If God is benevolent and omnipotent, why is there evil in the world?

Question

If you're a believer, why is there suffering, pain, natural disasters, innocent dying and being hurt ??

Answer 1

So, how do Christians reconcile the existence of suffering with the existence of an omnipotent and all-loving God? How can there be a loving God in charge of a universe full of evil, suffering, and death?

First of all, such a statement recognizes the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. If God does not exist and we are here as a blind cosmic accident, then there is no such thing as right and wrong. It would be no more wrong for the innocent to suffer than for the ice to melt or the sun to burn. To use this argument is to admit that life is something special and that there is a standard of right and wrong, of good and evil.

Second, we must get our answers from the Bible. We can sit here all day and come up with hypothetical situations and “what if” arguments, but that doesn’t prove anything. Your problem is reconciling what the Bible says (or what you think the Bibe says) about God with what you see in the world. So the Bible is where we must go.

And the fact of the matter is, the Bible definitely affirms that God is all-powerful (Jer. 32:17; Lk. 1:37) and all-good and all-loving (Mark 10:18; 1 Jn. 4:8, 16) and that suffering definitely exists. The Bible never denies the existence of suffering or says something to the effect that only evil people suffer. What the Bible does however, is tell us how evil, suffering, and death came into the world and of the ultimate victory over it. But it has no problem reconciling the existence of God with suffering, and neither should we.

All you have to do is read Genesis 1-3 to see that God cursed the earth because of Adam's sin. God gave Adam an instruction to obey and told him the consequences of disobeying... he chose to disobey.

Some people ask, “Why did God make man with the ability to sin?” Well, God had only two choices: make man with free moral agency or make man without free moral agency. And God decided not to make man a puppet or robot; we have the ability to choose and make decisions, either right or wrong. God could have forced man to love and obey Him, but it is His love and goodness that caused Him to create man with free-choice, with the ability to choose sin and reject Him if they want to. Because this is true, when man chooses to love God and obey Him, it has a real and deep significance. Forced love is not true love; it’s not genuine. As David Lipe has said, “To bring into existence a being who would love and obey God, Jehovah also had to give man the freedom to hate and disobey Him. God wants man to love and obey Him as a result of free choice.”

As a result of God’s judgment on sin, God has given us a taste of existence without Him—a world full of violence, death, suffering, and disease. Dangerous weather patterns and natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis should remind us that we no longer live in the Garden of Eden. It is a cursed earth and bad things are supposed to happen. Rom. 8:20-21 says that the creation was “subjected to futility” by God, and talks about its “slavery to corruption.”

You may be thinking, “Well, why am I being punished for what Adam did?” Because if you were in that circumstance, you would have done the same thing. God could have killed them and started over, but the results would have been the same. How do I know? Because every single person since then has sinned; Cain killed Abel and keep going right on down the line (Rom. 3:10, 23); the only exception is Jesus Christ. And so God let Adam simply represent mankind (Rom. 5:12).

This planet has been subject to suffering as a consequence of man’s sin. God cursed it, but sin is responsible. When we suffer, it ought to be a sober reminder of how terrible sin is. We all choose to sin and see the results of what sin did to the earth every day. Instead of blaming God, we need to be saying, “Wretched man that I am!”

God is all-good, and all powerful, and yes, there is an abundance of suffering in the world. The ultimate cause is sin and God has done something about this sin problem. People who accuse God of sitting back and doing nothing are desperately wrong. The Son of God stepped into this cursed earth, became a man and endured both suffering and a horrible death on our behalf—to pay the penalty for sin. Unless God intervened, we all would have spent an eternity in suffering and separation from Him. God could have abandoned us to our own sinful devices, but He didn’t. 1 John 4:9-10 says, “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” There is your God of love.

I like what E. Stanley Jones has said, “How could a faith that has a cross at its center promise exemption from happenings that ordinarily bring unhappiness?” God stood back and watched His Son receive humiliation, scourging and beatings, and a tortuous death on a cross. God didn’t forget us on September 11, just as He didn’t forget Jesus when He hung on the cross.

The present suffering can be pretty intense, but it is so insignificant in view of eternity (Rom. 8:18). We have a God who does not relieve us from suffering, but who will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Rev. 21:4).

Instead of blaming God or denying His existence, we should be looking to Him for strength and be reminded that this world was not intended to be our final home (Heb. 11:13-16).

You can take the advice of Job’s wife if you want to (“Curse God and die!” Job 2:9), but eternity is a lot longer than your life here on this cursed earth.

My conclusion? The existence of suffering is not a valid reason for rejecting God. Hab. 3:17-18, “Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.”

I believe the saying is true, “It is much easier to believe in God and explain why suffering exists, than not to believe in God and explain why everything else exists.”

Answer 2

This question gives people such a hard time with certain faiths that believe THIS existence is all there is OR THIS existence determines how we spend the rest of eternity.

