made is good by it's very existence because He is goodness Himself, (even when a thing does not perform according to it's nature which it was designed to, like when an apple tree does not grow apples because of a disease, the apple tree is still good by the fact that it exist and God made it, but what is not good is that it does not do what it was designed to do). In this example, we can ask, did God make the apple tree with a default, or did he allow the default to exist?

Take another example, If I had a rock (which by itself is good, in that it exist) and I threw it at you and hit you with it, that would be evil right? Yes, but the rock itself is not evil, my action would be evil. God made the rock, God made my two hands, God made me with free will, but he did not make the evil action, I made that, in that example, I made the choice to hit you with the rock. I chose to not do what I was created to do, which is mainly to know and love God and neighbor.

The point is, God does not create evil.... evil is not a thing to be created, evil is a privation (a lack of) of something that is suppose to be there. So that when I performed that evil act of hitting you with a rock, I was created with the power to throw things, which is good, but I chose (because I also have free will) to not use that power in a good way. That's moral evil. There is also natural evil, which would be the apple tree example. An apple tree that does not produce fruit is a natural evil, not a moral evil, but nevertheless is an evil in that what that apple tree was created to do, it is not doing. God didn't create the apple tree to be barren, but because of a privation of goodness (in this case a disease), which is natural evil (not created by God), the apple tree is not producing fruit.

The point being, that evil is not created, it is a privation of good, not a thing, but a lack of a thing. That's important to understand because all evil really is, is a lack of something that is suppose to be there. Evil is not a created thing. God who is all good, cannot by his own nature, create something which is not good.

That leads to the second question... we know that evil (lack of good) things happen all the time in the world, what is an all Good, all Powerful God doing about it, and why does he allow it to continue?

Why did God allow Hitler and the Nazi's to kill 6 million Jews? That's an obvious example, so we'll go with that... could not have God intervened to stop it? Could not God have intervened to stop Hurricane Katrina, or 9/11, etc?

The answer to this question can be understood when we begin to realize that God is a perfect parent.

We believe that our God created us in his image and likeness, and we were created good with certain powers, namely the powers to be who we were created to be. Human beings, who are again in his image and likeness are the only creatures (that we know of) that were created with a complete and total rational intellect and free will. And why is that? Because God is love, and we image his love... and love by it's own nature is an act which must be chosen. God could have created us like robots and forced us to do what he designed us to do, but that would be denying the true nature of Love which would be to deny himself, because he is Love. God wants us to choose Love but he won't force us to.

So, back to the good parent analogy. You have children, soon, James will be in school and be given homework assignments. Now, as a good parent, you will help James but you won't just do his homework for him. Children don't always like homework and yet parents (if they are normal) know better than to just do all the work for the child. Why? Because if they did all the homework, the children would never learn anything, and that wouldn't be good for them. This example is elementary and obvious but it helps make a point.

Homework is a pain sometimes, and parents could take that pain away from their children but they don't. Are parents evil because they don't take the pain of having to do homework away? No, of course not, they are good, even though they let their children suffer the pains of homework.

The same is true with God, God allows us to suffer sometimes but that does not make Him evil. Okay, but sufferings in the world are a lot worse than the suffering of homework. True, and we can't necessarily understand why God allows sufferings to continue, but we do believe he allows it for the same reason he does everything, and that reason is that He loves us.

We don't have the answers for why he lets horrible things happen to good people, especially children, and if we did, we wouldn't have to believe in Him, we wouldn't have to Trust Him. He asks us to trust Him, even when we don't understand. There are many stories and passages in scripture which relay this Truth. Proverbs 3:5-- "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, on your own intelligence rely not".... Matthew 6:25-34; The story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis, Abraham had to rely totally on Trust when he was put to the test; and I could quote many more... the point is that God's ways are above our ways, and that is why we must always pray for Faith and that we will be given the Grace we need to overcome any temptations to despair... this takes a real humility... read 2 Corinthians 12 starting from verse 5 onward.

Now, evil is in the world as a privation, and we know it is, and we know God allows it, but that does not mean that we are to just a passive attitude towards it. We have to fight it! But we can't fight evil with evil.. We must fight it in ourselves, and in the world but with those tools that are used for good, not bad.

And God did not originate evil as we stated, but he is there fighting it with us, and even IN us, When we fight against injustice, and tyranny, and all the evils of the world, God is fighting that fight in and through us.

God could clean up all the evil now, but he wants us to fight. He wants us to grow to love, just like good parents want their children to grow to be good people. God allows evil in the world for only one reason, so that a greater good can come of it.

The good news is that God himself took on Human flesh and defeated evil so we are fighting a battle that is already won.

I'll continue this discussion later as to what role Sin has waged on us, and how Jesus has conquered death which came through Sin later... but I hope some of this helps. It's a good refresher for me.