The Problem of Evil

When I was in 12^th grade, I took my high school’s AP English class, and during the course of the year we had to read the book of Job (rhymes with “robe”) from the Old Testament.  Because this book deals with the undeserved anguish and suffering of a man who loses his children, wealth, and even physical health, one of the topics of class was the classic “problem of evil.”  My English teacher presented this argument to our class:

Premise 1: If an all-good, all-powerful God exists, he would be both able and willing to deal with evil, and so evil should not exist.

Premise 2: Evil does in fact exist.

Conclusion: Therefore, either God is not all-good, or all-powerful (or perhaps he doesn’t exist at all).

This challenging argument was completely new to me.  I had very little idea how to respond, and neither did the other Christian students in the room, as I recall.  I remember, however, not being satisfied at all with the result of our conversation.  I just knew that there had to be a better way to deal with this challenge to God’s character.

And there is.

This argument, known more formally as the logical problem of evil, attempts to disprove the existence of God, or at least some of his more traditional attributes, by logical deduction.  And it seems to make sense.  How can a God who claims to be good and powerful also allow evil to exist in a world that he created? 

Evil seems so prevalent in this world.  As I write this in August of 2012, we have just had a horrific shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.  Twelve people were shot dead and many more wounded in a senseless, selfish act.  Syrian rebels are holding 48 Iranian hostages.  Another shooting at a Sikh temple in Milwaukee.  Spouses beat spouses, parents beat and abuse children, children beat and abuse each other.  Human beings are capable of so much atrocity toward each other.

Yet pain and suffering does not only come from our own species.  The drought of the century has a chokehold over the entire middle part of our country.  Crops are dying, and rivers are drying up.  We’re heading into hurricane season, and assuredly a few of these natural terrors will destroy somebody’s home, somebody’s livelihood, somebody’s life.  The “good” world is often not so good.

Should we conclude that no good, powerful God could possibly exist?

The Christian’s answer to this challenge relies on this actual existence of evil that every normal-functioning human being is capable of sensing.  And this will be discussed in the next post.