Good & Evil/Pain & Suffering
Page Epigraph
Who has prescribed for him his way, or who can say, ‘You have done wrong’? (Jb 36:23)
“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” (Jb 40:2)
You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
(Is 29:16)
Verse Observations: I Pt 5:10, Ps 119:75
*theodicy - Ps 37:13, 50:21 (God biding his time [for some reason]), 92:7, 102:20-21, Is 1:31, 38:17†, Rom 3:4
*evil as the divine plan - Ps 76:10, Mt 18:7, Rom 11:32
*God preparing evil - Zech 11:16-17 (see also The Divine Plan, Fate & Free Will)
*good & evil under God - Jb 12:16, Prv 15:3, Eccl 7:14 (see also The Divine Plan, Fate & Free Will)
†Condemning God for (us) being unhappy comes from a viewpoint that happiness is the highest good. But what is the highest good? Isn't it our moral perfection? (see the question on "the relationship b/w suffering and moral progress")
Verse Observations: Ps 76:10, Mt 18:7, Rom 11:32
Why is it necessary that temptations come? (Mt 18:7)
I can think of 2 ways that "necessary" can be taken here -- necessary in the sense that temptation fulfills some purpose (in the divine plan, although what that would be I don't know), or necessary in the sense that evil and temptation are inevitable, that is, natural and inherent to created beings. I'm not sure which of these is true, or maybe even if both are true.
Ps 34:9 "... those who fear him have no lack." Isn't this the central question of faith? Even Satan said "Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have
blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land." (Jb 1:9-10) And Solomon said, "Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." (Eccl 8:11.) If those who feared God really had no lack, then everyone would fear God, yes? And if the sentence against evil was executed speedily, no one would do evil. But would this be true faith? Why do we live in a world where moral effect doesn't necessarily follow moral cause? (This question is also found under "Faith in God's Will".)
Why do we give glory to God when he rescues us from our troubles if it is he who put us in those situations in the first place? Jn 9:3 How does this honor God, since it was God who gave this man the blindness in the first place? Why is the glory of God seen not when everything goes well, but when everything goes awry but is saved? And this is the way it's been with human history as well. (Rom 9:22-23, 17) [predestination] Note in v 17 where it says of Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you ...." So God uses evil to bring about the salvation of the elect, which illustrates the question.)
I remember reading a story about a man and his daughter who had just parked their car, and when they had walked away from it a bit, just enough to be out of the danger zone, the car exploded. Of course, because they were far away enough, they were unhurt. This sounds like a miracle, but we have to ask, why? As humans, our initial and natural reaction is to think that God saved them from the explosion, that he had mercy on them and got them out of the way just in time. But God could have just kept the car from exploding in the first place. A second reason why we humans are so impressed by this story is because of the timing -- the car exploded right at the moment when they walked far away enough, and not a moment sooner or later. It sounds incredible, too coincidental. Now, that it's too coincidental, I'll concede. We'll get to this point later. Right now my point is that if the car had exploded, say, after having been brought to a junkyard, or out in the driveway one night, it wouldn't have been as impressive. In the driveway at night, that's a relief, and if in a junkyard, I'm not sure if anyone would give it a second thought, but right after they had just walked away from it -- now that's impressive. That deserves miracle status.
So now that I've broken this all down, you may think that I would deny that this was a miracle and deny that it gives glory to God, but that's not my point. I do think it's a miracle. I am impressed and I do give glory to God. No matter all my logical objections (and I don't deny these either -- that's the whole point of this question -- resolving the conflict and tension between the logical objection and the spiritual impression), I say that God still had mercy on this man and his daughter and that it was his doing and plan that they should be moved out of the way at just the right moment and no sooner and no later.
The real question here is -- yes, it's true, God could have made the car explode at any other "less impressive" time, or he could have kept the car from exploding at all, which would not be impressive at all, in fact, we (as humans) would never even think to thank God or give glory to him for keeping the car from exploding, but given that God is the orchestrator and executor of all things, why are still so impressed? See, you must have faith in order to "not" be impressed (on the logical side). But by that same faith, you are made to be impressed on the spiritual side. Likewise, the irony is that if you do not have faith, you would have to be impressed on the logical side, and not impressed on the spiritual side. What I mean is that the unbeliever doesn't believe there's a God, and therefore doesn't believe that God is sovereign and omnipotent or merciful for that matter. Therefore, if the car explodes, it had to explode. Given the natural state of the car, and all it had been through, it was inevitable that the car would have to give into whatever kind of physical stress it was under and finally "snap" and explode. Of course, nature doesn't care if there's anyone around or not for the explosion. Therefore, that the man and his daughter had gotten far away enough just in time is truly wondrous. To further complicate things, the believer says that nothing is a coincidence, and yet gives glory to God, while the unbeliever writes it off as a "mere" coincidence and does not give glory to God. You would think that the more coincidental something is, the more inexplicable and therefore the more wondrous it would be. However, this is the very reason the unbeliever gives for not giving glory to God. And then to complicate things even further, the believer says that nothing is a coincidence, and yet is impressed because of the coincidentalness (that is, the exact and highly improbable timing).
Now let's do a thought experiment, or rather, a feeling experiment. Imagine that the man and his daughter are believers. They're walking away from the car, when all of a sudden they hear a huge explosion, turn around in confusion, and realize that their car has just exploded. As they watch it burn to a crisp at a safe distance, they thank God for his mercy and are amazed that they're still alive and give glory. Now let's pretend that the man and his daughter are unbelievers. They walk away from the car, hear a gigantic explosion, turn around and realize that their car has just exploded. As they watch the car go up in flames, what do you think they're thinking? Would they feel lucky for having their lives, but nonetheless write it off as a coincidence and just go on as if this was the most normal event in the world, or would they be amazed and think that God was watching and had preserved their lives? It seems to me that very few people, believers or atheists, could not be shaken by this event and at least wonder if there is a God out there. Just as even atheists pray provided that they're in enough anguish of heart, and can't help but get angry at God when things don't go their way even though they say he doesn't exist, so I think in the face of a great and merciful coincidence, it would be hard to not be impelled to have the desire to give thanks and glory to God, and in fact, that it would require unnatural effort to stifle this desire.
So then, what to make of this? And what does this say about God's ways, his plan, of the necessity of evil, and our faith? Those are the things this question is about.
How did Satan become evil? If there was no evil, how could he get "infected"? (a question about the origins of evil. If God is all good and everything he created was good, where did evil come from?)
This is related to the above question, "Why does Jesus say temptation is necessary?" In other words, why is Satan necessary? In what way does he fit in with God's plan?
Why would God put himself through eternal unrequited love, and for so many, many souls?
This is difficult for us humans to understand -- how can God be in anguish over the many souls who reject him, and yet how can he be fully content in himself at the same time? That is, God is complete in himself and doesn't rely on any outside source for his well-being or comfort. We, as finite, dependent beings, aren't like this, and so will we ever understand?
Why does the bible say that the good prosper and the wicked fail in what they do, when this is not true, and the bible even says that this is not true? (Ps 91:9-16, Eccl 4:1, 7:15, Jb 21:7-21, 27-34)
EX: Even the bible says, "There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous." (Eccl 8:14)
How can the bible be replete with things like "nothing shall hurt you" when it's just not true, and in fact, it's blatantly untrue? (Lk 10:19) How can God promise goodness when we see this isn't so? (Ps 34:10, 12, 15, 17-19, 22)
On one hand, the bible has a point. At least sometimes, doing the right thing will keep you out of trouble and also confer upon you benefits that the wicked don't get, if only because they make themselves an enemy of everyone they meet, thereby making life unnecessarily difficult for themselves. Just as Socrates said, even if the just and unjust live the same miserable life, the just person is far better able to deal with the miseries of life than the unjust, and on this one point, I believe this is completely true and uncontroversial. In that sense, yes, righteousness is a blessing on the one who practices it.
Likewise, I also believe that, as the bible says, those who follow God will never be put to shame (Ps 25:3, Phil 1:20). And in this case, when it says never, I really believe it literally means never. At least, I have found this to be true in my life.
But in other ways, I don't think that righteousness confers any kind of special protection on the righteous, and in fact, I believe, as the saying goes, that no good deed goes unpunished.
There's several types of suffering.
1)because you screwed up. In this case you're really just punishing yourself, which is obviously really stupid (of you).
2)because someone else screwed you over. This kind may or may not be avoidable. For the sake of this question however, we'll say it's unavoidable.
