I was at work today and a question popped into my head. As a Christian I can kind of figure the answer, well at-least in my head I can. its a question that has come up several times in conversation’s with co-workers. The question is “Why does God allow evil in the world if he is a good and loving God?
Before I get to my answer I want you all to see what is really behind that question, well as far as I was able to get with my co-workers. In my conversations with them the one thing that kept popping its little head out was, “I thought God was all powerful, his apparent lack of involvement shows either he is to weak or really doesn’t care to begin with.” (keep in mind this is not the only possible motive behind the question but it was one of the motives behind why my co-workers were asking the question)
My answers have varied as we have had these sorts of conversations many times, but this particular time, at least as I was thinking to myself it was different. I think my reading of D. A. Carson’s book “The difficult doctrine of the love of God” may have spark this new Idea.
(keep in mind that this is a work in progress and I plan on bring more out at a later time.)
well here goes my response:
God’s(I am speaking of the God that is depicted in the bible, Yahweh the almighty so that no one is confused) apparent in action or what could be thought as his weakness to do anything about this problem is not what most may think. This apparent “dis-interest” is really a combination of a few things in the mind of God. The first thing to understand before being able to answer this is to understand what those things are that are affecting his reaction to the problem of Evil in the world. They include God’s justice, his righteousness, his love and his mercy, among other things. For the sake of this lets go with his justice and righeousness first.
God is Holy and righteous, and God is also a just God. Because God is a just and righteous God he must have a certain reaction to the problem of evil. By default God’s reaction to sin is to punish it because he is just. However, the problem of evil exist therefore this God must either not exist or their is some other means by which his hand is stayed. what that is we will not cover because that is a different subject all together and well that would take a while to cover as well, but it has to do with his love and mercy as well as other things. know that this is his reaction to sin we must take into account his love and mercy.
God is just but he is also loving and merciful. God’s love for his people is the key to understanding why God has not completely judged this world of sinners. God is patiently waiting for all those who are his to be born physically as well spiritual in the second birth through Christ his son.
so to summarize, God does not judge the world and take out evil in this world because he is patiently waiting for his people. If God were to defeat evil in the sense of the question being asked all of humanity this is not in Christ would be cast into hell.
God’s apparent “inaction” is a means of grace for all those who have, are and will call upon the name of Christ to his glory forever and ever!!!
so if someone asks you this question answer,
“why are you trying to commit suicide by God?”
“JUST KIDDING” don’t answer that way!!! In reality that is exactly what they are asking even though they do not know that this is behind their question!
