How to answer “Why do evil and suffering exist?”

Question

I believe that evil exists because God gave us free will. Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Because of this The Fall of man happened and drew us away from God. Suffering exists not only because God can exert justice on the evil of the earth but also because God can grow people and bring them to greater revelation through suffering.

Is this a correct argument? If so how do I expand and support it to make a good response to a non-Christian who says something like:

• I can't believe in a good God when there is evil and suffering in the world.

*Note my argument assumes a non-Christian who knows some of the basics of Christianity. To be clear, I intend for my question to be broad in the sense that a non-Christian also includes those of various other faiths and those that might not believe God exists.

Answer 1

This is called the problem of theodicy. The assumptions usually made in the problem statement are, with a little variance:

1. God is almighty and all-knowing
2. God does not want evil in the world
3. God is good

The problem goes on to state the fact that there is evil in the world, and claims a contradiction between the assumptions and this observation.

I see really no problem here. If just (1) was true, God could certainly do anything. If (1) and (2) were true, there certainly would be no evil in the world. But if (3) were true, God would do only things that are good, regardless of whether He could.

Now we have (1), (2) and (3). God could do anything, but since He is good he will not do just anything. There's no contradiction. God could remove all evil, but that would not be good.

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Up to that point it's all just logic. The reason that removing evil would not be good is more a matter of speculation. I suspect it has to do with free will: people are allowed to choose between good and evil, and removing the choice would be worse than the evil that ensues. This is just my speculation. God surely has His reasons.

Goodness doesn't always mean doing what is the most convenient to me. Quoting C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed,

What do people mean when they say, "I am not afraid of God because I know He is good"? Have they never even been to a dentist?

Answer 2

From the perspective of a non-Christian, the explanation you put forth makes no sense. It relies on a number of assumptions that a non-Christian doesn't necessarily hold. Regardless of whether it makes sense in the context of your belief system, it does not make sense to a non-Christian.

For example:

• If evil is the result of the actions of Adam and Eve, what was it when the serpent tempted Eve to break God's rule? Either the serpent was evil, in which case evil predates the actions of Adam and Eve (thus they didn't cause it), or the serpent's actions weren't evil, which brings into question whether the actions of Adam and Eve were.

• If suffering were merely a tool of God to bring us closer to Him, then why would children too young to have committed sin, or to understand the idea of God (let alone God himself) face unbearable suffering? Why is so much suffering purposeless? What's the point of free will if God is micromanaging everything that happens to us in such a confusing and unpredictable way (i.e. if this was to teach us a lesson, wouldn't it be a clear relationship between behavior and punishment/incentive like we use to bring up children?

From the perspective of a non-Christian, the only ways I can find to posit both the existence of evil and suffering as observed on earth and the existence of God as depicted by the Christians are the following:

• God truly gave us free will (not the typically-described "free will except where it conflicts with God's plan"), and some people use it to do good things, while others use it to do bad things... others just do stupid things. In other words: blame people.

• Evil is a force separate from the will of God, with which God is battling for control. Sometimes the other side gets a point.

What makes these different? (Note, I'm not saying they are true in the context of Christianity; I'm giving examples of the kinds of reasoning that actually make sense without certain assumptions of Christian philosophy and culture behind them.) If you tell someone who isn't already assuming that God is X that Y must be true because God is X, you can't get anywhere unless you can prove that God is X.

Short of actually meeting God amid some grand supernatural display that could not possibly have been created by man, the only way to try to convince someone of the existence of God is through positing a God-dependent explanation of things we can observe, but cannot otherwise explain. When those explanations are self-contradictory, rife with logical fallacy, or conflict with our observations of the world around us, they are quite unconvincing.

Answer 3

I think you have a good reason for why evil exists, but I would follow that with suffering exists because evil exists. I don't agree that all suffering is punishment from God. He may allow for suffering, because He can use it in our lives to make us perfect.

Another root reason is that God allows for our free will. He does not want us to be robot worshipers, but gave us the choice to follow Him or not. Many abuse that choice and do not follow him, whether that's through Satan working in their lives to tempt them away from God or simply not knowing. It is through that choice, that they do evil and allow it in this world.

Answer 4

There are two basic approaches:

1. Blame Mankind

Evil and suffering exist because of mankind's disobedience to God. Exactly how this works is more difficult to comprehend. Certainly a lot of suffering is the direct result of man's actions, but other types of suffering - things like natural disasters - can't be justified quite so easily. They may be understood as the indirect result of man's actions, but demonstrating this brings its difficulties (a literal interpretation of Genesis makes this easier to explain but brings its own challanges).