3)because you've made yourself a nuisance to an evil person by doing good (this usually involves fighting against evil and frustrating evildoers' plans). Avoidable if you want to keep out of trouble and keep a low profile, but if you want to do the right thing, this is unavoidable. Therefore, for the sake of this question, I'll categorize this as unavoidable.
4)just plain random bad luck, (ie, natural evil, a consequence of having the misfortune of living in a fallen world [that's all of us]). Of course, nothing is truly random in this world, all things being governed by God, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't use the mechanisms of randomness for his nonrandom purpose. (This is a big topic in itself, and I'll cover it more in depth elsewhere -- [1] God Using Evil for Good, [2] The Interwovenness of Human Lives & Their Inevitable Mutual Effects on Each Other -- aka, The Ripple Effect, [3] The Problem of the Distribution of Goodies & Randomness) Under this kind of evil, we can identify 3 subtypes:
a)the evil seems random, but it's actually not, ie, God has used natural evil to punish a person for their sins. A very obvious example of this would be getting an STD because you were fornicating. However, my guess is that a lot of natural evil is actually purposeful punishment, but the link is a lot more subtle than the above STD example. For example, you die a slow, painful death before your time (as happened to that one evil king in the bible who finally died after 2 years of suffering from a disease that made his guts come out. II Chr 21:19)
b)the evil is truly undeserved, but has either a more naturalistic or random cause. For example, some drunk driver hits your car and your little boy/girl winds up in the hospital or even dead. This would fall under the naturalistic category because given that there's always going to be drunk drivers out there, it's just inevitable that some people are going to get hit by them, and who gets hit is random, at least from what I've seen in life. (There's a good discussion of this in The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. For example, while it's true that on the individual level, who gets hit is random, on the nationwide, macroscopic level, the number of deaths from drunk driving is amazingly constant from year to year, almost as if there's some sort of quota to fulfill.)
Or your baby is born with a severe genetic disorder, where they either die or have to suffer greatly for the rest of their lives. (I'm using children in these examples to make sure that the victim is truly innocent. Of course, this could happen to anyone, as with Job.) Under this type of evil, there can be other subtypes (having to do with the purpose of the suffering), but that's not the issue here, so I'll move on.
c)the evil is undeserved, but unavoidable due to your unavoidable association with evil people who need to be punished. For example, maybe you're a saint, but you live with wicked people, and even if God protects you to some extent, he can't completely protect you due to surrounding circumstances. A good example of this is the bible story of Lot, when God sends 2 angels to get him and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah, which he's about to destroy, and while it was certainly better than dying in the sulfur and brimstone, it still sucked that he had to be uprooted from the place he had made his home and start all over again, isolated in the mountains.
Why do I put this in a different category from "b"? In "b", the evil that strikes is more "pinpointed". That is, if some jerk runs you over, just because you happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, well, that really sucks because it's like fate was out to get you. In "c", the fact that you end up being a victim isn't so painful because the "coincidence" factor isn't so great. This is related to what I'll call the Jn 9:3 question above, which talks about coincidence in relation to what's considered a miracle. In this case, we're using coincidence as a measure of God's involvement in the pain and suffering in our fallen world. Again, the more coincidental, the angrier we are at God; the less coincidental, the less we blame God.
I would say that of all the different types of suffering enumerated above, type 1 (where you're actually just punishing yourself) is the most common. Everyone has their own life story, everyone's life is filled with trouble, and it's amazing how much of that trouble is self-caused. I really think that more than 50% of most people's problems would be completely avoidable if they were just committed to always doing the right thing. Even the mistakes that people make simply as a result of being young and stupid, even those mistakes are largely avoidable if people would just follow very basic moral teachings that we've all heard since we were little. I think what happens is that people think these basic moral teachings are too simplistic and they make exceptions for themselves and their situation, not realizing that actually, yes, the rules of life really can be that simple. Even so, I blame no one for being young and stupid, since that's how we all start out and it can only be helped to varying degrees. Now, being old and stupid is a different matter...
But on top of this, most other types of suffering actually flow from type 1. If you get run over by a drunk, well, that's just you being a victim of the sin that's in all of us. And if you end up being the victim of an evil person because you fight evil with good, that also is just you being a victim of the sin that's in all of us. What I'm saying is, if everyone was sinless, the only kind of evil that would be left would be the natural kind (like hurricanes and earthquakes), and even these I'm sure would not exist if there was no one to punish. What's unfortunate in this world is that while it's true that all evil and suffering is due to our own evil and sinfulness, and that at the macroscopic level humanity deserves to live in the fallen world we have created, on the individual level, this is not always true.
Now I'd like to talk about blaming God, because this is what it all boils down to. It's quite obvious that people don't really care about pain or suffering -- what they really care about is blaming God. Now I must give credit where credit is due -- I didn't think of this first for myself, I heard it in a sermon, but it's very true. The preacher was talking about the suffering of Job (we can say that the suffering of Job is only second to Christ's in its innocence), and he pointed out that at the end of the book, Job (and neither we) ever find out why God allowed Satan to touch Job. In fact, the whole book is really nothing more than Job's poetic complaining about how badly he wants God to put him on trial so he can put to rest his friends' accusations that he must somehow deserve all this suffering. However, when God really does make a surprise appearance at the end, it's enough that he merely showed up. It's quite amazing that God's the only person in the universe for whom his mere presence is enough to assuage all our pain and all the senselessness of our fallen world, if only we believe that he's REALLY there. Somehow, only God occupies this "existential" position, where his mere existence is enough to put to rest all our whys. After all, as I said above, for some reason no one really cares about pain and suffering, only, "God, are you out there?" Let me prove my point -- think of how you're suffering right now, and if you're not suffering right now, pick some time in the past when you were suffering, and if you've never suffered in the past just imagine your worst nightmare, and then imagine that God came down and all he did was somehow identify himself as God (and you were absolutely convinced that God had really come down and visited you). Wouldn't that somehow make it seem like everything you were going through really is bearable after all?
Why does God hold this "existential position"? I think because we all know, without ever having been told or taught, that God is ultimate meaning. If God visited you in your distress, even if he never explained what his purpose or plan was, we naturally understand that he does have a purpose and plan, and that it's good and worth it.
There's a famous classical atheist quote by Epicurus that goes like this (see under "Disputed"):
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"
I wonder what Epicurus would think if God came down in his distress. Or not in his distress. Never mind; the point isn't really his distress, but God. This is a question of faith here. See, if God comes down, that still doesn't answer the question in the LOGICAL sense. And yet, I think Epicurus would have a hard time holding on to his atheism. Of course, he could still not BELIEVE. What I mean is that his faith would be like Satan's -- that is, he knows God exists and yet devotes his existence to struggling against him. But could we really call Satan an atheist? Probably not, at least not in the technical sense. So we come back to Epicurus. Is the reason he didn't believe REALLY because of the evil in the world? He seemed to think that God's existence and the existence of evil in the world are mutually exclusive -- if you have one you automatically can't have the other. That the world is an evil place is obvious, so that must mean that God doesn't exist. But would his logic hold up if he were to actually MEET God? I don't think so. Again, he might still choose to not believe, but I don't think he could keep his atheism. So then what? To repeat, Epicurus' question would still remain unanswered, and yet he would be refuted because his basic premise (that God and an evil world are mutually exclusive) would be invalid, not because of logic, but empiricism, the same empiricism that tells us that the world is obviously an evil place.
Now we could go on and further refute Epicurus by pointing out that there is no morality apart from God, and so he is using God to refute God, which of course makes no sense, but this is a whole different issue, so I won't go into it here -- this is enough for now, but I want to drive home the point that while the problem of evil is a serious problem, it should not be used as an argument against God, since it's only an excuse to deny Him. How many atheists/agnostics have you met or heard of (perhaps you're one yourself), who hasn't said that they would believe if they saw a miracle or if God actually appeared to them? Countless. In fact, they use this also as an excuse -- knowing that God doesn't visit every atheist out there in order to dissuade them from their atheism and put an end to atheism on earth once and for all (wouldn't that be so easy [I mean this for both parties]!), in blind arrogance they proclaim that they will never believe unless God shows up right in front of them, and then, only then, will they believe. If this is true, then Epicurus doesn't even believe his own argument. If he established by empirical observation that the world is obviously evil, then he must be open to establishing the existence of God by empirical observation, including in a hypothetical situation.
