I have been given the task to address
the question of how can a loving God allow evil? When we ask that question, we are
fundamentally asking a question that has to do with the righteousness and justice of God.
And when we speak of the righteousness and justice of God, we are speaking in terms
of theodicy. Now, when I use the term "theodicy," many of our minds run immediately to
the classic eighth century work by Homer called, "The Odyssey." That is not what we are
speaking of when we speak of theodicy. The word "theodicy" is made up of two Greek
words, theos and dike; theos, God, and dike, righteous or just. And so, when we speak of
theodicy, we are speaking of the justice or rightness or righteousness of God.
This whole question about God being good and loving and the existence of evil and
sin is fundamentally a question about God's righteousness. Now, we all understand, of course,
that when we use the word "God," when we speak of God that we are up against a dilemma because there
are many people who claim not to believe in God, these who are atheists and agnostics, many
people that we have known in our lives. Perhaps, some of you were once self-proclaimed
atheists or agnostics. We have professors, relatives, even parents, grandparents,
sons or daughters who claim to be atheists. But here is the problem: The reality is is
that God has put eternity in our hearts and He has set the knowledge of Himself within each
and every one of us who are made in His image. That is to say that everyone in the end,
ultimately, believes that God exists. Atheists, agnostics, and others simply hate Him. The
reason they claim not to believe that God exists is because they don't want to believe that God
exists. And so, it has been my tendency not to speak of atheists and agnostics but rather to
speak of them in terms of being anti-theists, that they are against God, against the notion
of God. Particularly, and you will notice this especially in the West, they are against the
notion of the Christian God or the biblical God. That is the God that they are dead set against
believing in and they will not believe in Him. And so, the way they get to that position, the
way they come to that conclusion and to claim that God does not exist is largely on the basis of
the reality of evil. How can so much evil exist? Because if God is good and if God is powerful,
then how can He allow such suffering and misery and evil to exist? We are not just talking about
the evil that has existed throughout history, holocausts and genocides and the untold countless
millions who have been murdered in the womb. We are talking about the suffering that we
experience ourselves, the experiences that we experience from our families and our loved
ones, the deaths of not only parents, but the death of a child, the death of a friend, the
utter horror and misery and suffering that exists not only all around us, but even within us. And
how many times in our lives have we prayed that God would hear us and that God would listen
to us so that God would answer our prayers, that God would come to us and help us and help to
end this, help to solve this, to come to our need and to spare us and to save us
and to help us in every way! So, it is not just about suffering and evil out
there, not just suffering and evil throughout history, it is about the suffering and the
sin that exists even within our own hearts. "God, if You're real, God if You're there,
and God if You're loving and all-powerful, why don't You hear me? Why don't You listen
to me? Why don't You come to help me?" These are real questions and they are real
dilemmas that we have all faced to some degree in our lives, and it has led some to question
God altogether, to question whether He exists. Now, throughout the ages, philosophers,
theologians, have raised these sorts of questions. And David Hume, the Scottish philosopher,
citing Epicurus and also other ancient philosophers who developed various types
of arguments and propositions that they posited against one another in trying to
make an argument to explain how a good and loving God who is all-powerful could allow
evil to exist. They have put these propositions up against one another and they
have made their conclusions. Here is how some have argued.
Again David Hume, basing his arguments supposedly on Epicurus, the
third-century philosopher and even on the philosopher Carneades: "If God is unable to
prevent evil, then He is not all-powerful. If God is not willing to prevent
evil, then He is not all good. If God is both willing and able to
prevent evil, then why does evil exist?" So, this dilemma or really a trilemma is
a significant question, and we do well to rightly consider it, not to just toss it away,
because it is a significant question of the ages that sages, philosophers,
theologians, have rightly considered. But, let us put it in a slightly different
way. If God is all-powerful, He could stop evil. If God is all-loving, He would want to
stop evil. However, evil continues to exist. Therefore, an all-powerful and all-loving God does not exist. So, it is a really plain question.
If God is all good, if God is all-powerful, how—and really the better question, why
does God allow evil to exist? Now, this questioning, these propositions, this theodicy
of trying to defend and explain the rightness, righteousness, and justice of God is
something that we see throughout Scripture. It is something that we see pointedly in the
book of Job. In one sense, the book of Job is a theodicy itself. It is explaining and
defending God in His righteousness and sovereignty through the lens of His servant, Job who
was righteous. How is it that righteous Job suffered? We ask this question all the
time, don't we? How can good people suffer? Why does evil befall good
people, righteous people? Now we, of course, understand that at the
root of that question is a fundamental problem that while we understand Job was righteous and
that He trusted God and followed God, we know that Job was not perfect, that Job was not sinless. We
understand that Noah who also was a righteous man in the sight of God was not a perfect man, but
rather he trusted God and lived a life following God. But we understand that they weren't righteous
or perfect, yet they were good men. They were good men who followed God and whom God saved in Noah's
case, and in Job's case, brought great suffering. Why and how can a good and righteous God allow
such suffering among His people? But again, at the very root of that question is a problem.
When we ask the question, "How can bad things happen to good people? Why does suffering happen
to good people like you and me?" The real question that we need to be asking is this: Knowing that we
are sinful in our hearts, knowing that at the core and nature of our being we are against God, at
enmity with God in our natural states before God, the real question is not how can bad things
happen to good people or why do they happen, but more fundamentally, "Why do good things happen
to bad people?" Why do good things happen to we who are sinners? Why does God do good to any of
us? Why does God show us His mercy? Why does God give us His grace when we are at the core
of our being naturally before Him sinners? Now, we see this theodicy done not only in the
book of Job, but we see it throughout Scripture, but most poignantly we see it in the book of
Romans. The Apostle Paul in making his case for God and for God's sovereignty and for God's
salvation explains with very systematic, thorough, and careful arguments how God
is indeed just, righteous, and altogether perfect and
good in all that He does. Just a few passages in Romans chapter 3, we read
in verse 3, "What if some were unfaithful?" He's speaking of unbelievers. What if some were
unfaithful? What if some did not believe? "Does their faithfulness nullify, does it cancel
the faithfulness of God?" Again, asking about the faithfulness of God. Is God faithful? Is He good?