It makes all the suffering people endure seem pointless, especially when you add the belief that unless you convert to a certain faith you will suffer EVEN more in the afterlife FOREVER. That means a poor Jew who died in a concentration camp after inhumane torture will wake up to even MORE torture in hell or a non-Christian who suffered a long painful death from cancer will awake to eternal suffering.

I have problems with this belief as well and worshipping a God who is supposed to be as you say, "benevolent" and all powerful and yet allows this to happen. Afterall, how can I worship a Diety that is less merciful and just than ME, a puny human?

On the OTHER hand, if in fact this Diety truly did give us FREEWILL (as it is correctly defined in the dictionary, not as some incorrectly use it) and we determine our OWN destiny and this life is not all there is and there is no eternal reward or punishment, it makes the suffering some endure now seem less severe. The child who is raped and killed has endured just a speck of a pain when compared with an ETERNITY to experience something different and far more positive if they so choose. I truly believe that we shape every single step of our eternal existence and through it all there MUST be universal balance. If someone seems to suffering unjustly now, surely it is a result of something that happened before and will be rectified if not now, in the next life to come.

Keep asking intelligent questions!

Answer 3

In virtually all situations that cause suffering and pain, the root cause is the same, people made the wrong choices. Should God take responsibility for OUR screw ups? How would we learn to take responsibility for our actions if they had no consequences? God gave us complete freedom to make our own choices, that includes the freedom to face the consequences of choices. Not just the consequences of our choices but the consequences of the choices of other people throughout history.

If the richest people in the world were prepared to donate just half of their money, the Third World's debts could be paid off easily. Virtually all of humanity's problems could be solved by humanity itself, and yet most of us who could help do little to help those in need. Most of the suffering caused by natural disasters is preventable, either through avoiding disaster-prone areas, or taking sufficient steps to minimise the risk of being there.

Answer 4

God gave Adam a choice. Leave the tree alone or Eat from it, with the latter having a consequence.

The Devil gave Adam a choice, leave the tree or eat from it. He told Adam that if he ate from it he would be like God.

Adam decided he did not need the guidance from God and ate from the tree, he found out the Devil was lying as life tourned sour for him, he started aging, his family began suffering and eventually they all died, just as we do today.

So now God is letting things happen so we can see that if we try to rule ourselves we just end up in a right old mess.

Then at a future date, he has promised he will get rid of all the evil, reward the faithful and make the earth just like Adam had it.

Answer 5

If there is not God, why is there a thing such as evil and good. Why do "most" agree on what is evil, on what is suffering and loss? Where does our belief in good and evil come from or when did it appear in human beings?
How does science answer that question?

Answer 6

He doesn't exist. The whole "testing" idea never held much water in my opinion either. After all, would you force your child (whom you love) to touch a burning hot stove just to prove they are worthy to live with you? No loving parent would. Any matters of god's sovereignty (JW belief) or the motives of man have already been documented and laid to rest long ago if those were in fact issues. The fact of the matter is that people are uncomfortable with the state of affairs in this world and in the absence of something to worship that provides the leadership they seek, they create gods and rituals to soothe themselves and provide a surety not found in everyday life. Rather than face their problems and solve them, they follow others and rely on passive belief systems. This is why god doesn't prevent or stop evil; no more than technology and science can do the same without appropriate applications of it.

Answer 7

Would it be possible that God is positive power, while there is also a negative power present, for all things must have a balance. Could it be that God was referring to the negative power when He said, "Let us make man in our own image.." knowing well, that man must also be of balance. Man cannot be of pure good or pure bad....he must be a balance of the two... And influences of the world, bad influence of Satan, and good influence of Jesus, will try to destroy this balance, to sway it towards the strongest influence. Satan is NOT the master of negativity, nor is Jesus the master of positivity. They are both heavily influenced by their powers, the negative and positive powers. For energy is energy and it is both positive and negative. Not really "good" or "bad", just positive and negative. A person can have negative thoughts, but that doesn't mean they are evil thoughts. It could be that the God we all think of is actually composed of both energies, and thus, is a balance of both ....who knows? But the influence of one or the other energy, is what makes a person, or angel, do things....good or bad, for it tilts the balance. There HAS to be evil (or bad) in the world, for balance. There has to be darkness in order for light to be functionable.

Answer 8

Adam and Eve brought sin into the world not God!

Answer 9

I see the usual responses from the Christians. The going to hell one is standard response. If hell exists, and by the way all those that keep telling us were going there, there ain't no hell either, we don't believe in that no more than we believe in heaven, but there was such a place and Christians weren't there then that's where I'd beg to go to not the other way around.

Answer 10

Evil is the absence of good. God gave man free will. He does see what's happening but won't stop it at least not yet.

http://www.catholicity.com/encyclopedia/e/evil.html#


http://www.catholicfirst.com/thefaith/churchdocuments/dogmas.cfm

6. "The evil spirits (demons) were created good by God; they became evil through their own fault. "

http://www.alexmeske.com/Essays/godandevil.htm