You’re a Christian, right?

Yes…didn’t

You read the Bible, go to church, and you’re pretty intelligent … so let me ask you a question.

I’m glad you think so … sure, fire away.

I was reading the newspaper the other day, and I ran across this story where a man was delivering a load of dirt to someone’s house in a dump truck. While the man was talking to the customer about where to put the dirt, his two-year-old son—fascinated by dump trucks, as many kids are—started exploring the truck. As the conversation finished, the kid hid inside the dual wheels where no one could see him, playing a little game.

Oh, no … I think I see where this is going …

Yep, the driver got in the truck, backed up, and crushed the kid.

That is horrible!

The parents thought so, too. On the other hand, in their grief, the parents reached out to a local pastor, leading a church they had never attended to spend a good deal of time caring for them. In the end, this horrible event convinced the couple that Christianity is true, so they became members of the church.

That, at least, is good, right?

Even better, the couple became so convinced of their new-found Christian faith that they gave a lot of money to that church. They were wealthy, so this allowed the church to expand its operations. In the end, the church converted thousands of people to Christ.

Wow, that’s amazing! God is so good! But you said you had a question?

Sure. Could God have created all the good things I’ve described without the death of that little child?

Before you answer yes or no, listen—really listen—to the question. We don’t often really listen to questions, especially about faith. The faith dialog has devolved into a dance where pat questions are countered with just-so answers. No one really talks. They just say things to one another.

There are three different questions here:

• Was the death of this child, this evil, required for God to accomplish the good of converting thousands of people?
• Couldn’t God use something less evil than the death of an innocent child to bring about the conversion of people? How many people must be saved to offset the death of an innocent child? Why this evil?
• Of all the families in this neighborhood, why should this family suffer this way? Regardless of the good that comes out of the evil, why this evil for this person?

The first question is a logical quandary:

• If you answer yes, you are saying there are some good things God cannot create without using evil. Is this really a good answer?
• If you answer no, you are saying God could create everything good without evil—so then why does evil exist?

The second question is more about quantity or quality—couldn’t God create this good with a lesser evil? Even if the world must be evil, and even if we do not understand those reasons, couldn’t God have created a world with less evil and the same amount of good?

The third question is the most personal—why should this specific person experience this specific evil?
Before we explore these three questions in more depth, let’s look at some failed answers.

Many Christians reading this will open their Bible to Romans 8:28 and say, “God turns every evil thing in my life into a good thing.” Is this (honestly) what this passage says, though?

It says that God makes it so all things—good and evil—work together for the good of those called for God’s purpose. Paul does not say:

• For every evil thing you can point to in your life, you can point to some specific good thing that directly counters that evil. The promise here is general rather than specific. Paul is not suggesting a transaction: “You get this good thing from God by paying with this evil.”
• Every person experiencing evil will experience a counter-balancing amount of good.
• The balance of good and evil in each person’s life will equal out in this life.

Paul says that in the bigger scheme of things, God uses all things for the good of those who believe in him.

But let’s grant a poor reading of Romans 8:28 just for the sake of argument. Even if Paul is saying: “God converts every specific evil into some specific good,” does this passage answer these questions?

It does not seem to. Paul is not saying, “God creates evil to create good,” nor is Paul saying, “Every evil is offset with a specific good.” Paul’s concern is pastoral. Something like:” When you experience evil, know that God is still at work for good; God has not abandoned you.”

What about Job? Didn’t God give Job more than he started with?

Yes, but now we must be careful about the difference between description and prescription. Just because God gives Job more than what he started with does not mean he will always or must always do this. Job can comfort us in the midst of evil by showing us that we don’t always understand God’s purposes and should not lose hope for the future (despair is a sin!).

We are not told if the destruction of Job’s life is necessary to counter Satan’s claims. We are not told if Job ever completely healed from the evil Satan visited in his life. Was Job’s faith stronger? Were Job’s friends convinced they were wrong? We know Satan didn’t “give in”—he’s still active to this day, trying to destroy souls and prove some point.