Let's look at the problem of evil in relation to free will. I'd like to contrast group-oriented societies (such as those that are Islamic) with God's own policy, which is one of total individualism, freedom and non-paternalism. So, for example, in Islam, if you steal, they cut off your hand. This is extremely harsh, but the punishment isn't meant merely to punish, but to send a message to society that they better not think about stealing. God, however, lets everyone do whatever they want, or at least it sure seems that way. In what I'll call the "natural world", stealing won't, for example, automatically cause your hand to whither away. In fact, you might possibly make a very good life for yourself by stealing, especially if you're rich and can "afford" to get away with it.
Now this built-in non-paternalism in the natural world is partly due to the interplay of the 2 sides of the UQ -- effects in turn become causes, and actions and repercussions strengthen previous beliefs. For example, pedophiles generally become bolder and bolder over time. I don't think it really goes the other way around, and certainly not naturally. (I mean, while it is possible for a pedophile to get better over time, this would probably be the result of conscientious and painstaking self-discipline, not because it was just the easier thing to do.)
Now here's a side question, and then I'll return to the main line of thinking -- At what point, though, does a person hit rock bottom and realize that they no longer want to continue with this vicious cycle?
Now returning to my main point, I'm reminded of what CS Lewis said, that it's somehow valuable that we live in a world (however messed up we might have made it) of our own creation, one that we've made through our own collective choices and actions, rather than one in which God carefully filters out everything that he personally doesn't like.
But does God ALWAYS allow freedom? Think about the modern porn epidemic. In the past, getting a hold of porn was too difficult, and if we go back even farther, it was rather crude (ie, just drawings, no photos or videos), although, of course, there was always the option of prostititutes. So this was a natural hindrance to going completely wild.
Looking at all this from a practical point-of-view, what does this say about proper government? Should we be group-oriented and paternalistic, or libertarian and individualistic? Even if God's a "libertarian", wouldn't the UQ dictate that ideal government has features of both?
The bible says God takes care of all our needs. (Mt 6:25-34) Then why did God bring the people to a place with no water? (Ex 17:1) I can't blame the people for wanting to quench their thirst. (vv 2-3)
Well, the simple answer (God actually answers this question in the bible -- Dt 8:15-16) is that he wanted to test them. This is related to the previous question, where I talk about the different kinds of evil, and under type 4b I make reference to various subtypes, depending on the purpose. Well, this is one of the subtypes -- God testing you. Of course, a test is never pleasant, that's the point after all. (Heb 12:11)
So again, as in the previous question, we come up against the central question of faith, since faith is what's needed to stand a test. Therefore, this is really just the "Lazarus question (Lk 16:30)" in a different guise.
If it is God’s desire that none should perish, and his will is always fulfilled, why do many perish? (Mt 7:13)
It's the UQ again. I talk about this on the UQ page (search for "free will vs fate/determinism).
But here's an interesting follow-up question: If God's will is always done (and it is; again, the UQ shows up, since there's what I'll call God's good or perfect will (Rom 12:2) and his manifested will), if God's manifested will is always done, could we still say we have free will? Let's take an extreme example here -- we know that people with bad intentions sometimes are successful with carrying out their evil plans and sometimes they're thwarted. Let's pretend that a pedophile is about to kidnap a little girl, but the cops get a hold of his porn stash and nab him before he can make his move. In this way, God didn't interfere with his free will by direct thought control (ie, ensures that the guy never has pedophile thoughts or desires), but the little girl is still saved from being traumatized. So free will is protected, but the world is still a safe place. Now we know sometimes this happens, so why can't God do it all the time?
Well, what would it look like for God to do this all the time? The result, I think, would be artificial. We could go further with the above example and say that this pedophile is never even able to collect a porn stash to begin with. Maybe he doesn't have enough money for it. But then wouldn't everyone with pedophile tendencies have to be too poor to afford child porn? That doesn't seem realistic. In any case, the market would probably adjust itself to ensure that the demand could afford the supply, never mind that, I'm sure, pedophilia can be found in all socioeconomic classes. In any case, this still hasn't eliminated the problem, because what made the pedophiles go after child porn in the first place? In the end, all evil comes from the mind and heart, which is something you can't directly regulate, and if God were to directly regulate them, well, where would the free will be?
But then, we could run this experiment in the opposite extreme -- everyone always gets away with whatever they want to do. Hmm. This also seems artificial and unrealistic, and in fact, a logical impossibility. After all, humans have all sorts of desires and goals, and these are often at odds with each other. The pedophile has one goal, the cops have another -- how could they possibly both be successful? So it seems to me that God lets us fight for either good or evil, and whichever is stronger wins. I'm saying that a lot of this depends on the social milieu. Society, as a whole, is partly responsible for even individual sins. For example, child sex trafficking in south and southeast Asia is a lot more tolerated than it is in the US. Divorce is more tolerated in the US than in Argentina. Britain and the US have problems with serial killers, while serial killers are practically unheard of in other societies. It's even more acceptable to be depressed or commit suicide in some societies (such as Russia) than in others (let's pick Mexico). So if a pedophile is running loose in the US, I'm saying that Americans, to a certain extent, breed pedophiles. How? Lax sexual mores, porn (and I'm talking about just regular porn, not child porn), being a huge factor. A lot, perhaps even most, pedophiles aren't born, but made. They start off with regular porn, then they go for harder and harder stuff to get the same level of arousal, and one day they discover, often to their shock and dismay, that child porn is actually arousing. I would hope at this point that they would quit and realize what they've done to themselves, but unfortunately, many don't. They have now been acclimated to thinking of child porn as OK (perhaps as long as they themselves don't molest or rape a child), but who knows how long it takes before they're rationalizing that? So because Americans love their porn too much, it's too difficult to pass laws against it, and so the problem continues, and little children become the innocent victims. In this case, the fight of good against evil has taken a hit. What can turn the tide? Can it be turned? I wish I could say. Already, incest porn is on the rise, because the demand has become inured to so-called "lighter" stuff, and the pornographers, realizing that this is the wave of the future, are more than willing to supply the demand. It's shocking to me that there's no law against this stuff in America. Can it really be good for society to let the citizenry become hooked to this garbage? But no, pornographers and porn lovers come to the defense of porn with cries of "Free speech!" and "Freedom of expression!" and the rest of America is more than willing to hear them out and take their bullshit seriously.
But isn't this God's way, to give us the freedom to do whatever we want? Well, even this isn't completely accurate. A Yanomama Indian in Venezuela has never heard of porn (though rape is extremely well-tolerated in their society). So you could say that God has deprived the Yanomama of his "right" to porn. Even so, overall, I think God is a real libertarian and he'll let you do whatever you want -- no artificial barricades or mind control or any such thing. He's even more liberal than a libertarian -- libertarians say your freedom stops where another's rights begin, but God gives us a free-for-all. That's his policy on earth. He doesn't handcuff anyone or tie them down. (For example, he doesn't just tell the cops who all the pedophiles are and where to track them down.) Instead, he let's us (the good vs the evil) duke it out. Then at the end, he'll collect everyone who fought for good and put them in their own world, and he'll collect everyone who loved evil and unrighteousness and separate them off in their own world, and the 2 kinds of people will never have to interact with each other again. So the children of God will have peace and tranquility and get along with each other, and the children of the devil will be able to live in hell like they always wanted, and their evil plans will never again have to be thwarted by the pesky do-gooders.
But then why doesn't God make everyone good to begin with? Again, we come back to the original question. And while I don't have the definitive answer, I can at least feel out that such a world is unrealistic and artificial. The good news, however, is that God can at least separate the sheep from the goats at the end of the age and the sheep can set up their own world and the goats their own world, and I think this is what God thinks is the most fair. When his plan for this world has been completed, he will make sure that the sheep will no longer have to endure the goats. And this is the real crux of the question, because I don't think people care so much that there's good people and there's bad people, as they care about why the good suffer at the hands of the bad. At least we know that this suffering is temporary and will not be tolerated forever, but only a short time.
But let's take a look at this. If, as it seems, there must always be good people and bad people, why doesn't God just make a world full of good people and a second world of nothing but bad people from the beginning? Well, this model has some problems. First, no matter how good you are you're never perfect, so the possibility of making a world of nothing but good people is arguable, no, actually, impossible, unless, again, you have God tweaking and messing with people's free will (which is a cosmic no-no). No matter how good someone is, they always have some part of them that's ugly and has no place in a perfect world. This is why God sent us a Savior. And second, a second world of bad people is redundant -- why create them in the first place if they're just going to be bad? So this collapses into the first alternative model (God only creating good people), which we've already discussed.