2. Glorify God

We don't understand everything about why people suffer, but we can say what God's response is to it:

1. Jesus came into the world and suffered along side us
2. Jesus worked tirelessly to reduce the suffering of others
3. Jesus died to free us from the sin that causes so much of our suffering
4. Jesus rose again with the promise of a life to come that is free of suffering

Answer 5

In my understanding there are different kinds of evil. A Christian needs to be able to discern between the different evils that are in this world. God knew that men would be evil, this is probably the reason why He created a realm just for man to reside within because God was probably not willing to let us defile the heavens.

God disciplining His children.

When you become a child of God, things are not always easier. God will discipline His children as if He were pruning a tree that it might produce better fruit.

Hebrews 12:7 NIV

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?

Many people do not recognize this as discipline, but instead see hardship as evil and/or suffering in the world. In the book of James we are told to take on this Hardship with Joy.

God is the source of Wrath/Evil for a just cause

Let's not discount God's ability to bring wrath and destruction onto/into the world. See in these next verses where God has actually promissed to bring evil/destruction upon sinners.

Isaiah 45:7 NIV

"I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things."

Amos 3:6 NIV

Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

Joshua 23:15 NIV

But just as all the good things the LORD your God has promised you have come to you, so he will bring on you all the evil things he has threatened, until the LORD your God has destroyed you from this good land he has given you.

1 Samuel 16:15 NIV

Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you.

Understand that God does these evil acts as acts of Justice. He tells us that all of His ways are Just and He does these things because of the wickedness of the people.

Job 34:10

“So listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do evil, from the Almighty to do wrong.

In Job it is referring to God doing evil for the sake of doing evil and not for a just purpose.

Man is the source of unjust Evil

In the last section I mentioned evil for two purposes, one for just purposes, which is the evil from God and the other for unjust purposes, which is not from God. Men on the other hand are continuously creating evil for the sake of being evil. This is what the gospel is all about. We are a wicked and filthy people, literally enemies of God.

Luke 6:45 NIV

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Matthew 13:41 NIV

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.

The mentions of evil that I cannot explain

Read the first paragraph of Ecclesiastes 6.

Answer 6

Because God gave us free will. He is not interested in puppets on a string who just hop to his commands. He is interested in followers who of their own free will accept the knowledge of God.

Free will cannot (Without being internally coherent) exist and the choice to do evil not.

So it looks like God could either have created a puppet humanity with no free will with which he make sure their is no evil in the world or he can give humanity free will and with it the option to do evil (Even though he prohibits it.)

It seems he has chosen the latter.

Answer 7

Another argument for a existence of a just God despite the presence of evil is exactly that: the existence of evil. If God does not exist then morality is what humans make of it. If morality is what we make of it, then it shifts with time and location.

Yet throughout time and cultures, we see certain moral codes virtually everywhere. Stealing is bad. Adultery is bad. In other words, there are certain ideals that transcend humanity. Where else would they have come from if they didn't come from humans? They came from God. God impressed His law on each of our hearts.

In short, the existence of absolute evil in inexplainable by naturalistic causes.

Sorry for lack of citations. I dont have my resources with me.

Answer 8

Tim Keller in his book, Reason for God dedicates a chapter to this very issue. I'll provide a preview of what he says...

He states it this way:

If a good and powerful God exists, he would not allow pointless evil, but because there is much unjustifiable pointless evil in the world, the traditional good and powerful God could not exist. ... Tucked away within this assertion that the world is filled with pointless evil is a hidden premise, namely, that if evil appears pointless to me, then it must be pointless.

He then goes on to point out that just because you can't see a good reason why God might allow something to happen does not mean there can't be one. Beneath this skepticism is an enormous faith in one's own cognitive faculties.

If our minds can't plumb the depths of the universe for good answers to suffering, well, then, there can't be any! This is blind faith of a high order

Tim Keller, The Reason for God, Chapter 2 "How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?"

Answer 9

I myself has always been partial to the line from the movie "Constantine:"

Angela Dodson: I guess God has a plan for all of us.

John Constantine: God's a kid with an ant farm, lady. He's not planning anything.

Now John's a cynic, and not a believer. In fact, at this point in the film he's about as un-sympathetic as possible without actually being the bad guy, with that line as one of the "cappers." But that doesn't mean it's not my answer.

God created us and gave us this place. It's ours, and we do with it what we like. If we build an interstate, it stays built; if we discover a vaccine, it keeps working; if we execute an innocent man, with one notable exception, he stays dead.

Some people stop there and claim then that there's no need for God, or even no room for God. But that isn't true. For starters, God isn't a child and this isn't an ant farm. He works on this planet, but not by stepping in and fixing it for us, but by working through us. Like a loving father, just because he "gave" it to us doesn't mean that he doesn't want to see us make the best of it.

