Does Evil Disprove An All-Powerful God?

It has long been argued that if God is all powerful and all good, then He would have made a way for us to exist with no pain, suffering, or evil. 'These things are clearly bad', some say, 'so a good God wouldn't allow them! And if He is good, He lacks the power to do away with all the evil'... Yet this is deception. Something has been snuck in which does not belong to the atheist. He has called God unjust, yet justice is only more than a personal or cultural preference if God exists.

[...] Pain would be no problem unless, side by side with our daily experience of this painful world, we had received what we think a good assurance that ultimate reality is righteous and loving. (The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis)

Who are you to call murder evil? The murderer claims it was a good deed. Do you accept the witness of your conscience or not? Is it not clear that murder, rape, cruelty, and theft are truly wrong, rather than unfashionable? If so, we are governed by a moral law, not free to do what we please and merely influenced by certain emotional responses conserved by evolution. If there is no God, "anything is permissible." You could steal, cheat, lie, and murder, and the only real obstacles would be your emotions and balancing those activities with the other things you desire (such as freedom from jail). Since you don't believe that unless you're a lunatic, God exists (as proven in The Moral Argument). You might not want to accept that right now, but you should not delay.

Since God does exist, and He gives you the law of right and wrong, who are you to criticize His plan? Do you truly think you know better? Learn the lesson of Job in the Bible, who was taught humility when God expounded on His mighty power and the depths of His knowledge. Nevertheless, we shall answer this: 'Couldn't God have created a world without evil?' One way to answer is to say that if He did, you would have been eliminated from it very quickly, since you have done many evil deeds. Another is that since we have free will and He wants to have mercy on us, He has to allow us to do some evil or we wouldn't truly have free will. (Even if you have the ability to choose bad things within yourselves, if there is no way for you to exercise this ability, for all intents and purposes, you don't have it.) Read on for more.

Why Are People Allowed to Do Evil?

Why does evil happen, supposing God exists? First, to acknowledge human evil is to acknowledge free will (robots cannot be evil—only used by evil people). Therefore, God created creatures with free will, and they are allowed to do evil to one another. But was there a way around this? What were God's options after creating creatures with free will? Three are obvious to me:

1. Destroy evildoers immediately;

2. Remove the possibility of doing evil things;

3. Provide the option of a just redemption.

These can be restated as (1) destroy the sinner, (2) remove his free will, or (3) redeem him. Which would you choose? The first is an option, but if the creatures are weak and subject to temptation, like us, this may be unmerciful. The second makes creating the creatures redundant (they are now robots). The third is merciful and just, providing the means to do this exist.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5, The Bible)

Why Does "Natural Evil" Happen?

The Christian explanation for natural evil is that God cursed both us and the Earth when Adam disobeyed. Since Adam was made to rule over all the land and all animals, is it a surprise that when he rebelled against God (all disobedience is rebellion), all of nature was cursed? Read the first few chapters of Genesis to find out more.

That gives us the historical explanation for why natural evil happens, but since God is good, does he hope to accomplish anything by it? Why pain, and sickness, and suffering? Well, if God's plan is redemption, pain could be a very useful tool. When a person will not see reason because he is stubborn, and no amount of kindness will change his mind, pain or loss might. We punish children and even adults because suffering humbles us, and that allows us to see the error in our ways. God does the same (see Job 33).

"What about innocent people suffering?" I hear you say. First of all, only little children among us are innocent. Secondly, there are many reasons I could give, but commonly, a person will refuse to accept reason and cling to rage against God anyway. You must ask yourself if you are truly willing to hear answers. If so, then consider first that young children go to be with God if they die, for they are innocent. Then you ought to ponder self-sacrifice in this way: Has there been a time in your life when you are going through something difficult, but you suddenly remember that person you knew who went through something far worse and bore it with a good attitude? Therefore, the suffering of righteous people can inspire and humble the wicked and proud. Finally, God has set up a world which normally runs according to a set of rules. These rules mean that in disasters, collateral damage is inevitable. Only if He constantly intervened with miracles could he prevent that, and that does not appear to be His plan.