I briefly discussed the “Problem of Evil” in my book. The argument behind this ancient topic is not difficult to understand.
If we believe the Creator is the same God as described in the Bible, then there are some things we know about Him:
Firstly, He is infinitely powerful. In the book of Genesis, the very first book of the Bible, it says that “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light’. God creates the universe by just saying His words, and the world was created out of nothingness. One may argue that the observable universe, no matter how magnificent it is, is still finite. Creating the finite universe still does not imply an infinitely powerful God. However, I think creating the universe is powerful enough for the Creator in this discussion.
Secondly, God is wholly good. The Bible says that “For God so love the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”. This Bible verse plainly tells us that God loves us.
These are all good and comforting. However, we cannot deny the realities of pain and suffering. There are wars in the world that kill people, young and old. For those of us who are fortunate to live in relatively peaceful places, we are seeing good people suffering from violent crimes like murdering, raping, and human trafficking. A lot of us may have relatives battling with horrific illnesses such as cancer. It is hard for anyone to avoid seeing examples of “evil” - which we use as an abbreviation of “pain and suffering” - around us.
If the Creator is all-powerful and all-loving, why does He allow evil in this world? Is He all-powerful but not willing to help people out from their suffering? In that case, He is not all loving. Is He all-loving and perhaps even grief with people when they suffer, but He is not powerful enough to help? In that case, He is not all powerful. Either way, there is a contradiction.
But wait! We may be making a logical leap there. We have made an unstated assumption, which is that an all-powerful and all-loving God must stop evil. To be really careful, our unstated assumption can be stated explicitly as two statements:
Firstly, an all-powerful God always eliminates evils.
Secondly, there are no limits to what an all-powerful God can do.
The above statements seem to be unnecessary at first sight, but actually they do carry an important implication in our understanding of the problem of evil.
We do not always stop “evil” even though we have the power to do so. Consider a loving father taking his little girl to a clinic for vaccination. The daughter is going to suffer a painful shot on her little shoulder. Her father has the authority and power to stop her suffering. However, he does not stop the pain. He allows it to happen. Does that imply that he is powerless to stop that “evil” happened on his daughter? Certainly not.
Is it true that there are legitimate reasons for the all-powerful all-loving God to allow evil in this world?
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