The ‘problem of evil’ is a philosophical way of framing a challenge that every Christian and everyone who has considered Jesus’ claims knows intimately. The ‘problem’ is simply, if God is good, if God is all-powerful, and if evil exists, one of those three premises must be false. We know the challenge more simply in our own hearts: why do we suffer? Why do people die?
I imagine most of my readers have an answer to this, but we often get caught by assuming that the answer we first approach is the only answer the faith offers us. Instead, the Christian faith has a range of ways of answering.
‘Because of sin’
This I was taught as ‘the Augustinian Theodicy,’ but had learned much earlier than I knew who St. Augustine was, it was simply the answer I learned at church.
Essentially bad things happen because Adam & Eve sinned and broke the world. If they hadn’t they wouldn’t. Our own sin or the sin of others is the root of the evil we wade through. Even the ‘natural evil’ of disasters that don’t seem to be made by human hands are the result of the world’s broken nature which is due to our sin (and the sins of the powers, though I wasn’t taught that angle growing up).
There are nuances available here; we could also speak of justice. There are examples in the Bible of people suffering as a result of their sin. Some of these are direct judicial results of their sin, in other words, God punished them. Others are the consequences of their sins, our sin ‘comes home to roost’ and we live in the world we create for ourselves. This fits much pain and suffering, but not quite all of it.
This is true but it’s not all that’s true.
‘So we grow’
This I was taught as the ‘Irenaean Theodicy,’ when I first encountered it, long before I read and grew to love St. Irenaeus. I found it quite shocking when I first heard it at age 16 in an A-Level classroom.
Essentially bad things happen because God allows them so that we can grow spiritually and learn maturity and wisdom. While we don’t say it out loud very often, this is most evangelicals default pastoral option. We ask each other what God is teaching us in the midst of pain. It’s not a bad question to ask after the pain has passed, but sometimes what we’re learning is that pain is painful.
Nevertheless, this is a true theme: God does want us mature. We do grow through suffering (Romans 5). Testing is a part of the Christian life (James 1). Adam failed his test at the testing tree, but others seem to have passed theirs (Noah, for example). Jesus clearly passed his test at the testing tree. Believers face tests and we can grow through painful circumstances.
It’s true, but it’s not all that’s true.
‘This age is short’
What we suffer now will be outweighed to a ludicrous degree by the age to come and the joy of a new creation with Christ. Faithfulness will be rewarded.
This serves as context for suffering more than an explanation, but it is true that the days are long and full of trouble (Job 14), but the world is groaning in childbirth (Romans 8) for a new cosmos. All that is good will remain and all that is wrong will pass away. The old will be gone and the new come: new creation (Galatians 6)!
This is also true, and often of more comfort to those suffering than explanations are. It’s still not all that’s true.
‘Intimacy is possible’
God shares in our sufferings, most notably at the cross. There is a communion with God available at the bottom of the pit that isn’t possible elsewhere. We meet him in the middle of the darkness, when he’s absent and the world is a whirl of pain; this may be the most profound way we can meet God. It’s certainly the most confusing.
There is also an intimacy with God available in suffering less because of apparent divine absence and more because we have no choice but to run to him. This is less oblique, more direct, but essentially similar. With no options but Jesus we cling tightly to him.
This is also true, and of comfort after it’s happened as an experience rather than as a thing someone tells you. I can think of little worse than being told that you should be meeting with God while your life is falling apart. I can think of little better than meeting with God when your life is falling apart.
‘Sometimes we don’t know’
Our theology has to have a place for mystery. This doesn’t answer many questions and it doesn’t win debates, but if we’ve encountered a God who is powerful and good we do have to trust him when we haven’t got a clue why he has allowed the world to be as it is.
We may know that the powers that run the world are in rebellion, but why doesn’t God stop them? We may realise we can learn and encounter God in suffering, but isn’t it terribly cruel that that happened? We may ponder that the age is short, but my lifetime is a lifetime long and its breadth on an eternal scale is difficult for me to fathom.
Sometimes we don’t know.
‘God will slay the sea monster’
Some suffering seems ‘useless.’ That’s the message of the book of Job. Some suffering isn’t because we sinned and it doesn’t seem to mature us, but God’s answer to Job—particularly in his second speech (Job 40-41)—is that the terrifying chaos monsters that Job wished would drown the world are worse than Job thought they were, and God seems almost fond of them, and he’s clear that he will crush them at the end.
God is attentive to the problem, and more than adequate to fixing it. Every dragon must fall.
Is that the whole story? No. But together they are.
It would be nice to give you a round seven responses, but the world isn’t perfect.
Not yet anyway.
Photo by Kin Shing Lai on Unsplash
To subscribe and receive email notifications for future posts, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.
Would you like to support my work? The best thing you can do is share this post with your friends. Why not consider also joining my Patreon to keep my writing free for everyone. You can see other ways to support me here.
nuakh 