The Problem of Evil

Remember the syllogism:

God is good.
God ordains all that happens.
Therefore, all that happens is good.

The problem we face is that God is Sovereign. Everything that occurs does so by His will. He may cause it directly or allow it to occur, but it is all by His counsel. That means that we have to answer a tough question. What about evil? The options we have, then, are to either deny God's character as either good or sovereign (or both), or examine the possibility that all that happens is good ... including evil.

First, there are two senses of the word "evil". One is "moral evil". The other is "bad things that happen". Now, we don't have a really big problem with the latter. I mean, we all know that bad things -- uncomfortable, unpleasant, painful things -- happen. But they're not evil in the sense that we normally mean it. So what about evil? This use of the word suggests intent. It requires that bad people do bad things. And surely that doesn't come from God, does it? Yet, if we hold that God is Sovereign, there is no way around the position that evil itself is either caused by God or allowed by God for His good purposes. Now, that's a hefty claim, isn't it?

Understand, first, that I'm not the one making it. It is required by the logic of the situation. That is, either God ordains moral evil for His good purposes, or God is not the Good and Sovereign God the Bible claims Him to be. Beyond that, the Bible makes the very same claim. When Job was tormented by Satan (with God's permission), he told his wife, "What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" Lest you think Job was mistaken, the writer affirms the concept in Job 42:11 when his family came out and "comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him". God Himself makes the claim in Isa 45. "I make peace, and create evil" (Isa 45:7). Now, we'd like to say that this is the "bad things" use of the term, but we're still faced with biblical examples like Micaiah who affirms that "the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets" (1 Kings 22:23) and the author of 1 Samuel tells us "The Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him" (1 Sam 16:14). We know that "God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one" (James 1:13), but this does not preclude ordaining evil to be used for His good purposes. So we have a logical requirement and a biblical requirement to conclude that God either allows or causes evil (of both types) for His own good purposes.

According to the Bible, then, God is good, God is Sovereign, and all that occurs does so by the will of God. That would logically and biblically include anything unpleasant, painful, or even downright evil. Anything else is an abandonment of very clear Scripture. Trying to dodge it won't help. Am I saying, then, that evil is good? No. But I am saying that God can (and does) use pain, suffering, and even evil for good. Tomorrow we'll look at how.