We do not have these answers and should not try to read them into the text.

These three questions …

• Why does evil exist?
• Why does this much evil exist?
• Why did this evil happen to this person?

… deserve a full accounting.

What the Scriptures Say about Evil

We could start our investigation of evil—and its many problems—by looking at how philosophers and theologians have answered our three questions about evil through the ages—but that can feel abstract. Instead, let’s start with various instances of evil in the Scriptures and return to these questions.

In John 9:1–41, the Apostle describes Jesus healing a man born blind by spitting on the ground to make mud, wiping the mud on the man’s eyes, and sending the man to the Pool of Siloam to wash. This passage is theologically rich, but we want to focus on the disciple’s question in John 9:2.

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Let’s take this question apart a little:

• The Rabbis of that time taught physical deformity is an evil caused by personal sin.
• Since the man was born blind, he could have sinned in his mother’s womb. This reasoning is based on Genesis 25:22-23, where Esau and Isaac “wrestled in the womb.”
• His parents (probably his mother) could have sinned, causing a physical infirmity in her child.

They are looking for clarification of the Rabbinical teaching they have heard their entire lives (these people are not uneducated!). Jesus’ answer, in John 9:3, is a bit shocking:

It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

We need to be careful about the word glory. We tend to take this word to mean, “I am going to show how powerful, strong, or wonderful I am!” In other words, our understanding of glory is very self-centered. While this is one possible meaning of the word, it is not the only meaning. It can also mean “showing I am who I say I am.” The context, in this case, implies the glory of God, which relates to proving Jesus is who he says he is.

We are right to struggle with the question: “Isn’t it evil for God to cause or permit a man to be born blind to prove who Jesus is?” The man born blind has powerful overtones of Job, where God allows Satan to visit great evil on a man and his family to prove Satan’s power cannot overcome faith.

We are not going to spend time mounting a defense of God here. Instead, just note that God sometimes permits or causes things we consider evil to achieve specific ends.

Evil for God’s Glory?

Some theological systems stop right here and say God either permits, causes, or ordains every instance of evil to increase his glory. For instance, John Piper says that “everything that exists—including evil— is ordained by an infinitely holy and all-wise God to make the glory of Christ shine more brightly.”[1]

While the Scriptures contain instances where God allows or creates situations we might consider evil for his glory (noting the importance of defining the word glory correctly), this is not all the Scriptures have to say about evil.

Consider Genesis 18:16–33, where a pre-incarnate Jesus and Abraham are conversing about what God is about to do. God states his purpose for going down to the Cities on the Plain in Genesis 18:20–21:

Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.

Nowhere in this narrative does God say anything about “gaining more glory;” this is all about destroying a great evil on the face of the earth. We can find many other instances of cities, nations, peoples, and individuals being destroyed directly because of their evil throughout the Scriptures.

Abraham emphasizes this point by asking in Genesis 18:23–25:

Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?

Abraham is not challenging God about his glory; he is challenging God to do what is righteous based on God’s nature.

Sometimes, then, God destroys nations and people to eradicate evil. Abraham’s discussion with God reminds us God must somehow balance destroying the innocent with the wicked. At the same time, Lot’s actions remind us that no one is as righteous as we might think, and God is more often justified in his destruction of great sin than we might think.

God also weeps over evil. For instance, in Luke 19:41–42, we find:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Jesus is not just weeping over the destruction of Jerusalem—he is also weeping over the lack of repentance and faith leading to that destruction. To put a finer point on this: Jesus is weeping over the catastrophic results of human decisions. Another example of Jesus weeping over the results of sin is at the grave of Lazarus in John 11:1–44.

Is evil attributed to human decisions in other places? In Genesis 4:6–7, God gives Cain the choice of doing—or not doing—the evil he is contemplating:

The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

The Scriptures sometimes attribute evil directly to human actions.

Does all Evil have a Corresponding Good?

