God Vs. Evil

In the endless debate of the existence of a Deity one of the seemingly irrefutable points brought up by the atheist community is that an omnipotent, omnipresent, all loving being couldn't have created or even exist in a world with evil in it. Sadly some theists don't know God well enough to answer this question so it, at many times, remains unresolved. I, however, feel that it can be boldly stated by any theist worth his weight that this point is not valid. First one must examine the nature of God through evidences appearing in the world. Secondly with this evidential nature of God in mind, and the traditional Christian view of God in mind, then assume that both these “Gods” are in fact the very same being. With evidence from both what the Bible says, and what is observable of the nature of God and of man; one can clearly see that it is not that God allows evil, but man who chooses it. The existence of evil does not in any way disprove the traditional Christian view of an all-loving God.

When looking for the true nature of God it is imperative to keep in mind that God himself is not bound to the same limitations we as humans are. For simplicity God will be referred to as a He in this paper. He has always been and always will be. This is paramount for him to truly be God as anything that hasn't always been must have started existing at a definite point: the point of creation. God is not a created being, but rather the creator. If there is anything that can be considered definitely good in the world then God, as creator, must also be all-good. As an all-good being his love for us would be completely unconditional. As God is all-good, all-loving being, and creator of all that is, then God becomes the very definition of what is morally good. Anything not of God would be morally bad, or evil. Since God's time line functions above human cognitive processing ability, because it has no beginning and no end, then it must also be assumed that: God is all-present, he functions on a higher level of consciousness then we do, and because of that he can see situations in different light and perspective. It is also imperative that we understand that he never changes. All of these ever-present observable facts about the nature of God (if he were to exist) coincide with the traditional Biblical view of who God is. So lets proceed on the basis that everything the Bible says about God is true.

I would just like to step aside from deity talk for a minute and talk about man. Man suffers; it is a clear fact that no one can deny. From child soldiers in Africa, to homelessness in intercity New York; it only takes seconds to think of the countless instances of suffering in the world. Most suffering can be linked to direct evil actions made by a human-related force. This is not to say that earthquakes and tsunamis are cause by instances of evil, but that a large bulk of suffering is. An all-loving God literally can't be in the presence of evil as it is completely contradictory to his nature. The bible refers to evil as “sin”. which is considered anything that separates man from God. In Matthew 27:46 while Jesus (God's own son), was dying he became the embodiment of everyone's sin and in that moment God was forced to look away from his own son while Jesus yells, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani”. This literally translates to, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me”. From this alone it is extremely evident that God cannot abide to be in the presence of evil to the point of having to turn away from his own son as he was dying. So how then can evil exist in a world God created?

The Bible claims that it is in fact because of God's unending love that evil exists. I fully understand that this seems very backwards and false but I would like bring back the general observation about God's nature: that he functions on a higher level on consciousness than we do because he is all-loving where as we are limited because of the Sin in our lives. In John 3:16 the Bible says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life”. This tells us that an all-loving God is willing to give his son to die for us simply so we can live. The second part of that verse tells again of the limitless love without directly using the word. The second half talks about choice, “whoever believes in him”. So not only did an all powerful being love us enough to send his son to die but he went a light-year further by giving us the free will to either accept, or reject his love. Let's stop for a minute and talk about what the Bible says about love. In 1 Corinthians Paul writes about true Godly love by saying, “Love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not conceited, it does not act improperly, it is not selfish, it is not provoked, it keeps no record of wrongs.” This seems truly impossible for any human to live that description out everyday, every week, and every year of one's entire life, but this is what God has done for us. The entire description of love involves an unconditional devotion that never changes. This fits with what we previously said was part of the nature of God; that his love was both unconditional and that he never changes. His unconditional love is love that, regardless of what we do as people, he loves us the same. Any love in which he only loves us when we love him back in measure would be considered conditional love. The difference between these two types of loves is freedom. For God to truly love us we must have the choice to reject his love. This leaves us as humans with only two choices in life: to reject God's love, or to accept it.

Does this apply to the God Vs. Evil debate? It completely does. This in a sense is the debate itself. If man has two choices then one is to follow God's love and direction, and the other is to reject it. Since God defines what inherent good is then choosing the path of rejection, in itself, creates evil. At this point the atheist would stand up and say, “if God is all powerful the he could achieve the outcome of people choosing God over evil without cases of suffering”. This is all well and good if you define evil as something God created. God didn't create evil as it is against his nature. God created all that is good (Genesis chapter 1), and by creating us, we define evil as anything against his nature. Since any God, Christian deity or not, must unconditionally love his creation, his creation must have the choice to a condition itself.

Once again the atheist will stand up and proclaim that there are cases of suffering in which God could have prevented it without loosing a greater, and because of this this can't be an all-good God. To this I again return to the Bible where it says in Romans chapter 3, “ there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks after God. All have turned away; all alike have become useless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one”. This boils down to saying that everyone is evil, and that no matter how hard anyone tries they cannot reach God's level of perfection. There are no “good people” because the very definition of good is God and we can never attain his level of perfection. “Sin entered the world through man, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23). It is very clear that because of sin everyone deserves death. Let me remind quickly that sin itself is by man's choice, not God's creation. So I ask now does this argument hold up? Are there cases of suffering that serve no purpose or have no cause related to sin? The fact is according to the Bible there is not. As a result of our separation from God, by our own choice, we allowed sin to conquer our world. To some this may seem way too harsh of a conclusion to come from an all loving God, but the only person that can honestly make that claim without being a hypocrite would have to be completely blameless and it is very apparent that no human alive can honestly claim that. According to the Bible the only man who can claim blamelessness is Jesus, and he himself was fully God.

At this point it is clear that a Biblical worldview can cover any of the common objections against the existence of God due to the presence of evil. The biblical picture of God follows all natural observations of what the nature of God must be. Apart for an all-loving, all-good God we see a world filled with suffering. The biblical God loves man unconditionally which means that man must have a condition (choice) that is other than God. Any choice other than God would be the opposite of his nature which we call sin. Because man is inherently unrighteous in his choice of sin over God's love, there are not any cases of suffering that serve no purpose. Because of God's forgiveness we have the choice to have our slate wiped clean and begin anew. According to this traditional Biblical view, God's existence does not conflict with Evil's existence because God loves man unconditionally, and because of this choice we, as humans, choose evil.