Paul goes on in verse 4, "By no means!" May it never be! "Let God be true, though everyone were a
liar, as it is written, 'That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.'"
And then in verse 5 of chapter 3, Paul continues, "But if our unrighteousness serves to show
the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on
us? I speak in a human way. By no means!" Paul's point that he makes there in chapter 3 is
much the same point that he makes in chapter 9, a difficult chapter, in helping us to understand
that God's sovereignty and indeed God's purposes in all things, particularly in salvation, that
God is faithful, that God is just, and that God is righteous in all that He does. Romans chapter 9 is one of those chapters
that most beautifully and poignantly deals with theodicy, defending and explaining
the justice and righteousness of God. And I want to read just one passage from Romans
chapter 9 beginning at verse 14 when Paul writes, "What shall we say then? Is there injustice
with God? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For He says to Moses: 'I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.' So
that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says
to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show you My power that
My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.' So then, He has mercy on whomever He
wills, and He hardens whomever He wills." And so, the question that Paul is asking there
is a question of God's righteousness, God's justice. Is it possible for God to be sovereign,
for God to be all-powerful, for God to be good, and for evil, indeed unbelief and the
condemnation of unbelievers to exist? And Paul's answer to that
question is undeniably "Yes." Now, here is the more rudimentary question and
here is the question that we all are asking or at least all should be asking. What underlies
this? Because when we talk about God's power, we talk about God's sovereignty, we talk
about God's goodness, we talk about God's love. We also need to remember that God
is holy. We also need to remember that God seeks and demands and deserves glory for Himself.
Now, that is one of the most fundamentally misunderstood points when it comes to this whole
problem of evil, because ultimately why did God create anything? Why do we exist? Why did God
create us? Why did God allow Adam and Eve to sin? Well, we don't know all the answers to all of
that, but what we do know is this, that ultimately God does all things according to His own perfect
will and good purpose and all in accordance with His glory. That was Paul's point in Romans
9, that while we may not understand the mystery of God, that while we may not be able to
understand God completely and comprehensively, what we do know about God is sufficient. And what
God has revealed to us in His Word is that while we cannot fully understand or fully explain how
God is sovereign and all-loving and all-powerful and evil exists, we do know ultimately that
God wants and will get glory for Himself. And so, what is Paul's answer to the question
that he himself has raised? It is brilliant. Paul, under the superintending power of the Spirit says
this in verse 19 of chapter 9, "You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault?'" Why
does God still find fault? If God is sovereign, if God is all-powerful, if God ordains not only
the ends of all things, but the means of all ends, if God is sovereignly ordaining all things
that come to pass, but He is neither the author nor approver of evil, well then, why does God
still find fault? "For who can resist His will?" Now, here is Paul's response to our
question. Here is Paul's response to the age-old question of the philosophers
and the theologians throughout the ages. "But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?" You see, what Paul is asking is
this, "Who do you think you are?" God is, and you know that He is. You cannot wake
up in the morning, you cannot go to sleep at night, you cannot look in the mirror, you cannot
breathe, you cannot speak, you cannot think, you cannot move without knowing that God is.
And if you know that God is, you know that He is God. And if He is God, that means that God
is in fact all-powerful, omnipotent, that He is sovereign over all. If He were not sovereign
over all, He would not be God; He would be us. And that is the option that many have chosen.
In fact, that is really where many professing Christians are. They have come to believe in a
sort of theistic finitude that God is limited, that God does not know the future, nor can He
control the future, that God is limited, He is in essence like us, and that fundamentally is the
problem. But when it comes to the problem of evil, when it comes to understanding the goodness and
justice of God, when it comes to the reality of sin, and if you know the Scriptures well at all,
you know that what we as Christians do not have a more full understanding of is our own
sinfulness. That is to say we do not have a high enough regard for our own depravity. We do
not have a right and full understanding of our own sin. Thanks be to God that we don't. Thanks
be to God that He in His restraining mercy does not show us all of our sin all at once, because if
He did it would crush us. We would be constantly on our knees and constantly dragging about the
floor praying and asking God for forgiveness. We have to remember that when we sinned against
God, we hid from God, we ran from God. And when God came to the earth in the person and work of
His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, we killed Him. We are against God, haters of God, insolent,
running from God. No one seeks God. No one goes after God. We run away from God and
we kill Him when we get the chance, and that is exactly what we did in Christ. You see, the question of the problem of
evil is really ultimately a question of the problem of good. Why does good exist?
Why does God give us any good? Why didn't God wipe us off the face of the earth
entirely? Why doesn't God destroy us? And a better question even more
fundamentally is not why does evil exist, but why doesn't more evil exist? Why isn't there
more suffering? Why isn't there greater evil? Why isn't there greater misery? And it is precisely because God is good
and because of His restraining mercy, even a universal mercy, as
Francis Turretin spoke of it, a love of beneficence, a caring restraining mercy
that keeps humanity from destroying itself so that we could exist today, and so
that you and I could know Him, so that you and I in God's sovereign
plan before the foundation of the earth who chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the earth could know Him and love Him. That is why God created us, not for
ourselves, but for Himself. God created you and God saved you, not first and foremost
for you but first and foremost for Himself, for His glory because He loves you. And that
is the God of the Bible, and there is no other.