And so we have the prophets, and the Incarnation, and the Spirit. Not to take it out of our hands and "fix it," but to show us the ways to make it better and to enable us to do so.

And, ultimately, I do believe God has a plan. A big one, bigger than we can possibly imagine. But I've sat through too many funerals and tragedies where "it's God will" was repeated to the point of desperate chanting, or poems read about why he sometimes picks the youngest flowers to pretty up his home, a phenomenon Rick Diamond calls "God the Monster." And I'm with him in saying: please stop saying that: "Just tell them you love them and your sorry this happened. That's enough."

After my mom's friend drowned in a riptide, there much of that. He was a well-beloved missionary and family man who was known for his kindness. And there was much "we don't know why this happened." And during that, I realized I did: loving God and ones family doesn't give someone the ability to breathe underwater. That's what makes riptides dangerous to everyone. And then I could start to mourn him.

After that, I stopped blaming God for not saving us from ourselves. The problems we have as a world, we have because we haven't solved them yet. The evil is that we let our own short-sighted self-interest and fear keep us from solving them. God is at work within us to correct that, if we will let him.

And that's how I would respond, but that's just my answer.

Answer 10

There's a fascinating dissection of Job that I recently read: http://www.bookofjob.org/

It's a pretty long and thorough analysis, but the summary is that God allows evil and suffering to happen because if he didn't then our love would be conditional on his protection from evil and suffering. Just like Satan says about Job, he only loves God because his life is free from suffering. God not only gives us free will, but has to allow a situation where we freely choose him out of love rather than in exchange for blessings.

Answer 11

As a note, while this answer is compatible with Christianity, it is not, strictly speaking, a "Christian" answer to the question. Basically, it is a Christian's non-Christian approach.

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I think that the question is misstated.

I don't believe in God because of evil.

Ok. What is evil? Basically, it eventually maps to suffering, so the new quote is:

I don't believe in God because people suffer.

Now, first whether God exists is completely irrelevant from whether we have the expectation that God should act to prevent all suffering. It is the difference between asking whether a thing exists and what qualities we can expect if we assume its existence. It could be that God does exist and God is evil. In such a world, suffering should exist and that should be the most suffering possible. The question, then, is:

Assuming the existence of God, is a good God compatible with the suffering we experience?

If the answer is "No" there are three possibilities:

1. They believe that a good God would allow no suffering at all. I personally find this to be very unsatisfying as it reminds me of a parent who does not allow a child to do anything which could lead to the child's injury. This means no running and playing, no interacting with other kids, no exposure to even the slightest germ... We have seen these sheltered people, and while they may not have "suffered", they have certainly been denied some of the greatest of joys. Further, the ability to choose necessitates the ability to determine the lesser good. In a world without suffering, such a lesser does not exist. This means that all preferences and choices are equal. Such radical equality does not bring about the diversity which is such a boon to mankind.
   
   It may be possible that someone who comes to the conclusion of "good means no suffering" will agree that all of these outcomes are necessary (at this point, most will fall back to either "God cannot be good" or "there is too much suffering"). But, if someone is willing to posit all of these, then the final metric of their view of God is that their God is that he should be Dionysus. In such a case, one wonders why, exactly, they are debating the attributes of God, instead of involved in bakkheia.
2. They do not believe that God can be good. This argument is a bit circular. They believe that the suffering we observe is not compatible with a good God because God cannot be good. If their justification for this belief is anything other than, "God is the deist God and does not relate to us individually", it will clearly be a circular argument and should not be pursued further. If it is the deist argument, then it must be the case that God knows us and has chosen our end. If God knows us and has chosen our end, then it must be the case that God has ordered our end for our benefit or detriment. This means that the deist condition is not an actual answer to the "is God good" question, merely a deferral.
3. The believe the world is not good enough. Obviously some suffering is stipulated (if not, see the first point), but why is there so much suffering? Shouldn't we expect less? The failure of this argument is that it is inventing a yardstick which cannot be defined and then insisting that God measure up to their standards. How much suffering would be too much? ¹/₈ what we have today? ¹/₁₆? Why that much? Why not more? Why not less? How have they determined that there is any more suffering on this world than there needs to be? tldr; They haven't.
   
   "But what about babies?" they might ask, "Should they suffer too?" Unfortunately, without some form of yardstick, some form of metric which defines "too much", the assertions of "God is insufficient" really has no meaning.

From here the conversation will diverge, but the important path forward is that you keep forcing them to define their terms. Eventually the argument leads to circuity, a self-contradictory definition, or the aforementioned yardstick becomes an arbitrary piece of wood. You may never win this, but so long as you don't let your opponent get away with vague generalities and ambiguously defined terms, they will be frustrated.