But if it's impossible to be good from the beginning, why would it be possible to be made perfect in the image of Christ after being saved, and only after death? This is a good question -- it's the opposite of our original question -- if we cannot help but be imperfect, how can God make us perfect? And again, if his intention is to make us perfect, and worthy of this perfect world, why are we not perfected at the moment of salvation, but only when the world is renewed? Well, as is true of everything else in the world, we are conformed to the image of Christ little by little, not overnight. I suppose this is because God works like this in the physical world (here's the UQ again), where even the process of santification is not imposed completely by supernatural will, but by the working, cooperation, and practice of our natural will as well. (Rom 12:2) So it's our duty as Christians to keep straining for perfection while we sojourn to our heavenly home, but to also hope in the renewal of all things, when we will finally attain our goal. And I think this is one of the most difficult things to live in the Christian life -- this balancing of hope despite the darkness, which can only be attained by the practice of more and more faith.
So of all the possible models, God thinks it best that his divine plan is played out in a world like ours, as Jesus teaches in the parable of the wheat and weeds (Mt 13:24-30) and as we explored some reasons for in this question, but I think evil is actually instrumental in God's divine plan (which Jesus doesn't go into in the parable, but only mentions), but I'll write more about this elsewhere, which Jesus addresses in Mt 18:7 -- "Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!"
I thought there was nothing bad in Eden, so how come Adam was lonely if everything was perfect? (Gn 2:18, 23)
As if often helpful, let's pose the question differently -- would it be possible for Adam to be perfectly happy despite not having a partner? Yes, but only under certain conditions:
A)He was created without any need for a partner, which God could have willed and done, but he didn't, and I'm not going to complain -- romantic and sexual love seem like good things to me,
B)He could be perfectly happy no matter what, which again, might actually be possible under certain circumstances. Hypermania, for example. People with this condition are always happy for no reason, and in fact, often when they have plenty of reason not to. I once read of a hypermanic woman who's mother died, and it really didn't affect her, nor did it really bother her that she wasn't affected. On one hand, you could think she was really lucky -- no matter what, she's always happy! Isn't that what we all want? Actually, I don't think so. I think what people really want is to, as the ancient Greeks called it, flourish. Again, the UQ comes into play. Happiness is made of 2 components -- the physical side is what I'll call pleasure, and the 2nd is meaning. In the case of this hypermanic woman, she has quite a lot of pleasure, but not a whole lot of meaning. That is, she's happy for no reason, and I actually think that's not a good thing. As with all things in the UQ, you want the 2 sides to correspond as much as possible. You can have pleasure without meaning, and you can have meaning without pleasure, but the first is empty, and the second is still miserable, though it's still better than emptiness -- put another way, something is better than nothing.
So I don't think it'd be right for Adam to be happy for no reason, or when he really ought to be lonely, if that's what it means to be connected to reality. Not saying that this answers the question -- just offering another way of thinking about it.
Lk 7:13-14 If it's God's plan to do good, why do evil in the first place? (see also God Using Evil for Good) Why not just make it so that the man never died? Why was the man at the pool of Bethesda an invalid for 38 years? Why was he enslaved for 38 years? (Jn 5:5) Why was the hunched-over woman enslaved for 18 years (Lk 13:11), and the hemorrhaging woman 12 (Mk 5:25)? I can't pray for sick people. Why pray for good when we see that it was God's will that a person be under evil? (And we know that anything that happens is God's will.)
Actually, this is really only a facet of a larger question, which is, why did God will that there be evil at all? I'm sure there's many of you out there who would disagree that God wills evil, preferring to say that he only allows it, but I disagree. We see that the only difference between this age and the next is that this world has evil, while the next, provided you go to the right place, doesn't. God could have made it so that this age would be like the next (in not having evil), but he didn't. Therefore, evil must serve some kind of purpose. In fact, I would say that it is the defining feature of this age, that the whole divine plan is predicated upon evil. I don't purport to say that I know just how evil serves the divine plan (that's the question of the ages, isn't it? And philosophy is the one human endeavor that will never make progress), only that it serves some kind of purpose.
But this doesn't mean that I think the existence of evil is somehow artificial, in the sense that God invented it as a mere means to an end (and surely, God would never invent evil), but that evil is a natural consequence of existence. So I believe that while evil's existence is inevitable, I also believe that it's been harnessed by God, against all odds, for his greater glory. Of course, all things have their existence for God's glory, and so we could answer the question simply like this and leave it at that, but of course, that's always dissatisfying, and not very intellectually honest, either. I suppose if one had the greatest faith, that would be good enough, and I'm not disparaging faith here -- faith is necessary -- nothing good could be accomplished without it, so I commend this person with the greatest faith, but that's for religion, and this is theology -- theology seeks to understand, and indeed, faith also seeks to understand, since true faith seeks to always be balanced with reason, as the UQ dictates.
"If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD." (Isaiah 26:10)
"Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily,
the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." (Eccl 8:11)
Then why does God do/allow this?
This question really can't be fully appreciated if not taken in light of the bigger picture, which for our purposes here, I think is sufficiently discussed in the question and answer immediately above, that is, not only why does God let evildoers continue in their evildoing, but more importantly, why does he allow this at all? In any case, let's get down to the particulars of this question.
For one thing, God is constantly testing us. (Job 7:18) In fact, this life is just one big test. So we should remind ourselves of this whenever we start to get tunnel vision and magnify some little thing in life as if it were something of ultimate import, or, as the Little Prince would say, matters of consequence, when really, we're just actors in a play, the thing of true ultimate import being -- did we hold to our integrity? As the bible says, "All human deeds surely perish; the works they do follow after them." (Sir 14:19) This isn't to say that we should take things in life lightly, since one mortal sin can separate us from God, but we shouldn't confuse the many little struggles of life with what really matters. To put things more concretely, it doesn't really matter if you watch his movie or her movie, but that each is willing to please the other. Unfortunately, most people's lives consist in getting this fact backwards. Herein we see the need for faith. The faithless person is blind to the big picture, blowing little things up to make them big, and dismissing what's big to make it little, or even nonexistent, when, if they had wisdom, they could live life with extraordinary confidence.
Which brings us back, quite conveniently, to our original question -- why does God allow these faithless people to go on and on, ruining things for everyone else? I don't think the point, as reiterated from above, is whether everyone is happy and prosperous, but to allow us to grope for a reality and destiny of our own choosing, to figure out for ourselves whether we'll live in the light or the darkness, and what we'll make of ourselves. Actually, the bible goes so far as to say that some people are destined for destruction, and that their contribution to the divine plan is in a negative sense, and to their own destruction. People such as Pharaoh, Judas Iscariot, and really, anyone else who doesn't find the narrow path. (Rom 9:10-24)
So let's imagine that God swiftly rewards or punishes everyone as soon as they did good or evil. Now sometimes this happens, but not usually. Most of the time, the full consequences of sin take time to develop, and needs its time to reach maturity. This is like anything else in life, in this physical world that we live in, where everything is predicated on time, growth, and gradualness. Life is lived on different time scales -- things can happen in split seconds, take years of dedication, a whole lifetime to achieve, or on the national scale, centuries to come to full fruition. Likewise, sin (or virtue), is played out on these same time scales. The full story must have its beginning, middle, and end, and not a moment sooner or later. A striking example of this in the bible is the story of Esther -- the villain (Haman), in his pride and prosperity, falls headlong to his doom, not realizing, all along the way, that this very prosperity will be his undoing. Not that prosperity is bad in itself -- on the contrary, prosperity is good, and if you can have it, go and get it, but realize that you'll be tested by it, because some become prosperous and use their prosperity and power for its intended purpose, to better serve others and not oneself, as King David realized early in his reign (II Sm 5:12), while others, like Haman, are blindsided by it. Life will carry out as you decide, as this quote from the Philokalia by Saint Mark the Ascetic so wonderfully puts it: "He who does not understand God's judgments walks on a ridge like a knife-edge and is easily unbalanced by every puff of wind. When praised, he exults; when criticized, he feels bitter. When he feasts, he makes a pig of himself; and when he suffers hardship, he moans and groans. When he understands, he shows off; and when he does not understand, he pretends that he does. When rich, he is boastful; and when in poverty, he plays the hypocrite. Gorged, he grows brazen; and when he fasts, he becomes arrogant. He quarrels with those who reprove him; and those who forgive him he regards as fools." Really, nobody has an excuse if they don't learn the lessons of life. After all, if we all hate it so much when others impinge on our dignity and pride and screw us over, why do we then turn around and do the same things to others and expect them to treat us any better? But nothing blinds better than pride, and nothing is more self-righteous than pride wounded.
