The “problem of evil” (also called the “problem of pain”) is considered by many to be the hardest question for Judeo-Christians who believe in the God of the scriptures to satisfactorily answer. Indeed, many would say that it has never been satisfactorily answered.
That being so, anyone who knows me, a poor example of a Christian and with no formal theological or philosophical training (I’m a technical translator by profession), might wonder at my temerity to tackle a question that has baffled greater minds than mine. My only reply to that is that I am here now and they are not. So, in the spirit of the diminutive David who rose to the occasion when a giant named Goliath was challenging his God, I can only pray that the same Spirit that animated and strengthened David in that defense will give me skill beyond my native means in this one.
Before proceeding I would refer the questioner to the classic work on this subject by C. S. Lewis, entitled The Problem of Pain. I remember reading that book as a young Christian, but that was half a century ago, so I will not consciously be drawing on that book for inspiration. (I wish I had time now to reread it.)
Let me begin with [the original questioner's] own words: “I know if I were God I certainly would have stopped….” (my emphasis).
The first thing to consider is that, just as the problem of evil is a problem for Christian apologetics, so the articulation of that problem is a problem for the questioner. It is so because, once we assume that we are talking about God who is God as revealed in scripture (and unless we agree to do that, there are no grounds for discussion and the issue becomes moot) no man has the mental, spiritual, or moral capacity, much less right, to make any assertion that begins with the words if I were God.
You cannot say “if I were God (I would do thus and so),” because you have not the slightest idea of what “being God” entails, even if you (or I) can begin to grasp what it even means. This is because God is, as the Westminster Catechism puts it, “a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” God is wholly other. “ ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.” (Isa 55:8) And in a related context, pertaining to God’s sovereign election, Paul asks rhetorically “Who are you, oh man, who answers back to God?”
Consider secondly that we are temporal creatures, bounded by the limits of time, whereas God is eternal and, as the Inventor of time, above and beyond time. To us moderns, life, or, more precisely, the prolongation of life, has a preeminent place on our scale of values. Conversely, we consider biological death to be the greatest of all evils. Thus the death of a child is, for us, tragic beyond words, because we live in time, and the child, who lived for a while in time, is now taken away from us in time.
But biological death is, for God, certainly not the greatest of all evils, for He is eternal, and judges all things against the backdrop of eternity, and against the demands of his own holy nature (as revealed in the Law and in Christ). To God, with his eternal perspective, our fleeting lives, even if we live to 99, are but the flourishing of a flower, here today and gone tomorrow. And our sufferings on earth, however horrific, are soon over, swallowed up in eternity.
Christ said, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and yet lose his soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36, 37)
Now the soul is that essential part of our life that is immortal, that will endure for all eternity.
Jesus was not indifferent to biological life, to physical suffering, for he went about healing many. But he was more concerned about a person’s eternal never-dying soul. The same may be said of God the Father.
Consider thirdly that much of the evil that we see in the world is the direct or indirect result of man’s sinfulness and rebellion against his Creator. We talk about “innocent victims,” but, in God’s eyes, there are no innocent victims, for we are all as our father Adam, rebels by nature. “There is none righteous, not even one….for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:10, 23)
People may often look perfectly innocent to us, because we see only the exterior, and do not see the heart as God does. But can we see what God sees when he looks on the human heart? No, we cannot. We only know what he sees because he has told us! Consider God’s judgment of fallen man just before the great flood: “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen 6:5, my emphasis)
The fact of the matter is that none of us has any moral claim on life or prosperity or happiness in the sight of God. We may lament our condition (and certainly the condition of the unfortunate), but we cannot shake our fist at God and say “I don’t deserve this.” We may say that to our fellow man, but not to God.
Does this mean that God is an ogre, that he doesn’t care, that the wickedness of man and the sufferings of his creation do not grieve his own heart? No. In the very next verse after the one quoted above, we read of God “and he was grieved in His heart.”
When we see suffering on earth, we may be outraged, but do we “grieve in our hearts” as God does? No. Our hearts are not big enough, or pure enough.
It is not a question of “couldn’t God have done it differently?” It is not a question of God’s not being powerful enough. It is ultimately a question of who God made us to be, what we became in our rebellion, and who he will finally make us to be as his redeemed people in Christ.
Consider in the last place, that not all of the evil in history, not even all of the accumulated suffering that man has endured in his life on earth, can compare to the suffering of Christ in his great redemptive work on Calvary, for there, as the God-man, as the pure and spotless Lamb of God, He suffered an infinite suffering. This suffering God was willing, and determined, from before the beginning of time, to visit upon his own beloved Son, in order that He might purchase a people for Himself.
How could God do that? I have no idea. Except that He is God, who does whatsoever seems to him good.
For me personally, it is not the evil in the world that perplexes me so much as the evil and capacity for evil I find in my own heart. To me the irresolvable question is not the problem of evil in the world, but rather the problem of how, given the evil in my own heart and life, God could devise a way to forgive me, redeem me, rescue me, and remake me in the image of his own glorious Son. But I know not what is in other men’s hearts, so I may be an anomaly.
In conclusion, you may think that your compassion and mercy and justice are more compassionate and merciful and just than Gods. But, for my money, I’ll choose God’s compassion and mercy and justice over any man’s any time.
