But if there is no God, why is there so much good in the world?
If God is both loving and omnipotent, the argument goes, why would He allow so much misery in the world? So, therefore, He has to be either unloving or not all powerful. The Biblical Book of Job gives one answer, perhaps the ultimate answer, by, in effect, saying that God is God. Therefore, He can do whatever He wishes, and who are we to judge God who created us. Still that raises a question about how loving God is. Is He simply a tyrant? The point here is that even if he were the Devil, we are only his creatures. The presence of evil does not rule out the fact of his existence, and philosophers are now saying the Problem of Evil isn’t an argument that disproves that there is a God.
A corollary to that argument is the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people?” While that is sometimes the case, the fact is that good happens to both good and bad people, and bad also happens to both good and bad people. Jesus said, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust,” an appropriate commentary since rain itself can be either good or bad. Even the very wealthy are subject to cancer, addiction, divorce, stock market crashes, robbery, murder, accident, mosquito bites, and plumbing problems. To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald: the suffering of the rich is different from the suffering of the non-rich.
The ancient Greeks said suffering brings learning, and there is truth to that, though sometimes suffering only brings suffering. But just as pain alerts us to dangers to our health, suffering can alert us to dangers in our lifestyles or attitudes. Many a person has come out of suffering a better person as a result.
Why didn’t God create a world without suffering and evil? According to the Bible, He actually did that in the Garden of Eden. Suppose Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Would we still be in the Garden today? Would life, in fact, be boring as a result—everything provided for us, no need to work, not much variety of entertainment, no death? Without death, could there even be birth? Wouldn’t the earth soon be vastly over-populated?
Suppose there were death, but no suffering, birth but no labor pains, work but no tedium, no long hours, no incompetent bosses, but good pay so we could buy all the entertainment and luxuries we wish. How spoiled we’d become (as, in fact, many of us are anyway). Would we even need or acknowledge God, who made it all possible?
If there were no evil in the world, then good and evil would be the same, and there would be no need to choose. We would have no free will. We would, in effect, be automatons. In a way it is evil that makes the good what it is. What if all life were made up of choosing which TV show to watch, which food to eat, which person to have sex with. And suppose there were never any conflict, problems, or difficulties. Even drugs and alcohol would lose their appeal because there would be no need for them.
When my daughter was growing up I, of course, wanted her to be happy. But suppose in order to assure that, I stayed with her 24/7, went to school with her to make sure she chose the right friends, ate the right lunch, and I helped her with her class work, and then even went with her on dates to protect her. She’d end up hating me. Instead I tried to provide for her, guide her, help her when necessary, prayed for her. But basically I let her live her own life. That’s what God the Father does with us. He knows what is best for us, but often we don’t take His advice (my daughter was sometimes the same way). So would we want a God that micromanages our life to make sure we don’t have any suffering?
My grandson, when he was little, would often ask me to take him to Target to buy him a Thomas Tank Engine toy. I usually told him “no,” but once in a rare while I might let him get the toy. So it is with God the parent. He doesn’t give us everything we want, but sometimes does answer our prayers in a way we were hoping He would. And sometimes He answers our prayers in an unpleasant way in the short run in order to give us something better in the long run. I speak from experience—and I mean definite prayers with definite answers.
Yes, there’s much evil and suffering in the world. Some of it’s our own fault and some of it is due to circumstances beyond our control. Much of the evil is man made—murder, war, rape, gossip, gambling, pornography, lying, cheating, stealing, betrayal, theft, the internet. Some of it is natural—disease, death, technology failures, accident, tornado, hurricane, tsunami, flood, famine, drought. An atheist, however, must face it all alone in the world. The Christian has God, the church, the hope of a good afterlife.
Years ago a woman from our church who had lost her young child in an accident and then was divorced because her husband had an affair was in the hospital dying from cancer. She was only in her thirties. Yet she cheered up the gloomy visitors who came to the hospital to visit her. This was a rare woman, but she was emblematic of many who because of their Christian faith have been able to endure hardships—chronic pain, loss of loved ones, financial stress—because of their faith. There are many Mother Theresas in the world.
God Himself took on suffering in the form of Jesus. In Christian Letters to a Post Christian World Dorothy L. Sayers says Jesus “was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.” Had Jesus been born into a palace or been general of an army, He wouldn’t have had anywhere near the impact He has had. And His followers have carried on His work by becoming martyrs or taking vows of poverty and chastity or serving as missionaries in difficult situations or by simply going out of their comfort zones to help others.
There are many good books that discuss the Problem of Evil from philosophical/theological/Scriptural viewpoints, such as Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering by Tim Keller and Evil and the Justice of God by N. T. Wright. But I especially recommend two books. One is The Case for Grace by Lee Strobel, in which he interviews people with seemingly hopeless lives who, nevertheless, have been rescued out of them by the grace of God. The other is What Good Is God? by Philip Yancey. Yancey, a popular Christian writer, records speeches he gave at Virginia Tech after the mass shooting, to professional sex workers in Wisconsin, in South Africa after apartheid, in Memphis in 2008 after the election of Obama, plus other significant occasions. They all answer the question in the title.
Most of all, Christians are part of an army that works to defeat the evil and suffering in the world by giving time and money and lives in service to God, aiding the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, the distressed, the poor, the addicted, individually and through churches and charitable organizations throughout the globe. Atheists like to point out that if they were God, they would have done a much better job of creating the world without suffering. But that is sour grapes. For whatever reason, God created the world as it is, and we have the task of living in it. Atheists must be part of that battle and not seem to be only conscientious objectors in the fight against evil.
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