Who has prescribed for him his way, or who can say, ‘You have done wrong’? (Jb 36:23)
“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” (Jb 40:2)
You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
(Is 29:16)
Verse Observations: I Pt 5:10, Ps 119:75
*theodicy - Ps 37:13, 50:21 (God biding his time [for some reason]), 92:7, 102:20-21, Is 1:31, 38:17†, Rom 3:4
*evil as the divine plan - Ps 76:10, Mt 18:7, Rom 11:32
*God preparing evil - Zech 11:16-17 (see also The Divine Plan, Fate & Free Will)
*good & evil under God - Jb 12:16, Prv 15:3, Eccl 7:14 (see also The Divine Plan, Fate & Free Will)
†Condemning God for (us) being unhappy comes from a viewpoint that happiness is the highest good. But what is the highest good? Isn't it our moral perfection? (see the question on "the relationship b/w suffering and moral progress")
Verse Observations: Ps 76:10, Mt 18:7, Rom 11:32
Why is it necessary that temptations come? (Mt 18:7)
I can think of 2 ways that "necessary" can be taken here -- necessary in the sense that temptation fulfills some purpose (in the divine plan, although what that would be I don't know), or necessary in the sense that evil and temptation are inevitable, that is, natural and inherent to created beings. I'm not sure which of these is true, or maybe even if both are true.
Ps 34:9 "... those who fear him have no lack." Isn't this the central question of faith? Even Satan said "Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have
blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land." (Jb 1:9-10) And Solomon said, "Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." (Eccl 8:11.) If those who feared God really had no lack, then everyone would fear God, yes? And if the sentence against evil was executed speedily, no one would do evil. But would this be true faith? Why do we live in a world where moral effect doesn't necessarily follow moral cause? (This question is also found under "Faith in God's Will".)
Why do we give glory to God when he rescues us from our troubles if it is he who put us in those situations in the first place? Jn 9:3 How does this honor God, since it was God who gave this man the blindness in the first place? Why is the glory of God seen not when everything goes well, but when everything goes awry but is saved? And this is the way it's been with human history as well. (Rom 9:22-23, 17) [predestination] Note in v 17 where it says of Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you ...." So God uses evil to bring about the salvation of the elect, which illustrates the question.)
I remember reading a story about a man and his daughter who had just parked their car, and when they had walked away from it a bit, just enough to be out of the danger zone, the car exploded. Of course, because they were far away enough, they were unhurt. This sounds like a miracle, but we have to ask, why? As humans, our initial and natural reaction is to think that God saved them from the explosion, that he had mercy on them and got them out of the way just in time. But God could have just kept the car from exploding in the first place. A second reason why we humans are so impressed by this story is because of the timing -- the car exploded right at the moment when they walked far away enough, and not a moment sooner or later. It sounds incredible, too coincidental. Now, that it's too coincidental, I'll concede. We'll get to this point later. Right now my point is that if the car had exploded, say, after having been brought to a junkyard, or out in the driveway one night, it wouldn't have been as impressive. In the driveway at night, that's a relief, and if in a junkyard, I'm not sure if anyone would give it a second thought, but right after they had just walked away from it -- now that's impressive. That deserves miracle status.
So now that I've broken this all down, you may think that I would deny that this was a miracle and deny that it gives glory to God, but that's not my point. I do think it's a miracle. I am impressed and I do give glory to God. No matter all my logical objections (and I don't deny these either -- that's the whole point of this question -- resolving the conflict and tension between the logical objection and the spiritual impression), I say that God still had mercy on this man and his daughter and that it was his doing and plan that they should be moved out of the way at just the right moment and no sooner and no later.
The real question here is -- yes, it's true, God could have made the car explode at any other "less impressive" time, or he could have kept the car from exploding at all, which would not be impressive at all, in fact, we (as humans) would never even think to thank God or give glory to him for keeping the car from exploding, but given that God is the orchestrator and executor of all things, why are still so impressed? See, you must have faith in order to "not" be impressed (on the logical side). But by that same faith, you are made to be impressed on the spiritual side. Likewise, the irony is that if you do not have faith, you would have to be impressed on the logical side, and not impressed on the spiritual side. What I mean is that the unbeliever doesn't believe there's a God, and therefore doesn't believe that God is sovereign and omnipotent or merciful for that matter. Therefore, if the car explodes, it had to explode. Given the natural state of the car, and all it had been through, it was inevitable that the car would have to give into whatever kind of physical stress it was under and finally "snap" and explode. Of course, nature doesn't care if there's anyone around or not for the explosion. Therefore, that the man and his daughter had gotten far away enough just in time is truly wondrous. To further complicate things, the believer says that nothing is a coincidence, and yet gives glory to God, while the unbeliever writes it off as a "mere" coincidence and does not give glory to God. You would think that the more coincidental something is, the more inexplicable and therefore the more wondrous it would be. However, this is the very reason the unbeliever gives for not giving glory to God. And then to complicate things even further, the believer says that nothing is a coincidence, and yet is impressed because of the coincidentalness (that is, the exact and highly improbable timing).
Now let's do a thought experiment, or rather, a feeling experiment. Imagine that the man and his daughter are believers. They're walking away from the car, when all of a sudden they hear a huge explosion, turn around in confusion, and realize that their car has just exploded. As they watch it burn to a crisp at a safe distance, they thank God for his mercy and are amazed that they're still alive and give glory. Now let's pretend that the man and his daughter are unbelievers. They walk away from the car, hear a gigantic explosion, turn around and realize that their car has just exploded. As they watch the car go up in flames, what do you think they're thinking? Would they feel lucky for having their lives, but nonetheless write it off as a coincidence and just go on as if this was the most normal event in the world, or would they be amazed and think that God was watching and had preserved their lives? It seems to me that very few people, believers or atheists, could not be shaken by this event and at least wonder if there is a God out there. Just as even atheists pray provided that they're in enough anguish of heart, and can't help but get angry at God when things don't go their way even though they say he doesn't exist, so I think in the face of a great and merciful coincidence, it would be hard to not be impelled to have the desire to give thanks and glory to God, and in fact, that it would require unnatural effort to stifle this desire.
So then, what to make of this? And what does this say about God's ways, his plan, of the necessity of evil, and our faith? Those are the things this question is about.
How did Satan become evil? If there was no evil, how could he get "infected"? (a question about the origins of evil. If God is all good and everything he created was good, where did evil come from?)
This is related to the above question, "Why does Jesus say temptation is necessary?" In other words, why is Satan necessary? In what way does he fit in with God's plan?
Why would God put himself through eternal unrequited love, and for so many, many souls?
This is difficult for us humans to understand -- how can God be in anguish over the many souls who reject him, and yet how can he be fully content in himself at the same time? That is, God is complete in himself and doesn't rely on any outside source for his well-being or comfort. We, as finite, dependent beings, aren't like this, and so will we ever understand?
Why does the bible say that the good prosper and the wicked fail in what they do, when this is not true, and the bible even says that this is not true? (Ps 91:9-16, Eccl 4:1, 7:15, Jb 21:7-21, 27-34)
EX: Even the bible says, "There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous." (Eccl 8:14)
How can the bible be replete with things like "nothing shall hurt you" when it's just not true, and in fact, it's blatantly untrue? (Lk 10:19) How can God promise goodness when we see this isn't so? (Ps 34:10, 12, 15, 17-19, 22)
On one hand, the bible has a point. At least sometimes, doing the right thing will keep you out of trouble and also confer upon you benefits that the wicked don't get, if only because they make themselves an enemy of everyone they meet, thereby making life unnecessarily difficult for themselves. Just as Socrates said, even if the just and unjust live the same miserable life, the just person is far better able to deal with the miseries of life than the unjust, and on this one point, I believe this is completely true and uncontroversial. In that sense, yes, righteousness is a blessing on the one who practices it.
Likewise, I also believe that, as the bible says, those who follow God will never be put to shame (Ps 25:3, Phil 1:20). And in this case, when it says never, I really believe it literally means never. At least, I have found this to be true in my life.
But in other ways, I don't think that righteousness confers any kind of special protection on the righteous, and in fact, I believe, as the saying goes, that no good deed goes unpunished.
There's several types of suffering.
1)because you screwed up. In this case you're really just punishing yourself, which is obviously really stupid (of you).
2)because someone else screwed you over. This kind may or may not be avoidable. For the sake of this question however, we'll say it's unavoidable.