There is a wonderful passage in 2 Samuel where David has displeased the Lord and has been told by a prophet named Gad that he must suffer the consequences. But David has a choice as to how this punishment will be carried out. “Then David said to Gad, ‘I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.' ” (2 Sam 24:14)
That being so, anyone who knows me, a poor example of a Christian and with no formal theological or philosophical training (I’m a technical translator by profession), might wonder at my temerity to tackle a question that has baffled greater minds than mine. My only reply to that is that I am here now and they are not. So, in the spirit of the diminutive David who rose to the occasion when a giant named Goliath was challenging his God, I can only pray that the same Spirit that animated and strengthened David in that defense will give me skill beyond my native means in this one.
Before proceeding I would refer the questioner to the classic work on this subject by C. S. Lewis, entitled The Problem of Pain. I remember reading that book as a young Christian, but that was half a century ago, so I will not consciously be drawing on that book for inspiration. (I wish I had time now to reread it.)
Let me begin with [the original questioner's] own words: “I know if I were God I certainly would have stopped….” (my emphasis).
The first thing to consider is that, just as the problem of evil is a problem for Christian apologetics, so the articulation of that problem is a problem for the questioner. It is so because, once we assume that we are talking about God who is God as revealed in scripture (and unless we agree to do that, there are no grounds for discussion and the issue becomes moot) no man has the mental, spiritual, or moral capacity, much less right, to make any assertion that begins with the words if I were God.
You cannot say “if I were God (I would do thus and so),” because you have not the slightest idea of what “being God” entails, even if you (or I) can begin to grasp what it even means. This is because God is, as the Westminster Catechism puts it, “a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” God is wholly other. “ ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.” (Isa 55:8) And in a related context, pertaining to God’s sovereign election, Paul asks rhetorically “Who are you, oh man, who answers back to God?”
Consider secondly that we are temporal creatures, bounded by the limits of time, whereas God is eternal and, as the Inventor of time, above and beyond time. To us moderns, life, or, more precisely, the prolongation of life, has a preeminent place on our scale of values. Conversely, we consider biological death to be the greatest of all evils. Thus the death of a child is, for us, tragic beyond words, because we live in time, and the child, who lived for a while in time, is now taken away from us in time.
But biological death is, for God, certainly not the greatest of all evils, for He is eternal, and judges all things against the backdrop of eternity, and against the demands of his own holy nature (as revealed in the Law and in Christ). To God, with his eternal perspective, our fleeting lives, even if we live to 99, are but the flourishing of a flower, here today and gone tomorrow. And our sufferings on earth, however horrific, are soon over, swallowed up in eternity.
Christ said, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and yet lose his soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36, 37)
Now the soul is that essential part of our life that is immortal, that will endure for all eternity.
Jesus was not indifferent to biological life, to physical suffering, for he went about healing many. But he was more concerned about a person’s eternal never-dying soul. The same may be said of God the Father.
Consider thirdly that much of the evil that we see in the world is the direct or indirect result of man’s sinfulness and rebellion against his Creator. We talk about “innocent victims,” but, in God’s eyes, there are no innocent victims, for we are all as our father Adam, rebels by nature. “There is none righteous, not even one….for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:10, 23)
People may often look perfectly innocent to us, because we see only the exterior, and do not see the heart as God does. But can we see what God sees when he looks on the human heart? No, we cannot. We only know what he sees because he has told us! Consider God’s judgment of fallen man just before the great flood: “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen 6:5, my emphasis)
The fact of the matter is that none of us has any moral claim on life or prosperity or happiness in the sight of God. We may lament our condition (and certainly the condition of the unfortunate), but we cannot shake our fist at God and say “I don’t deserve this.” We may say that to our fellow man, but not to God.
Does this mean that God is an ogre, that he doesn’t care, that the wickedness of man and the sufferings of his creation do not grieve his own heart? No. In the very next verse after the one quoted above, we read of God “and he was grieved in His heart.”
When we see suffering on earth, we may be outraged, but do we “grieve in our hearts” as God does? No. Our hearts are not big enough, or pure enough.
It is not a question of “couldn’t God have done it differently?” It is not a question of God’s not being powerful enough. It is ultimately a question of who God made us to be, what we became in our rebellion, and who he will finally make us to be as his redeemed people in Christ.
Consider in the last place, that not all of the evil in history, not even all of the accumulated suffering that man has endured in his life on earth, can compare to the suffering of Christ in his great redemptive work on Calvary, for there, as the God-man, as the pure and spotless Lamb of God, He suffered an infinite suffering. This suffering God was willing, and determined, from before the beginning of time, to visit upon his own beloved Son, in order that He might purchase a people for Himself.
How could God do that? I have no idea. Except that He is God, who does whatsoever seems to him good.
For me personally, it is not the evil in the world that perplexes me so much as the evil and capacity for evil I find in my own heart. To me the irresolvable question is not the problem of evil in the world, but rather the problem of how, given the evil in my own heart and life, God could devise a way to forgive me, redeem me, rescue me, and remake me in the image of his own glorious Son. But I know not what is in other men’s hearts, so I may be an anomaly.
In conclusion, you may think that your compassion and mercy and justice are more compassionate and merciful and just than Gods. But, for my money, I’ll choose God’s compassion and mercy and justice over any man’s any time.
There is a wonderful passage in 2 Samuel where David has displeased the Lord and has been told by a prophet named Gad that he must suffer the consequences. But David has a choice as to how this punishment will be carried out. “Then David said to Gad, ‘I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.' ” (2 Sam 24:14)