Answer 12

May I propose a "love of particular persons" theodicy. God loves us, not just as persons in general, but as particular persons. Persons in general could exist in a perfect world, but the particular persons whom we are could not exist except in a world of imperfection. In a perfect world, none of us would have ever been born, even though others would be born in our place. God loves us as particular persons, as individuals, and shows his love for us by bringing us into existence; and in order to bring us into existence (as particular persons), he must bring into existence the imperfect world which is necessary for our existence, and all the evils which that entails.

Without the suffering of others, we would never be born. Sure, people would still be born, but different people from us. The set of children that are born is determined by who mates with whom, which is determined by many factors which natural disasters, wars, genocides, etc., will have a heavy influence upon. To start with, people die, and thus are removed from the mating pool; thus any children they might have bore will never be born, but at the same time, those partners who would have had kids with them may well instead have different kids with different people - thus the death of others purchases our existence. Disasters make people move long distances, and thus they may meet people and have kids with them whom they never would have met but for the disaster. So Hurricanes and Holocausts and Hiroshimas - these are all ways that God shows his love for us. He shows his love for us by causing us to exist, and he does so by bringing about the evils necessary to our existence. This is the true "original sin" - the sin without which I am not, the sin of my own existence.

Answer 13

I tortured my mind many years with unanswerable questions like this, before giving up on such masochism.

First of all, the whole idea of original sin presupposes a single original breeding pair, which is inconsistent with the observed genetic diversity of modern-day humans. There are too many gene variants for a bottleneck of 2 to have ever existed. You could do worse than read Prof. Jerry Coyne's post on this. Also, try to imagine the moral horrors and physical degeneracy of widespread incest between the sons and daughters of a single "founding pair" stranded on some island. Would there also be incest between generations, I wonder?

Then, the abrahamic narrative accuses the fictional single breeding pair of committing the ultimate sin of being curious about good and evil. Never mind that humans are by nature (or by God's design as you would have it) curious, and could not have gotten where they are without this feature. Also never mind that people seem to be born with innate pro-social inclinations (e.g.the abhorrence of violence).

So after "sinning" by following their natural calling, this God sentences the single breeding pair to the pains of working for a living and the labor of child birth. Never mind that the archaeological evidence, as well as common sense shows that all animals, including humans, have always had to struggle to survive. Also never mind that the pain of child birth is due to the large size of the human brain, which can barely fit the birth canal (which is why we are not born with fully formed brains and need so many years to mature).

But let's skip over the absurdities of the Genesis myth and go on to the nature of God. The question to ask is this: what kind of all-powerfull god would send tsunamis and earthquakes to kill hundreds of thousands of people in horrible pain? Could this God also not delay the scientists' effort to create the nuclear bomb by a few month to avoid the firestorms of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Did he turn a blind ear to the Jews' (or the Rwandan's more recently) prayers when they were about to be murdered by a genocidal enemy? Does he ignore the prayers of the poor women who get raped and murdered by serial killer (couldn't he cause some bystander to notice the abduction and call the police -- would that be too much to ask of him)?

Of course, God did find time to help Moses slaughter the women and children of the Midianites (who had harbored the Jews for several years in their midst prior to this massacre). He could even stop the sun for a day to allow the Jews to win an even greater victory in an instance. So you see, it's not for lack of power.

Then the Jesus doctrine enters the abrahamic landscape. Apparently, in order to forgive us, God has to inflict (again) a horrendous torture on a human that also happens to be his son. Instead of just... forgiving us. Or changing the brain circuitry to make murder, rape etc less likely to occur (OK, his version 1.0 of man wasn't perfect, let's bring a bugfix release, without removing freewill).

The only way to have a personal God who actively intervenes in the natural world and still have innocent people suffer atrocities is to paint him as a bloodthirsty monster who enjoys torturing and instilling fears in his "creatures", and also really likes to hear their anguished prayers and their praises when he randomly withdraws his tortures. This doesn't sound to me like a perfect god, but like the primitive invention of a cruel race.

Oh yeah, what about Abraham "being asked" to kill his son? If somebody insisted today that they are hearing voices urging him to murder his offspring, we would intern the schizophrenic in psychiatric ward. But this being a few thousand years ago he became the founder of a powerful religion.

I ask you to judge your God character as you would judge any one of us who happened to gain power over a society (an all-powerful dictator). Would you characterize such a character as a sane, good person, or as a perverted psychopath that must be locked up for life?

Of course, I'm not saying that "God" is evil, I'm saying that the abrahamic portrayal of a fictional God is an outgrowth of a sick ancient society that tells us more about their shortcomings than about the nature of divinity. And if you accept that description and try to defend the undefensible, it says something about your psyche.