Rev. Robert Fleischmann, National Director, Christian Life Resources
Since Christian Life Resources was formed in 1983, it has fielded questions on a wide range of controversial topics, from the very beginning of life to its final breath, and even beyond. Often, we do symptom management. We are helping people navigate deep emotional questions related to unplanned pregnancies, miscarriages, accidental deaths, cancer diagnoses, incidents of infidelity, gender confusion, resuscitation orders, and the true nature of death. Conversations about these tough issues often raise some bold logical questions, like:
- Why does God permit innocent unborn children to suffer through an abortion?
- How can a loving God not understand what an unplanned pregnancy would do for that young woman’s life?
- Did God plan this hardship for me?
- Why does God teach us the Good Samaritan story and then allow all sorts of suffering to occur?
- If God is all-knowing and all-powerful and all good, why did he create or permit evil?
What we are talking about here is something the philosophers call “theodicy”: The effort to explain how God can be good, all-knowing, and all-powerful while evil, suffering, death, and injustice exist. In short, it asks: “Why would a good God permit this?” It is a response to the problem of evil.
In what some might call a “fool’s venture,” I will attempt to shed some fresh light on a very old topic, or at least a different way of looking at it.
Evil Points to God
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. (John 18:37–38)
It is hard to read this exchange and not feel Pilate’s frustration with his predicament. He is at a crossroads between moral truths (you don’t condemn an innocent man) and political realities (the religious leaders want Jesus condemned). A couple of observations are in order:
- Even as an unbeliever, Pilate recognized a moral truth. He didn’t need to have sat at the feet of a great Jewish teacher to learn this truth. It was written on his heart (Romans 2:14–15).
- Every claim to truth rests on an authority beyond personal preference. Truth is not what an individual chooses to affirm, but what is real and therefore binding whether one accepts it or not. If no objective authority exists, no one can finally distinguish truth from falsehood; each person may rename a lie as truth and dismiss truth as a lie. The result is not freedom, but confusion, conflict, and moral disorder.
As truth finds its strength in objective authority (in our case, God [John 17:17), a lie or transgression testifies to the truth and to the objective authority behind the truth by its very existence. To put it differently, to declare a falsehood, there must be a truth to defy, and if there is a truth to defy, there must be the objective authority for the truth that was defied. That is why a falsehood is indeed false.
The same applies to evil.
In the United States, there is a consensus that the abolition of slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 was a “good” thing because slavery was “bad” or “evil.” But if we lived during the first hundred years of this nation, there obviously was not that consensus. Who was to say the slave owners were wrong? From their perspective, they were right.
One of the hottest issues today is child exploitation and sex trafficking. It is often called a “modern-day evil.” But if you ask those involved with that business, they will argue it is a choice, or a matter of opinion. What is it that makes child exploitation and sex trafficking evil?
Identifying evil implies that there is good, and establishing something as “good” implies a higher authority that overrides the opinions of mortals who might still favor slavery, sex trafficking, or child exploitation.
St. Augustine wrote:
“Good can exist without evil … but evil cannot exist without good, because the natures in which evil exists, in so far as they are natures, are good.” (The City of God, XI.23)
I realize this can become mind-numbingly complicated, and I am sorry, but think of it in very simple terms: If you have up, there must be down. If you have in, there must be out. If you have lies, there must be truth. If you have evil, there must be good. With physical things, it is easy to understand. If something is wet, it presumes we know what dry feels like. If something is rough, we know what smooth feels like.
The same is true of morality, ethics, and action. The judgment of “evil” or “bad” presumes a higher standard of good to establish that benchmark. As Christians, we understand God to be that higher standard of good (Psalm 119:68; Mark 10:18).
Evil is Rebellion
God did not create moral evil as a thing (Genesis 1:31; Deuteronomy 32:4; James 1:13-15). He created all things good. Evil arose when created beings used their will against God’s will, corrupting the good God made (Matthew 5:19; Romans 5:12).
Evil is a disposition (Genesis 6:5), attitude (Romans 8:7), and action (Genesis 50:20) charted in direct opposition to God’s will (1 Peter 4:2-3).
Evil, therefore, does not find its origin from God but against God. The serpent first introduces it in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1; 1 John 3:8). We later come to know that serpent by such names as Satan (which means “adversary”), the devil (“slanderer”), the tempter, the liar, the deceiver, and the enemy. None of the terms are remotely complimentary.
Because opposition to God has become the default in human nature (Genesis 8:21), humans become unreliable standards for what is good and right (Proverbs 14:12; Jeremiah 17:9; Isaiah 53:6), and often the source of troubles in their own lives (Mark 7:20-23; Galatians 5:17; James 1:14-15).
Creation itself has felt the consequences of evil introduced into the world. “Creation” first refers to the physical surroundings we live in (Genesis 3:17-19; Genesis 5:29). It also directly affects God’s prized creation of human life, which now reproduces through pain (Genesis 3:16) and, of course, ends in death (Genesis 3:19).
Evil, therefore, is rebellion against God, manifesting itself through the devil, world, and our own flesh. God did not create it, but it exists as a disposition, attitude, and set of actions opposed to God.
Leveraging Evil and Hardships for the Good of His People
“For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.”
— Augustine, Enchiridion, chap. 2
My cynical atheistic classmates in my public high school loved asking me the question, “If God is so great, and can do all things, can God create a stone so big that God can’t move it?” Admittedly, I don’t ever remember saying anything insightful back then, but today I have concluded the answer is “yes.”
