Responding to the Problem of Evil

Before we talk about the problem of evil. We need to talk about some basics briefly. You may have discussed this before but it bears repeating.

What is Apologetics?

Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics Apologetics, Need For

Apologetics, Need for. Apologetics is the discipline that deals with a rational defense of Christian faith. It comes from the Greek word apologia which means to give a reason or defense.

This is where we get our word apology. But in our common language it does not mean to say your sorry. There are import reasons to participate in and understand apologetics.

Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics God Commands It

God Commands It. The most important reason to do apologetics is that God told us to do so. The classic statement is 1 Peter 3:15, which says, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

There are other reasons and scripture that can be quoted and discussed. But for our purposes here that will suffice.

Part of apologetics is using well reasoned arguments top defend the Gospel.

How would you define an argument?

“Argument” is used in two senses. It may mean a dispute involving two or more people: “And an argument arose among them” (Lk. 9:46; cf. Prov. 29:9), or a reason advanced as proof of a position: “I would … fill my mouth with arguments” (Job 23:4; cf. 19:5). The latter sense is probably in view when Paul speaks of destroying “arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5);

Maahs, K. H. (1979–1988). Argue; Argument. In G. W. Bromiley (Ed.), The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (Vol. 1, p. 289). Wm. B. Eerdmans.

It is important to remember that these “arguments” can be powerful. And they can knock people off their feet with the worldview that they hold. So it is important that we also give people a place to land. That is at the heart of love for both people and evangelism of the Gospel.

So what we just did was to define two important concepts. Anytime we are in a discussion. The very first and vital thing we must do is to define our terms, in order to clearly explain what we mean by certain words. Many people (believers and nonbelievers) often fail to do this. Usually for two reasons. One is they do not know what it is they believe. Others tend to “equivocate” . How many of you know what that them means? This is sometimes a deliberate attempt to be vague.

So when it comes to understanding and responding to the problem of evil. What should we first define?

Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case Chapter 5: Evil

The Shadows Prove the Sunshine

How do you define Evil?

Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case Chapter 5: Evil

The problem of evil comes in two varieties. There is moral evil, exemplified when human beings choose to hurt one another. And then there is natural evil, which involves suffering and death brought on by natural events.

While it’s commonly thought that only Christianity has to explain both of these types of evil, the truth is every worldview does. Eastern pantheistic religions try to get around the problem by denying evil exists. Evil is an illusion, they say (and so are you!). Theists say evil is real and try to explain how evil and God can coexist. Atheists tend to be caught in the middle. In one breath they are claiming there is no good, evil, or justice. It’s all an illusion —we just “dance to the music” of our DNA. In the next breath they are outraged at the great injustices and evil done by religious people in the name of God.

Well, atheists can’t have it both ways. Either evil exists or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t exist, then atheists should stop complaining about the “evil” religious people have done because they haven’t really done any. They’ve just been “dancing to the music” of their DNA. If atheism is true, all behaviors are merely a matter of preference anyway. On the other hand, if evil actually does exist, then atheists have an even bigger problem. The existence of evil actually establishes the existence of God.

To explain why, we need to go back to Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430), one of the greatest philosophers and theologians of all time. Augustine initially thought that evil impugned the nature of God. He puzzled over the following argument:

1. God created all things.

2. Evil is a thing.

3. Therefore, God created evil.

How could a good God create evil? If those first two premises are true, He did. So God must not be good after all. But then Augustine realized that the second premise is not true. While evil is real, it’s not a “thing.” Evil doesn’t exist on its own. It only exists as a lack or a deficiency in a good thing.[1]

Evil is like rust in a car: If you take all of the rust out of a car, you have a better car; if you take the car out of the rust, you have nothing. Evil is like a cut in your finger: If you take the cut out of your finger, you have a better finger; if you take the finger out of your cut, you have nothing. In other words, evil only makes sense against the backdrop of good. That’s why we often describe evil as negations of good things. We say someone is immoral, unjust, unfair, dishonest, etc.

So evil can’t exist unless good exists. But good can’t exist unless God exists. In other words, there can be no objective evil unless there is objective good, and there can be no objective good unless God exists. If evil is real —and we all know it is —then God exists.

