The "Problem" of Evil

Okay, this is going to be an interesting one, so no clever rhetorical tricks in this article sorry...
A while back it was requested that I do an article on the problem of evil, or more specifically on the issue of: "If there is a good God, why do bad things happen to good people"

This is an issue which can be answered many ways, a few of which I see as biblical. However, I, like everyone else on this planet, am flawed, and therefore don’t take my word as the final answer on this topic. I certainly don’t. Also this is going to be largely from the point of view of a 7-point Calvinist, as that is probably the best way to describe my view on stuff like this. But as I said above, show me a good enough argument, and I’m willing to admit that I’m backing the wrong one… also please try to read through to the end of this, as it won’t make complete sense without the last bits (I’m not a very good writer).

Okay now down to business.

First I thought I would go through the foundations of this issue.
The first thing that we have to deal with is; God, who is He, and what do we know about him from the bible.
There are a few things which we need to know which are essential to this issue.
a) God is omnipotent, omniscient (well God the Father at least, but that’s another issue), and omnipresent. (Genesis 18:14; Luke 18:27; Revelation 19:6 … Psalm 139:2-6; Isaiah 40:13-14… Psalm 139:7-12)
b) God is perfect above and beyond our wildest conception. This of course includes the fact that he is perfectly just. (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 11:7; Psalm 119:137; Psalm 25:8; Psalm 34:8; Mark 10:18)
c) God loves mankind, creation and himself (as in there is love within the trinity) (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:8)
d) God created the world and ALL that is in it. (Jeremiah 10:12; John 1:3)

From here the logic naturally flows to the issue that if God is good and just and he created everything, and if he is all powerful, why does bad stuff happen? Why is there so much pain in the world? Why are there cancer, AIDS, cyclones, bushfires, rape, murder, torture, and all kinds of suffering in the world? And why do they happen to good people? Hopefully I can give you answers, but I doubt they’ll be the ones you want to hear.

To continue, I want to address an assumption which many people make, which is that there is such a thing as a “good” person. There isn’t. Let’s just make that plain and clear to start with. Even the purest person you can think of is rotten to the core with corrupting sin (Romans 3:23; psalm 51:3-5). There is no deed which we can do which isn’t tainted by it. There has only ever been one exception to this, being Jesus. Apart from him, we are all perfectly sinful. Because of this the whole concept of a “good person” is inherently ridiculous, and therefore it is incorrect to feel that it is unfair that bad things happen to good people, as the so called good people deserve far worse than has happened to them.

Now it is important to note that sin has consequences. These consequences are not just the obvious way in that they condemn you eternally, but can also be manifest in this temporary world. One way in which that they can be manifest is directly. The Bible provides examples of this, the most immediate one which springs to mind is when Herod is eaten by worms as a result of him not giving praise to God (Acts 12:23). However sin’s temporal consequences aren’t only on those who commit it, for example you can hurt someone else with sin, with no noticeable change to you in this world. Sin, which is securely rooted in the heart of mankind (Gen 6:5), is the cause of all the evil in the world(Gen 3). This includes evils that don’t seem to have a link to human activities, such as natural disasters. Now when I say this, I am definitely not jumping on the bandwagon of all the people who say that if something bad happened to you then it is a punishment from God (cf. all the criticism of New Orleans post hurricane). I am saying that there is no way you can say you didn’t deserve it, but that it is not necessarily a direct consequence of your sins. But to be honest random natural disasters resulting in death are the least we have to worry about in this world, far more worrying to me is the fact that I have eternal life one way or the other… for a God of this power which we have described above can surely think of some pretty terrible tortures to span an eternity. But if you are interested in the real reason behind pain, and not just self-justification, we have to look deeper, to the reason behind the creation of the world itself.

John 17 is one of my favourite passages in the bible… it’s just so juicy! From it and John 1 we can get the reasons both why the world was created and why Christ came into it to die for us. Yes there is his love for us, but it’s also so that:
a) Glory would be given to the Father.
b) The world will see the Glory of the Son which has been granted to him by the Father, through his sacrifice for us.

So now I find myself at the sentence that I’m so hesitant to write, and it’s going to sound alien and wrong to anyone who isn’t a Christian, and also to many who are… but this is the only way to put it. The ultimate purpose of pain in this world is to show the glory of God. Pain is a consequence of sin. Without sin, there is no need for redemption. The glory of God is most evident in the salvation of mankind through the resurrection of the Christ.

I would like to sum this up with one Bible Verse: Proverbs 16:4