A “yes” answer shifts the dilemma from God to humans. Let’s break it down a bit:
The challenge question presumes God is central to the problem. Citing God’s almighty nature presumes that God can do anything. If God can do anything, then the problem isn’t for God to create a stone so big that God can’t move it; the problem is for us mere mortals to understand how. The problem isn’t God’s to resolve, but ours to understand it.
My point is that when we try to understand things, we often pull God down to our standards and rules, presuming He is then subject to our flawed abilities. When the Apostle Paul addressed this to the Corinthians, he put it this way:
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. (1 Corinthians 1:25)
When we see evil and its consequences in the world, we never see it from God’s perspective. We are always trying to decipher it from our flawed human position. So when we see tremendous hardship or experience deep tragedy, our default is to see no purpose in it and therefore presume there is none. But all we’ve really done is fail to see it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there. After all, we are told:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. (Isaiah 55:8)
If that is true, it should come as no surprise that we miss a lot of what God has in store for us. Imagine how being sold into slavery by his brothers had to look from Joseph’s perspective. What good could come out of it? And then there is the incident with Potiphar’s wife and his unjust imprisonment. Things went from bad to worse, yet by the time you get to Genesis 50, Joseph was able to tell his brothers:
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:20)
J.I. Packer wrote:
Our God is a God who not merely restores, but takes up our mistakes and follies into His plan for us and brings good out of them. (J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 50th anniversary ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2023), chap. 20, “Thou Our Guide.”
God does not plan for your cancer, your miscarriage, your falling out with family or friends, but He leverages these things to accomplish His purpose. Because He is all-knowing, He knows in advance what is coming (Psalm 139:4; Isaiah 46:9-10). That is why the Romans passage on this point should be on a loop in our minds at all times:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
God does not “plan” hardship, suffering, pain, and death (Genesis 1:31; James 1:13-15). He has established the consequences of sin (Genesis 2:16-17; Romans 5:12), but it would be saying too much to suggest He “planned” sin. Instead, He uses evil and its consequences to bring good to His people. Look at what evil did to His Son, Jesus. Look at the opposition He faced, the betrayal, desertion, suffering, and death. It was all the consequence of evil in the world. And while God waited for the right time to put His plan to save us into action (Romans 5:6; Galatians 4:4-5), He used evil and its consequences to keep His promise to save His people.
In a way, that is how a parent overcomes problems in a child’s life. A child may be born with a problem, but loving parents will not sit and lament the disaster. They will use the new circumstance to do the greatest good for the child they love. God does the same thing – only perfectly!
The Opportunities from Evil
The presence of the cohorts of evil (the devil, world, our own flesh) provides opportunities for the good of God’s people. Let’s consider the evidence:
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:1–5)
The “evil” in this story is the man’s blindness and the presumptive consequences of it in a culture that had little or no accommodation for people who are blind.
Some might argue that, for God to display His works, He caused the man to be blind, but the original language and the larger context point in a different direction.
Jesus does not attempt to explain the source or cause of evil; rather, in verse 4, He focuses on our response to the consequences of evil in the world: “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.”
This is a similar point Jesus made when He got word of Pontius Pilate mixing the blood of Galileans with sacrifices:
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:1–5)
In this story, Jesus shifts the attention from fault-finding and its consequences to introspection through repentance.
Take, for example, the familiar story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). While our focus is on how the Samaritan recognized someone in need and his responsibility to meet that need, in sharp contrast to the Priest and Levite who avoided doing anything, a question certainly can be asked about the poor guy lying in the ditch. While he was the victim of evil, his value in his godly mission to put others before himself (Philippians 2:3-5) was that he provided an outlet for love and the expression of faith in others. The Priest and the Levite blew it. The Samaritan understood the proper response to the consequences of evil. The victim was God’s presentation of that opportunity.
Evil exists everywhere. Scripture has already defined its source as the devil, the world, and our own flesh. We also understand that evil is not the product of God or God’s desire (Deuteronomy 32:4; Habakkuk 1:13; Micah 7:18; 2 Peter 3:9). Evil rises out of the inclination to oppose and challenge God at every turn (Genesis 8:21). It is not a thing from God or a plan created by God. Yet, in His inestimable love for us, He leverages the twists, turns, and heartaches of evil for our own good (Romans 8:28), even to the point of conquering what otherwise would have looked like evil’s final or greatest triumph: death (1 Corinthians 15:54–57).
Meanwhile, every vestige of evil’s presence from outside of us (the devil and the world) and from within us (our flesh) is an opportunity to demonstrate to God our allegiance. It is not to earn His favor, for the gift of Christ already testifies to His favor. Rather, it testifies to Him and to all people what we really think about it, and how valuable it is to us (John 14:15; 1 Peter 2:12-15).
The reality of evil provides humans with the opportunity to be Christ-like in dealing with its consequences. We are to think of others ahead of ourselves (Philippians 2:3-5), and to be willing to suffer for doing good (1 Peter 3:17). We are to turn the cheek, walk the extra mile, and share with those who are in need (Mathew 5:39-42).
In this way, Paul spoke of rejoicing in suffering (Romans 5:3-5), recognizing that for all of the grief, pain, and suffering brought by evil, better things lie ahead (Romans 8:18).
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