We could put it this way: The shadows prove the sunshine. There can be sunshine without shadows, but there can’t be shadows without sunshine. In other words, there can be good without evil, but there can’t be evil without good; and there can’t be objective good without God. So evil may show there’s a devil out there, but it can’t disprove God. Evil actually boomerangs back to show that God exists.

C. S. Lewis was once an atheist who thought evil disproved God. But he later realized he was stealing from God in order to argue against Him. He wrote, “[As an atheist] my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”[2]

Stealing from God is what the new atheists tend to do when they complain about evil done in God’s name. Christopher Hitchens was right —religious people have done evil things. But the molecules-in-motion atheism to which Hitchens subscribed has no means by which to establish anything as good or evil. The same is true with Richard Dawkins. When he complains about the evil God of the Old Testament, he has to steal goodness from God to even make sense of his complaint. He has to sit in God’s lap to slap His face.

Handbook of Christian Apologetics Definitions

Evil

The two most common misunderstandings about evil that make the problem more difficult than it needs to be are (1) the tendency to see evil as a being and (2) the confusion between two very different kinds of evil, physical evil and moral evil.

1. Evil is not a being, thing, substance or entity. This was Augustine’s great breakthrough (Confessions) that liberated him from Manichaean dualism (the belief in two ultimate beings, one good, one evil). He realized that all being is good metaphysically, or ontologically, or in its being. For all being is either the Creator or his creature. He himself is good, and he declared everything he created good (Genesis 1). And that is all the being there is.

If evil were a being, the problem of evil would be insolvable, for then either God made it—and thus he is not all-good—or else God did not make it—and thus he is not the all-powerful creator of all things. But evil is not a thing. Things are not evil in themselves. For instance, a sword is not evil. Even the stroke of the sword that chops off your head is not evil in its being—in fact, unless it is a “good” stroke, it will not chop your head off. Where is the evil? It is in the will, the choice, the intent, the movement of the soul, which puts a wrong order into the physical world of things and acts: the order between the sword and an innocent’s neck rather than a murderer’s neck or an innocent’s bonds.

Even the devil is good in his being. He is a good thing gone bad—in fact, a very good thing gone very bad. If he had not had the greatest ontological goodness (goodness in his being) of a powerful mind and will, he could never have become as morally corrupt as he is. “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” Corruptio optimi pessima, “the corruption of the best things are the worst things.” To be morally bad, you must first be ontologically good.

Even physical evil is not a thing. The lack of power in a paralyzed limb is physical evil, but it is not a thing, like another limb. Blindness is a physical evil, but it is not a thing, like an eye. The cataract that causes the evil is not itself the evil.

Is evil then merely subjective? A fantasy, an illusion? No, for if it were a mere subjective illusion, then the fact that we fear this mere illusion would be really evil. As Augustine says, “thus either the evil that we fear is real, or the fact that we fear it is evil.”

Evil is real, but it is not a real thing. It is not subjective, but it is not a substance. Augustine defines evil as disordered love, disordered will. It is a wrong relationship, a nonconformity between our will and God’s will. God did not make it; we did. That is the obvious point of Genesis 1 and 3, the stories of God’s good creation and humanity’s evil fall.

The point, once seen, is so simple and obvious that we take it for granted. But without it, we would very likely embrace one of two popular heresies: either (1) the idea that we, not God, are the creators of good, the denial of Genesis 1, or (2) the idea that God, not we, is the creator of evil, the denial of Genesis 3. (New Age pantheistic idealism combines both of these heresies.)

2. The second major confusion about evil is to fail to distinguish between moral evil and physical evil, sin and suffering, the evil we actively do and the evil we passively suffer, the evil we freely will and the evil that is against our will, the evil we are directly responsible for and the evil we are not.

We need two different explanations for these two different kinds of evil, to explain both their causes and their cures. The origin of sin is human free will. The immediate origin of suffering is nature, or rather the relationship between ourselves and nature. We stub our toe, or get pneumonia, or drown.

Thus God is off the hook for sin, but not for suffering, it seems—unless the origin of suffering can also be traced to sin. This is what the story in Genesis 3 does. Without explaining how, it tells us that the thorns and thistles and the sweat of the brow and the pain of childbirth all are the result of our sin.