3)because you've made yourself a nuisance to an evil person by doing good (this usually involves fighting against evil and frustrating evildoers' plans). Avoidable if you want to keep out of trouble and keep a low profile, but if you want to do the right thing, this is unavoidable. Therefore, for the sake of this question, I'll categorize this as unavoidable.
4)just plain random bad luck, (ie, natural evil, a consequence of having the misfortune of living in a fallen world [that's all of us]). Of course, nothing is truly random in this world, all things being governed by God, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't use the mechanisms of randomness for his nonrandom purpose. (This is a big topic in itself, and I'll cover it more in depth elsewhere -- [1] God Using Evil for Good, [2] The Interwovenness of Human Lives & Their Inevitable Mutual Effects on Each Other -- aka, The Ripple Effect, [3] The Problem of the Distribution of Goodies & Randomness) Under this kind of evil, we can identify 3 subtypes:
a)the evil seems random, but it's actually not, ie, God has used natural evil to punish a person for their sins. A very obvious example of this would be getting an STD because you were fornicating. However, my guess is that a lot of natural evil is actually purposeful punishment, but the link is a lot more subtle than the above STD example. For example, you die a slow, painful death before your time (as happened to that one evil king in the bible who finally died after 2 years of suffering from a disease that made his guts come out. II Chr 21:19)
b)the evil is truly undeserved, but has either a more naturalistic or random cause. For example, some drunk driver hits your car and your little boy/girl winds up in the hospital or even dead. This would fall under the naturalistic category because given that there's always going to be drunk drivers out there, it's just inevitable that some people are going to get hit by them, and who gets hit is random, at least from what I've seen in life. (There's a good discussion of this in The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. For example, while it's true that on the individual level, who gets hit is random, on the nationwide, macroscopic level, the number of deaths from drunk driving is amazingly constant from year to year, almost as if there's some sort of quota to fulfill.)
Or your baby is born with a severe genetic disorder, where they either die or have to suffer greatly for the rest of their lives. (I'm using children in these examples to make sure that the victim is truly innocent. Of course, this could happen to anyone, as with Job.) Under this type of evil, there can be other subtypes (having to do with the purpose of the suffering), but that's not the issue here, so I'll move on.
c)the evil is undeserved, but unavoidable due to your unavoidable association with evil people who need to be punished. For example, maybe you're a saint, but you live with wicked people, and even if God protects you to some extent, he can't completely protect you due to surrounding circumstances. A good example of this is the bible story of Lot, when God sends 2 angels to get him and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah, which he's about to destroy, and while it was certainly better than dying in the sulfur and brimstone, it still sucked that he had to be uprooted from the place he had made his home and start all over again, isolated in the mountains.
Why do I put this in a different category from "b"? In "b", the evil that strikes is more "pinpointed". That is, if some jerk runs you over, just because you happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, well, that really sucks because it's like fate was out to get you. In "c", the fact that you end up being a victim isn't so painful because the "coincidence" factor isn't so great. This is related to what I'll call the Jn 9:3 question above, which talks about coincidence in relation to what's considered a miracle. In this case, we're using coincidence as a measure of God's involvement in the pain and suffering in our fallen world. Again, the more coincidental, the angrier we are at God; the less coincidental, the less we blame God.
I would say that of all the different types of suffering enumerated above, type 1 (where you're actually just punishing yourself) is the most common. Everyone has their own life story, everyone's life is filled with trouble, and it's amazing how much of that trouble is self-caused. I really think that more than 50% of most people's problems would be completely avoidable if they were just committed to always doing the right thing. Even the mistakes that people make simply as a result of being young and stupid, even those mistakes are largely avoidable if people would just follow very basic moral teachings that we've all heard since we were little. I think what happens is that people think these basic moral teachings are too simplistic and they make exceptions for themselves and their situation, not realizing that actually, yes, the rules of life really can be that simple. Even so, I blame no one for being young and stupid, since that's how we all start out and it can only be helped to varying degrees. Now, being old and stupid is a different matter...
But on top of this, most other types of suffering actually flow from type 1. If you get run over by a drunk, well, that's just you being a victim of the sin that's in all of us. And if you end up being the victim of an evil person because you fight evil with good, that also is just you being a victim of the sin that's in all of us. What I'm saying is, if everyone was sinless, the only kind of evil that would be left would be the natural kind (like hurricanes and earthquakes), and even these I'm sure would not exist if there was no one to punish. What's unfortunate in this world is that while it's true that all evil and suffering is due to our own evil and sinfulness, and that at the macroscopic level humanity deserves to live in the fallen world we have created, on the individual level, this is not always true.
Now I'd like to talk about blaming God, because this is what it all boils down to. It's quite obvious that people don't really care about pain or suffering -- what they really care about is blaming God. Now I must give credit where credit is due -- I didn't think of this first for myself, I heard it in a sermon, but it's very true. The preacher was talking about the suffering of Job (we can say that the suffering of Job is only second to Christ's in its innocence), and he pointed out that at the end of the book, Job (and neither we) ever find out why God allowed Satan to touch Job. In fact, the whole book is really nothing more than Job's poetic complaining about how badly he wants God to put him on trial so he can put to rest his friends' accusations that he must somehow deserve all this suffering. However, when God really does make a surprise appearance at the end, it's enough that he merely showed up. It's quite amazing that God's the only person in the universe for whom his mere presence is enough to assuage all our pain and all the senselessness of our fallen world, if only we believe that he's REALLY there. Somehow, only God occupies this "existential" position, where his mere existence is enough to put to rest all our whys. After all, as I said above, for some reason no one really cares about pain and suffering, only, "God, are you out there?" Let me prove my point -- think of how you're suffering right now, and if you're not suffering right now, pick some time in the past when you were suffering, and if you've never suffered in the past just imagine your worst nightmare, and then imagine that God came down and all he did was somehow identify himself as God (and you were absolutely convinced that God had really come down and visited you). Wouldn't that somehow make it seem like everything you were going through really is bearable after all?
Why does God hold this "existential position"? I think because we all know, without ever having been told or taught, that God is ultimate meaning. If God visited you in your distress, even if he never explained what his purpose or plan was, we naturally understand that he does have a purpose and plan, and that it's good and worth it.
There's a famous classical atheist quote by Epicurus that goes like this (see under "Disputed"):
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"
I wonder what Epicurus would think if God came down in his distress. Or not in his distress. Never mind; the point isn't really his distress, but God. This is a question of faith here. See, if God comes down, that still doesn't answer the question in the LOGICAL sense. And yet, I think Epicurus would have a hard time holding on to his atheism. Of course, he could still not BELIEVE. What I mean is that his faith would be like Satan's -- that is, he knows God exists and yet devotes his existence to struggling against him. But could we really call Satan an atheist? Probably not, at least not in the technical sense. So we come back to Epicurus. Is the reason he didn't believe REALLY because of the evil in the world? He seemed to think that God's existence and the existence of evil in the world are mutually exclusive -- if you have one you automatically can't have the other. That the world is an evil place is obvious, so that must mean that God doesn't exist. But would his logic hold up if he were to actually MEET God? I don't think so. Again, he might still choose to not believe, but I don't think he could keep his atheism. So then what? To repeat, Epicurus' question would still remain unanswered, and yet he would be refuted because his basic premise (that God and an evil world are mutually exclusive) would be invalid, not because of logic, but empiricism, the same empiricism that tells us that the world is obviously an evil place.
Now we could go on and further refute Epicurus by pointing out that there is no morality apart from God, and so he is using God to refute God, which of course makes no sense, but this is a whole different issue, so I won't go into it here -- this is enough for now, but I want to drive home the point that while the problem of evil is a serious problem, it should not be used as an argument against God, since it's only an excuse to deny Him. How many atheists/agnostics have you met or heard of (perhaps you're one yourself), who hasn't said that they would believe if they saw a miracle or if God actually appeared to them? Countless. In fact, they use this also as an excuse -- knowing that God doesn't visit every atheist out there in order to dissuade them from their atheism and put an end to atheism on earth once and for all (wouldn't that be so easy [I mean this for both parties]!), in blind arrogance they proclaim that they will never believe unless God shows up right in front of them, and then, only then, will they believe. If this is true, then Epicurus doesn't even believe his own argument. If he established by empirical observation that the world is obviously evil, then he must be open to establishing the existence of God by empirical observation, including in a hypothetical situation.