In Luke 13:1–5, Jesus is asked about some cases of evil:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

We tend to read each bit of Scripture as a separate, stand-alone unit, but context matters. Just before this, at the end of Luke 12, Jesus discussed the Jewish leadership’s inability to understand the “signs of the times.” Because of this inability, they reject who Jesus is.

Just after this, Jesus continues with his discussion of Israel with the parable of the vineyard—a hard parable to understand on its own.

But if we take the entire context as Jesus saying something about the way God deals with evil in world history, we can see how these three sections fit together:

• Even the failure to understand the times is considered evil in some situations
• Tragic events, seen from a human perspective as evil are sometimes a judgment of God on individuals who have committed specific sins
• Tragic events, seen from a human perspective as evil are not always a specific judgment of God for specific sins but a result of pervasive sin within a society
• God patiently tries to “dig around” and “fertilize” a society until there is no other option but to cut it down

Because Jesus is using a fig tree, we can be confident he is talking about Israel—but we can see this replicated throughout the Scriptures. For instance, God was patient with Nineveh, sending Jonah (against Jonah’s will!) to allow the city to repent before bringing down destruction.

We can even see Nineveh as a sign to Israel: “If I send a prophet to even such a pagan city as Nineveh, they repent. You have all the prophets, Israel, yet you will not repent.”

Jesus does not say the tower fell because the people who died were significantly worse sinners than anyone else in Israel at that time. In fact, to the contrary, they were no worse sinners than anyone else. These evils happen because of a general level of sin rather than specific sins on the part of individuals.

Jesus also does not state any purpose for the mingled blood or falling tower. There is no increase in God’s glory. There is no “greater good” that Jesus, or anyone else, can point to. It might be that these evil tragedies will lead the nation to repent, or it might not. Whether these evils lead to some good depends on people paying attention and understanding the times.

The passage following emphasizes the points Jesus is making here. In Luke 13:10–17, Jesus is teaching on the Sabbath when a woman who had a “disabling spirit for 18 years” approaches. Jesus heals the woman, leading to the Jewish leaders saying the people should come for healing on the “six days set aside for work,’ rather than on the Sabbath.

The synagogue’s leaders would prefer to see the woman remain under evil than to break the Mosaic Law. Placing adherence to the Law above healing a woman is placing outward show above eliminating evil.

Finally, no tour of evil in the Scriptures would be complete without considering one thing Jesus constantly confronted as evil in his incarnation: leading others astray through incorrect teaching. We are so attuned to “evil as death or destruction” that we often miss this aspect of evil. For instance, in John 8:44, Jesus says:

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Have the Pharisees literally murdered anyone? Have they literally blinded people or caused them to starve to death? There is no indication the Pharisees did any of these things. So why does Jesus call them evil?

Because they rejected him, which is the same as rejecting God.

Because they rejected him and caused others to reject him through their false teaching.

False teaching and lack of faith are, in Jesus’ view, as great an evil as any war, death, or destruction wrought on the face of the earth.

What, then, can we say about evil?

• Sometimes, God causes situations that appear evil for some specific purpose.
• Sometimes, evil is the direct result of human decisions and actions.
• Sometimes, evil seems to “just happen.” Tragedy is part of the human condition resulting from living in a fallen world.
• Evil is not “just” a physical thing but rather a spiritual thing that sometimes works itself out in the physical world.

Resolving the Problem of Evil

It is time, finally, to return to the questions we asked in opening this series.

Was the death of this child, this evil, required for God to accomplish the good of converting thousands of people?

First, this question assumes everything that appears to be evil—from a human perspective—is evil. This understanding is like a child believing every punishment they have ever received is evil. There is no way, from a human perspective, to know that everything bad we encounter in life is evil.
The situation the atheist uses to challenge Christian faith, however, is clearly designed to discount even the appearance of punishment—the child does not die because of some specific sin, but just through the everyday course of life.

