On the April 25, 2009 Battle Lines broadcast, we addressed the problem of evil. Why do bad things happen to innocent people? The Holocaust, 9/11, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. If God is God, why do these things happen? The answer to this problem is wrapped up in the mystery of the interplay between God’s sovereignty and human freedom. So we’ll never fully understand. The Scriptures do, however, reveal a few fundamentals. God originally created the world, the way it was supposed to be. But we sinned. Because of sin, things are not the way they’re supposed to be. And even the world we live in has been affected by our sinfulness. Sin messed up the entire universe. This world was good, now it’s evil.

Evil is not a thing, an entity in and of itself. Not something that was given existence. So we can’t blame God for creating, giving origin to, evil. Evil is a corruption. It is decay. Evil is the corruption of our human natures and the natural world.

Hopeless Solutions

1. “Evil exists, so God must not exist.” Why doesn’t God stop evil? Because there is no God. But we believe that there is a God. When bad stuff happens, it does prove that God doesn’t exist, it proves that we need God. In fact, the presence of evil must not cause us to doubt the existence of God, but instead to hold more tightly to the existence of God – that there’s someone at the helm of this listing ship.

2. “Evil exists, so God must not be all-powerful or all-loving.” If God were all-powerful, He could prevent evil. If God were all-loving, He would prevent evil. We believe God is loving and God is strong (Psalm 62:12). Then why does He allow bad stuff to happen?

A Hopeful Solution

An all-powerful God could destroy evil and an all-loving God would destroy evil. But evil continues, so… God will destroy evil. God will defeat evil (Rev. 20:10, 15). God will destroy the devil and death – there will be no more death. In fact, God will destroy this whole broken world and make a new one (Rev. 21:1,4). In this new world there will be no more reason to cry. God will put a stop to all the bad things that happen by recreating the world. God will put a stop to all the bad people who hurt others by judging and punishing the wicked. This world is not the way it’s supposed to be, but God will fix it.

When people ask why, talk about hope, not explanations. Join with someone who’s hurting in being angry at evil. But then talk about hope for something different. We cannot accuse God when bad things happen: God is good. We should not get angry at God for not preventing bad things from happening: God is all- powerful and all-loving. We cannot demand that things be fixed right now: God will put an end to evil. We cannot say that God doesn’t care: God is involved, cares about the world and individual lives. “Comfort is not in knowing why but in knowing Who.”