Let's look at the problem of evil in relation to free will. I'd like to contrast group-oriented societies (such as those that are Islamic) with God's own policy, which is one of total individualism, freedom and non-paternalism. So, for example, in Islam, if you steal, they cut off your hand. This is extremely harsh, but the punishment isn't meant merely to punish, but to send a message to society that they better not think about stealing. God, however, lets everyone do whatever they want, or at least it sure seems that way. In what I'll call the "natural world", stealing won't, for example, automatically cause your hand to whither away. In fact, you might possibly make a very good life for yourself by stealing, especially if you're rich and can "afford" to get away with it.
Now this built-in non-paternalism in the natural world is partly due to the interplay of the 2 sides of the UQ -- effects in turn become causes, and actions and repercussions strengthen previous beliefs. For example, pedophiles generally become bolder and bolder over time. I don't think it really goes the other way around, and certainly not naturally. (I mean, while it is possible for a pedophile to get better over time, this would probably be the result of conscientious and painstaking self-discipline, not because it was just the easier thing to do.)
Now here's a side question, and then I'll return to the main line of thinking -- At what point, though, does a person hit rock bottom and realize that they no longer want to continue with this vicious cycle?
Now returning to my main point, I'm reminded of what CS Lewis said, that it's somehow valuable that we live in a world (however messed up we might have made it) of our own creation, one that we've made through our own collective choices and actions, rather than one in which God carefully filters out everything that he personally doesn't like.
But does God ALWAYS allow freedom? Think about the modern porn epidemic. In the past, getting a hold of porn was too difficult, and if we go back even farther, it was rather crude (ie, just drawings, no photos or videos), although, of course, there was always the option of prostititutes. So this was a natural hindrance to going completely wild.
Looking at all this from a practical point-of-view, what does this say about proper government? Should we be group-oriented and paternalistic, or libertarian and individualistic? Even if God's a "libertarian", wouldn't the UQ dictate that ideal government has features of both?
The bible says God takes care of all our needs. (Mt 6:25-34) Then why did God bring the people to a place with no water? (Ex 17:1) I can't blame the people for wanting to quench their thirst. (vv 2-3)
Well, the simple answer (God actually answers this question in the bible -- Dt 8:15-16) is that he wanted to test them. This is related to the previous question, where I talk about the different kinds of evil, and under type 4b I make reference to various subtypes, depending on the purpose. Well, this is one of the subtypes -- God testing you. Of course, a test is never pleasant, that's the point after all. (Heb 12:11)
So again, as in the previous question, we come up against the central question of faith, since faith is what's needed to stand a test. Therefore, this is really just the "Lazarus question (Lk 16:30)" in a different guise.
If it is God’s desire that none should perish, and his will is always fulfilled, why do many perish? (Mt 7:13)
It's the UQ again. I talk about this on the UQ page (search for "free will vs fate/determinism).
But here's an interesting follow-up question: If God's will is always done (and it is; again, the UQ shows up, since there's what I'll call God's good or perfect will (Rom 12:2) and his manifested will), if God's manifested will is always done, could we still say we have free will? Let's take an extreme example here -- we know that people with bad intentions sometimes are successful with carrying out their evil plans and sometimes they're thwarted. Let's pretend that a pedophile is about to kidnap a little girl, but the cops get a hold of his porn stash and nab him before he can make his move. In this way, God didn't interfere with his free will by direct thought control (ie, ensures that the guy never has pedophile thoughts or desires), but the little girl is still saved from being traumatized. So free will is protected, but the world is still a safe place. Now we know sometimes this happens, so why can't God do it all the time?
Well, what would it look like for God to do this all the time? The result, I think, would be artificial. We could go further with the above example and say that this pedophile is never even able to collect a porn stash to begin with. Maybe he doesn't have enough money for it. But then wouldn't everyone with pedophile tendencies have to be too poor to afford child porn? That doesn't seem realistic. In any case, the market would probably adjust itself to ensure that the demand could afford the supply, never mind that, I'm sure, pedophilia can be found in all socioeconomic classes. In any case, this still hasn't eliminated the problem, because what made the pedophiles go after child porn in the first place? In the end, all evil comes from the mind and heart, which is something you can't directly regulate, and if God were to directly regulate them, well, where would the free will be?
But then, we could run this experiment in the opposite extreme -- everyone always gets away with whatever they want to do. Hmm. This also seems artificial and unrealistic, and in fact, a logical impossibility. After all, humans have all sorts of desires and goals, and these are often at odds with each other. The pedophile has one goal, the cops have another -- how could they possibly both be successful? So it seems to me that God lets us fight for either good or evil, and whichever is stronger wins. I'm saying that a lot of this depends on the social milieu. Society, as a whole, is partly responsible for even individual sins. For example, child sex trafficking in south and southeast Asia is a lot more tolerated than it is in the US. Divorce is more tolerated in the US than in Argentina. Britain and the US have problems with serial killers, while serial killers are practically unheard of in other societies. It's even more acceptable to be depressed or commit suicide in some societies (such as Russia) than in others (let's pick Mexico). So if a pedophile is running loose in the US, I'm saying that Americans, to a certain extent, breed pedophiles. How? Lax sexual mores, porn (and I'm talking about just regular porn, not child porn), being a huge factor. A lot, perhaps even most, pedophiles aren't born, but made. They start off with regular porn, then they go for harder and harder stuff to get the same level of arousal, and one day they discover, often to their shock and dismay, that child porn is actually arousing. I would hope at this point that they would quit and realize what they've done to themselves, but unfortunately, many don't. They have now been acclimated to thinking of child porn as OK (perhaps as long as they themselves don't molest or rape a child), but who knows how long it takes before they're rationalizing that? So because Americans love their porn too much, it's too difficult to pass laws against it, and so the problem continues, and little children become the innocent victims. In this case, the fight of good against evil has taken a hit. What can turn the tide? Can it be turned? I wish I could say. Already, incest porn is on the rise, because the demand has become inured to so-called "lighter" stuff, and the pornographers, realizing that this is the wave of the future, are more than willing to supply the demand. It's shocking to me that there's no law against this stuff in America. Can it really be good for society to let the citizenry become hooked to this garbage? But no, pornographers and porn lovers come to the defense of porn with cries of "Free speech!" and "Freedom of expression!" and the rest of America is more than willing to hear them out and take their bullshit seriously.
But isn't this God's way, to give us the freedom to do whatever we want? Well, even this isn't completely accurate. A Yanomama Indian in Venezuela has never heard of porn (though rape is extremely well-tolerated in their society). So you could say that God has deprived the Yanomama of his "right" to porn. Even so, overall, I think God is a real libertarian and he'll let you do whatever you want -- no artificial barricades or mind control or any such thing. He's even more liberal than a libertarian -- libertarians say your freedom stops where another's rights begin, but God gives us a free-for-all. That's his policy on earth. He doesn't handcuff anyone or tie them down. (For example, he doesn't just tell the cops who all the pedophiles are and where to track them down.) Instead, he let's us (the good vs the evil) duke it out. Then at the end, he'll collect everyone who fought for good and put them in their own world, and he'll collect everyone who loved evil and unrighteousness and separate them off in their own world, and the 2 kinds of people will never have to interact with each other again. So the children of God will have peace and tranquility and get along with each other, and the children of the devil will be able to live in hell like they always wanted, and their evil plans will never again have to be thwarted by the pesky do-gooders.
But then why doesn't God make everyone good to begin with? Again, we come back to the original question. And while I don't have the definitive answer, I can at least feel out that such a world is unrealistic and artificial. The good news, however, is that God can at least separate the sheep from the goats at the end of the age and the sheep can set up their own world and the goats their own world, and I think this is what God thinks is the most fair. When his plan for this world has been completed, he will make sure that the sheep will no longer have to endure the goats. And this is the real crux of the question, because I don't think people care so much that there's good people and there's bad people, as they care about why the good suffer at the hands of the bad. At least we know that this suffering is temporary and will not be tolerated forever, but only a short time.
But let's take a look at this. If, as it seems, there must always be good people and bad people, why doesn't God just make a world full of good people and a second world of nothing but bad people from the beginning? Well, this model has some problems. First, no matter how good you are you're never perfect, so the possibility of making a world of nothing but good people is arguable, no, actually, impossible, unless, again, you have God tweaking and messing with people's free will (which is a cosmic no-no). No matter how good someone is, they always have some part of them that's ugly and has no place in a perfect world. This is why God sent us a Savior. And second, a second world of bad people is redundant -- why create them in the first place if they're just going to be bad? So this collapses into the first alternative model (God only creating good people), which we've already discussed.