Second, this question assumes every specific evil is caused by God or is God’s responsibility. The only reason we can ask a question like: “Was this evil necessary for God to …” is holding God directly intends—and is responsible for—every specific evil.

This option might be attractive in some ways (and some Christian theological schools take this path), but it is not what the Scriptures teach. To hold God can and should prevent every instance of evil, or that every evil is directly tied to some specific sin, is the folly of Job’s friends.

The Evil in Job’s Life

Satan’s evil choices and the general sinful nature of the fallen universe caused the evil in Job’s life. It is true that we are all sinful and deserve death, but God does not say to Job: “Stop complaining. You deserve worse than this!”

God also does not say to Job: “I permitted this evil in your life so this other good thing could happen.” Even if we stretch the point and say: “Perhaps

God was proving a point to Satan,” what good could possibly come out of proving this point? Is Satan able to change his mind or be saved? Are any of the fallen angels?

Sometimes, evil is a result of human (or even Satanic) decisions.

God always mutes the consequences of evil choices. He sometimes eliminates the negative consequences of evil choices. He may use evil choices to produce good. But God does not need to take every evil decision we make and use it for good. Sometimes, God allows our evil choices to stand.

The question is fuddled.

• Couldn’t God use something less evil than the death of an innocent child to bring about the conversion of people? How many people must be saved to offset the death of an innocent child? Why this evil?
• Of all the families in this neighborhood, why should this family suffer this way? Regardless of the good that comes out of the evil, why this evil for this person?

The answer to the first question should show us the way towards answering the latter two.

Why this evil? If this is, in fact, real evil (rather than something that just seems like evil from our perspective), it is because this is the path of history. This evil happening to this person may be the result of someone’s decision at some point in the past, or it might just be the result of the collective groaning of all creation in a state of fallenness.

Final Thoughts on Evil

To put this in theological terms, there are four options for dealing with the problem of evil.

View 1: God’s will is absolute, and God wills evil

View 2: God’s will is absolute, and God wills evil
…and God has two wills

• His hidden will—which we do not understand—ordains evil to create some greater good
• His public or visible will never ordains or desires evil

View 3: There are other persons in the created universe with free will
…and these beings can always oppose God’s will

• God does not know each instance of evil these beings will create; although God can be pretty certain about what is going to happen, he does not know what the future holds
• God is smart enough and powerful enough to counter these evil decisions

View 4: There are other persons in the created universe with free will

• These beings operate within God’s framework (or the framework God willed when he created the universe), furthering God’s goals for his creation
• God knows each instance of evil each of these beings will create
• These beings can sometimes oppose God’s will
• Since these beings are operating within God’s framework, we can say God permits them to do evil

What, then, can we say about these views?

• The first two views represent Calvinism.
• The third view represents open theology.
• The fourth view represents various forms of Molinism; this is the view taken here.

God created a world in which humans (and other beings) can make evil choices, so there is evil. God’s character is good, so we can know—without doubt—that God created this world this way to reach an overall good. Specific evils may have specific causes and counters—or they may just result from the sinful and fallen world in which we live.

Fix problems, not blame.

Sometimes, the decision or action leading to a particular evil will be obvious, or God will directly tell us about the connection between cause and effect. When God is silent, or the reason is not obvious, we should focus on comforting the person to whom evil is happening rather than trying to figure out why the evil happened.

Jesus suffered like us in every way.

Although Jesus was the only truly innocent man to live, he was condemned to die on the cross. Jesus’ death was not ordinary—it was as painful a public death as the Romans could create. Take every form of death you’ve ever heard about, including the many medieval torture machines, and remember that the Romans had all those things available to them and chose crucifixion because it was worse.

Jesus has suffered like us and overcome death. Regardless of why there is this evil in our lives, we should know that Jesus was there before us.

I’ve attached a chart here you might find useful for thinking through various responses to evil by different theological systems, and how this response ties to various other issues in theology. Everything in theology and philosophy is connected.

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[1] John Piper, Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ, Redesign Edition (Crossway, 2008), 53.