So what then is the argument against God and christianity with the existence of evil?

There is no silver bullet

The problem of evil is perhaps the most common objection non-believers have to the existence of God. If God is allegedly all-powerful and all-loving, why does he allow the horrific evil we witness in history or in our daily lives? Is He too weak to stop evil, or simply unwilling? Does the existence of evil negate the reasonable existence of God? Like many short, rhetorically powerful objections to God’s existence, there are sound and adequate responses theists can offer, but few that can be articulated with brevity. Any attempt to answer the problem of evil is called a “theodicy” (from the Greek theos “god” and dike “justice”): “a vindication of God’s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil”. Like many of the criminal cases I work as a detective, the case for God’s existence (given the presence of evil) is a case made cumulatively.

It requires us to consider a number of evidences pointing the same conclusion, and to prepare for the attack any one of these evidences is likely to experience when skeptics attempt to isolate them from the larger case. Any effort to defend the existence of God from the problem of evil must address and include the following cumulative set of truths:

Some points we have to consider

The Relationship Between Moral Evil and Human Freedom Our theodicy must articulate the nature of love and God’s desire to create a world in which love is possible. True love requires that humans have the ability to freely choose; love cannot be forced if it is to be heartfelt and real. Freedom of this nature is often costly. A world in which people have the freedom to love and perform great acts of kindness is also a world in which people have the freedom to hate and commit great acts of evil. You cannot have one without the other, and we understand this intuitively.

The Relationship Between Human Suffering and the Nature of God Our theodicy must also articulate the nature and values of God and the temporary nature of our temporal lives. As difficult as it may seems in times of suffering, our response must at least address several important aspects of God. (1) A good God values character over comfort. Creature comforts are temporary, but character transcends time. (2) A transcendent God understands that ‘love’ is the perfect balance between mercy and justice. We, as humans, often hold a very temporal understanding of love; we think of love as that warm instantaneous feeling, that lustful desire, or that passionate season of romance. But God understands that true love transcends the moment and often requires discernment, discipline and judgment. (3) An eternal God provides humans with an existence beyond the grave. We usually want our desire for comfort, love, mercy and justice to be satisfied in this life (and immediately if at all possible!) But our pursuit of immediate gratification often leads us to do things that are ultimately harmful to ourselves and to others.

The Relationship Between Natural Evil and God’s Existence Our theodicy must address the sometimes hidden or obscured causes of natural evil (like earthquakes, tsunamis or even birth defects. We must address a number of collective factors: (1) God may tolerate some natural evil because it is the necessary consequence of a free natural process that makes it possible for freewill creatures to thrive. (2) God may also tolerate some natural evil because it is the necessary consequence of human free agency. (3) God may permit some natural evil because it challenges people to think about God for the first time. (4) God may permit some natural evil because it provides humans with the motivation and opportunity to develop Godly character.

The Relationship Between Immoral Christian Behavior and a Moral God Our theodicy must be prepared to defend the existence of the Christian God, in light of the sometimes immoral behavior of “Christians”. While history may include examples of “Christian” groups committing evil upon those with whom they disagreed, a fair examination will also reveal they were not alone in this sort of behavior. Groups holding virtually every worldview, from theists to atheists, have been mutually guilty of evil behavior. The common denominator in these violent human groups was not worldview; it was the presence of humans. Regardless of worldview, humans will try to find a way to justify their evil actions. The question is not which group is more violent but which worldview most authorizes and accommodates this violence.

The Relationship Between Our Understanding and God’s Actions Our theodicy must address the nature and actions of God through history, particularly when God has commanded the destruction of particular people groups. It’s easy for us to judge the words and actions of God as if He were just another human, subject to an objective standard transcending Him. But when we judge God’s actions in this way, we are ignoring His unique authority and power: (1) If there is a God, all of creation is His handiwork. He has the right to create and destroy what is His, even when this destruction may seem unfair to the artwork itself. (2) If there is a God, all of us are His patients. He has the wisdom and authority to treat us as He sees fit, even when we might not be able to understand the overarching danger we face if drastic action isn’t taken. (3) If there is a God, He is more concerned about saving us for eternity than He is about making our mortal lives safe.