But if it's impossible to be good from the beginning, why would it be possible to be made perfect in the image of Christ after being saved, and only after death? This is a good question -- it's the opposite of our original question -- if we cannot help but be imperfect, how can God make us perfect? And again, if his intention is to make us perfect, and worthy of this perfect world, why are we not perfected at the moment of salvation, but only when the world is renewed? Well, as is true of everything else in the world, we are conformed to the image of Christ little by little, not overnight. I suppose this is because God works like this in the physical world (here's the UQ again), where even the process of santification is not imposed completely by supernatural will, but by the working, cooperation, and practice of our natural will as well. (Rom 12:2) So it's our duty as Christians to keep straining for perfection while we sojourn to our heavenly home, but to also hope in the renewal of all things, when we will finally attain our goal. And I think this is one of the most difficult things to live in the Christian life -- this balancing of hope despite the darkness, which can only be attained by the practice of more and more faith.
So of all the possible models, God thinks it best that his divine plan is played out in a world like ours, as Jesus teaches in the parable of the wheat and weeds (Mt 13:24-30) and as we explored some reasons for in this question, but I think evil is actually instrumental in God's divine plan (which Jesus doesn't go into in the parable, but only mentions), but I'll write more about this elsewhere, which Jesus addresses in Mt 18:7 -- "Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!"
I thought there was nothing bad in Eden, so how come Adam was lonely if everything was perfect? (Gn 2:18, 23)
As if often helpful, let's pose the question differently -- would it be possible for Adam to be perfectly happy despite not having a partner? Yes, but only under certain conditions:
A)He was created without any need for a partner, which God could have willed and done, but he didn't, and I'm not going to complain -- romantic and sexual love seem like good things to me,
B)He could be perfectly happy no matter what, which again, might actually be possible under certain circumstances. Hypermania, for example. People with this condition are always happy for no reason, and in fact, often when they have plenty of reason not to. I once read of a hypermanic woman who's mother died, and it really didn't affect her, nor did it really bother her that she wasn't affected. On one hand, you could think she was really lucky -- no matter what, she's always happy! Isn't that what we all want? Actually, I don't think so. I think what people really want is to, as the ancient Greeks called it, flourish. Again, the UQ comes into play. Happiness is made of 2 components -- the physical side is what I'll call pleasure, and the 2nd is meaning. In the case of this hypermanic woman, she has quite a lot of pleasure, but not a whole lot of meaning. That is, she's happy for no reason, and I actually think that's not a good thing. As with all things in the UQ, you want the 2 sides to correspond as much as possible. You can have pleasure without meaning, and you can have meaning without pleasure, but the first is empty, and the second is still miserable, though it's still better than emptiness -- put another way, something is better than nothing.
So I don't think it'd be right for Adam to be happy for no reason, or when he really ought to be lonely, if that's what it means to be connected to reality. Not saying that this answers the question -- just offering another way of thinking about it.
Lk 7:13-14 If it's God's plan to do good, why do evil in the first place? (see also God Using Evil for Good) Why not just make it so that the man never died? Why was the man at the pool of Bethesda an invalid for 38 years? Why was he enslaved for 38 years? (Jn 5:5) Why was the hunched-over woman enslaved for 18 years (Lk 13:11), and the hemorrhaging woman 12 (Mk 5:25)? I can't pray for sick people. Why pray for good when we see that it was God's will that a person be under evil? (And we know that anything that happens is God's will.)
Actually, this is really only a facet of a larger question, which is, why did God will that there be evil at all? I'm sure there's many of you out there who would disagree that God wills evil, preferring to say that he only allows it, but I disagree. We see that the only difference between this age and the next is that this world has evil, while the next, provided you go to the right place, doesn't. God could have made it so that this age would be like the next (in not having evil), but he didn't. Therefore, evil must serve some kind of purpose. In fact, I would say that it is the defining feature of this age, that the whole divine plan is predicated upon evil. I don't purport to say that I know just how evil serves the divine plan (that's the question of the ages, isn't it? And philosophy is the one human endeavor that will never make progress), only that it serves some kind of purpose.
But this doesn't mean that I think the existence of evil is somehow artificial, in the sense that God invented it as a mere means to an end (and surely, God would never invent evil), but that evil is a natural consequence of existence. So I believe that while evil's existence is inevitable, I also believe that it's been harnessed by God, against all odds, for his greater glory. Of course, all things have their existence for God's glory, and so we could answer the question simply like this and leave it at that, but of course, that's always dissatisfying, and not very intellectually honest, either. I suppose if one had the greatest faith, that would be good enough, and I'm not disparaging faith here -- faith is necessary -- nothing good could be accomplished without it, so I commend this person with the greatest faith, but that's for religion, and this is theology -- theology seeks to understand, and indeed, faith also seeks to understand, since true faith seeks to always be balanced with reason, as the UQ dictates.
"If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly and does not see the majesty of the LORD." (Isaiah 26:10)
"Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily,
the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." (Eccl 8:11)
Then why does God do/allow this?
This question really can't be fully appreciated if not taken in light of the bigger picture, which for our purposes here, I think is sufficiently discussed in the question and answer immediately above, that is, not only why does God let evildoers continue in their evildoing, but more importantly, why does he allow this at all? In any case, let's get down to the particulars of this question.
For one thing, God is constantly testing us. (Job 7:18) In fact, this life is just one big test. So we should remind ourselves of this whenever we start to get tunnel vision and magnify some little thing in life as if it were something of ultimate import, or, as the Little Prince would say, matters of consequence, when really, we're just actors in a play, the thing of true ultimate import being -- did we hold to our integrity? As the bible says, "All human deeds surely perish; the works they do follow after them." (Sir 14:19) This isn't to say that we should take things in life lightly, since one mortal sin can separate us from God, but we shouldn't confuse the many little struggles of life with what really matters. To put things more concretely, it doesn't really matter if you watch his movie or her movie, but that each is willing to please the other. Unfortunately, most people's lives consist in getting this fact backwards. Herein we see the need for faith. The faithless person is blind to the big picture, blowing little things up to make them big, and dismissing what's big to make it little, or even nonexistent, when, if they had wisdom, they could live life with extraordinary confidence.
Which brings us back, quite conveniently, to our original question -- why does God allow these faithless people to go on and on, ruining things for everyone else? I don't think the point, as reiterated from above, is whether everyone is happy and prosperous, but to allow us to grope for a reality and destiny of our own choosing, to figure out for ourselves whether we'll live in the light or the darkness, and what we'll make of ourselves. Actually, the bible goes so far as to say that some people are destined for destruction, and that their contribution to the divine plan is in a negative sense, and to their own destruction. People such as Pharaoh, Judas Iscariot, and really, anyone else who doesn't find the narrow path. (Rom 9:10-24)
So let's imagine that God swiftly rewards or punishes everyone as soon as they did good or evil. Now sometimes this happens, but not usually. Most of the time, the full consequences of sin take time to develop, and needs its time to reach maturity. This is like anything else in life, in this physical world that we live in, where everything is predicated on time, growth, and gradualness. Life is lived on different time scales -- things can happen in split seconds, take years of dedication, a whole lifetime to achieve, or on the national scale, centuries to come to full fruition. Likewise, sin (or virtue), is played out on these same time scales. The full story must have its beginning, middle, and end, and not a moment sooner or later. A striking example of this in the bible is the story of Esther -- the villain (Haman), in his pride and prosperity, falls headlong to his doom, not realizing, all along the way, that this very prosperity will be his undoing. Not that prosperity is bad in itself -- on the contrary, prosperity is good, and if you can have it, go and get it, but realize that you'll be tested by it, because some become prosperous and use their prosperity and power for its intended purpose, to better serve others and not oneself, as King David realized early in his reign (II Sm 5:12), while others, like Haman, are blindsided by it. Life will carry out as you decide, as this quote from the Philokalia by Saint Mark the Ascetic so wonderfully puts it: "He who does not understand God's judgments walks on a ridge like a knife-edge and is easily unbalanced by every puff of wind. When praised, he exults; when criticized, he feels bitter. When he feasts, he makes a pig of himself; and when he suffers hardship, he moans and groans. When he understands, he shows off; and when he does not understand, he pretends that he does. When rich, he is boastful; and when in poverty, he plays the hypocrite. Gorged, he grows brazen; and when he fasts, he becomes arrogant. He quarrels with those who reprove him; and those who forgive him he regards as fools." Really, nobody has an excuse if they don't learn the lessons of life. After all, if we all hate it so much when others impinge on our dignity and pride and screw us over, why do we then turn around and do the same things to others and expect them to treat us any better? But nothing blinds better than pride, and nothing is more self-righteous than pride wounded.