The Relationship Between Evil and Eternity Our theodicy must also address our limited view of reality. If the Christian worldview is true, we are eternal beings who will live forever. Our experience and understanding of pain and evil must be contextualized within eternity, not within our temporal lives. Whatever we experience here in our earthly life, no matter how difficult or painful it may be, must be seen through the lens of forever. Our eternal life with God will be a life without suffering, without pain and without evil. As our eternal life with God stretches beyond our temporal experience, whatever suffering or injustice we might have experienced here on earth will seem like it occurred in the blink of an eye.

The Nature of Objective Evil and the Existence of God Finally, our theodicy must recognize the futility of any objection to evil unless we can first ground the definition of good and bad (right and wrong) in the existence of a transcendent source for such concepts. If evil is simply a matter of personal or cultural opinion, we could eliminate evil by simply changing our minds. If notions of evil transcend each of us personally and apply to all cultures regardless of location or time in history (like the claim, “it’s never OK to torture babies for the fun of it”), we’ve got to discover the transcendent source for our definitions. There can be no transcendently sufficient definition of evil unless there is a transcendent standard of righteousness. Evil, as a concept, ceases to have meaning unless it can be compared and measured against an objective standard of virtue. Those who complain about evil see it as more than personal opinion, but to do so, they must borrow their objective standard from a transcendent, theistic worldview.

Any adequate response to the problem of evil must robustly address the collective, cumulative case. Even in trying to briefly reconstruct the case, I’ve exceeded the word count I typically use for my daily blog. This is the problem with answering the problem of evil. While the objection can be stated in a sentence of two, the response cannot. This shouldn’t surprise us; when a defendant says simply, “I didn’t do it; I wasn’t there,” the necessary response from the prosecuting team will take weeks to articulate. But when we’re done, the cumulative case will be persuasive, even though any one small piece of this case may be less than convincing. This is the nature of cumulative cases, and this is the nature of our theodicy.

How Should you Respond?

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist Appendix 1: If God, Why Evil?

Atheist: If there really is an all-good, all-powerful, theistic God, then why does he allow evil?

Christian: How do you know what evil is unless you know what good is? And how do you know what good is unless there is an objective standard of good beyond yourself?

The power of questions

Emotional and intellectual arguments.

Emotional is often not atheistic. You have to get to the question behind the question to deal with the emotional component.

2 simple questions anyone can ask.

What do you mean by that?

How did you come to that conclusion?

What is the goal of your conversation?

Put a stone in their shoe.

My story from Work

Learn to lead with love

There will be occasions when the problem of evil will surface. But most likely it will not be the intellectual. The truth is the majority of every day people you deal with will be more on the emotional end of the topic. And so then how should we respond?

We must learn to grieve with those who are grieving, acknowledging they have suffered from an experience with real evil. Paul tells us in Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Second, we must wait until the sufferer is ready to consider the philosophical arguments. This may be a long wait, so prepare yourself by entrusting the person to God. This is the time to remind ourselves of the sovereignty of the Lord. We do not change hearts and minds; only God can do this. However, it may be that a person already knows the answers, like Anna, and just needs a loving reminder of the conclusions she already reached. Third, when a person is ready to consider the philosophical arguments, I propose a look at the problem from different viewpoints: what is pain, suffering, and evil in a world without God? What are the counseling resources available in other worldviews to deal with the emotional response to evil?17

While there is no quick-and-easy multiple-step resolution to addressing the emotional problem of evil, we can take steps to handle the tough questions of life now, instead of waiting for a crisis (ours or others) to question what we believe and why we believe. It may seem odd to suggest that one studies apologetics as a means of preparing to work through pain, but that is exactly what I suggest. Though we can never really be one hundred percent ready for the emotional impact suffering brings into our lives, at least we can become familiar with, and perhaps even find a conclusion to, the argument from evil before a devastating blow strikes our lives. We can find and interact with the answers to “Is God good?” and “Why do bad things happen to good people?” In finding answers, we can also find deeper trust in God, which in turn can affect our emotional responses to evil. As Neil stated at his daughter’s memorial service, “Our apologetics verifies our theology. Our theology directs our hope and our hope guides our emotions.”