There are people who are intellectually investigating God’s relationship to pain and evil. There are also people who are in the midst of deep pain. While both are asking a perfectly valid question, they are looking for vastly different answers. As Dr. Frank Turek often says, “You don’t need a philosopher, you need a pastor”. I don’t wish to bombard a hurting individual with arguments and philosophy; these tactics will only come off as unsatisfactory at best anyways.

Let’s first examine the philosophical relationship between God and evil. After we show that God and evil are both possible in this world, we can respond to the emotional objection to evil and hurt.

Can God and evil both exist simultaneously?

Problem of evil

Easily the hardest, most common question there is. Not just the most common question posed to Christianity, the most common question posed to all of us. The problem of evil is not one that belongs solely to Christianity. It is one that every rational human being must answer in this life. Every world view, religion, faith, or lack of faith must answer, “why evil?”. Walking away from the Christian faith does not solve the problem, you merely must answer it in light of whatever worldview you adopt next. Britannica lays out the problem of evil quite simply, “God is almighty, God is perfectly good, evil exists”. If God is good, and God is in charge, why does evil exist?

Freedom of will

God, within Himself, is perfectly fulfilled. He needs nothing and requires nothing to sustain Himself outside of Himself. However, God is so overflowing with love, that He decided to create creatures, us, in order to have a loving relationship with them. In order to truly, genuinely love, one must have free will. This is an absolute necessity. I can program a robot to hang out with me, eat meals with me, play games with me, but this robot will never be loving me. He’ll only be following his programming, whether he wants to or not.

God knew this, and thus gave us free will. Freedom to choose. This freedom was given to us in order that we can do good and multiply the good on Earth. However, whenever you give someone free will, there is always the possibility that this person will use it for evil. So much of the evil in this life is due to humans abusing the free will that we possess.

Couldn’t God create a world without evil in it?

God can do anything, so long as it doesn’t contradict His nature. Some things God cannot do are things that cannot logically be done. He cannot create a square circle. God cannot create a free creature that only does what He wants. If it only did what He wants, it would not be free. God made us humans as creatures that are truly free.

As we see, freedom of will always has the possibility of leading to evil. Therefore, God creating a world in which free will exists always has at least the possibility of evil. I believe that a world in which freedom exists without evil makes as much sense as a square circle, which is exactly why God didn’t create it. As long as people have the freedom to choose what to do with this life, evil will be chosen.

Alternatively, God could have created a world in which no free will exists, just a bunch of creatures that will always do good. However, this would be a world devoid of true love for God, since they don’t have a choice in the matter. God chose the world in which the most love exists, this one.

Morality, right and wrong

The problem of evil implies the existence of evil. Evil cannot exist without good; it would make no sense to refer to one without believing the other exists. We are left with 2 options. Either evil is just a personal preference, subjectively decided by one of many means, or it is objectively evil worthy of judgement and punishment. These are the two options facing the Christian and the Atheist.

I strongly disagree with the idea that morality is subjective. There are Atheists who, committed to the claim that God doesn’t exist, have gone so far as to say that harming babies couldn’t be objectively condemned. We all know this to be false, and all the alternative ways of making morality objective, outside of God, crumble. Evolution can’t be our source of morality, or else we could have evolved into a world where murder was okay. Society can’t be it, or else our American society has no right to condemn the Nazi society. Personal preference can’t be it, or someone who’s personal preference is to harm others is uncondemnable. Even the “greatest good” morality cannot stand, as Stalin himself thought he was doing the greatest good for mankind, and without appealing to a standard outside of myself and Stalin, how could I call him wrong?

Yes, there are people who may disagree on the morality. Just as there are exceptions to every rule. However, there cannot be exceptions without a rule to appeal to.

It boils down to this. We can only condemn evil if we appeal to a standard that is outside of our situation. One that is outside of me and you. I cannot call you right or wrong unless we both have something to measure up to. I call donation good and stealing bad because I know what the objective standard of good is. We can only say “God, why so much evil?” if we first acknowledge His objective morality. Evil does not disprove God, it actually points to Him.

Can God use pain for good?

Historically, one of Christianity’s most common responses to the problem of evil is that God can use this evil for a greater good. We can find positive evidence for this claim all throughout our lives.

While interviewing Dr. Peter Kreeft for his book The Case For Faith, Lee Strobel and Dr. Kreeft discuss the problem of evil. Kreeft states “In fact, it’s interesting that most objections to the existence of God from the problem of suffering come from outside observers who are quite comfortable, whereas those who actually suffer are, as often as not, made into stronger believers by their suffering” (Strobel, 2000, pg. 67).

People on the outside of pain often think the evil disproves God. People within the pain turn to God at a far higher rate. This begs the question, could God be using this pain for good?

If Christianity is true, the greatest, most good act a man can do is to turn to Jesus. No act is as moral as giving their life to Jesus. Additionally, nothing is better for a man’s soul than to turn to Jesus. Giving oneself to Jesus is the absolute best thing the Lord has in store for us. Pain is often the reason that so many people turn themselves towards this ultimate good, a relationship with Jesus. Therefore, out of pain comes good. Not only good, but the highest good man can be a part of. Given the high rate of strong believers among those within pain, I can reasonably say that God can use evil for a greater good. That is not to say He causes or does evil.

We’ve all seen it or heard about it before. A tornado hits a small town, tearing apart homes, towns, property, breaking hearts. What never ceases to amaze me, is that these things never cease to move the hearts of the public. From all over the country, donations, supplies, and volunteers will come pouring in. Think about it, when was the last time you felt your community, no matter how large, how divided politically, culturally, socially, was close. When was the last time your entire community came and rallied together? I’d be willing to bet it was immediately following a tragedy. Regardless of country or region, we’ve seen international love in response to tragedies. At times, I’ve felt that the overwhelming love that connects so many, across miles and borders and barriers, can even be stronger than the tragedy that sparked it all.

I would take this massive swell of love following these times of hurt, as reasonable evidence that this pain is being used for a greater good. At the very least, you must say that it shows that it is at least possible that pain can be used for a larger good.

What is the purpose of life?

If Christianity is true, then each of us is an eternally significant being. We all have eternal significance and were made for an eternal relationship with God. As we learned, God created us so that we could freely and lovingly be in relationship with Him. If Christianity is true, then this relationship is meant to continue for eternity; that is what Heaven is.

If the purpose of life is merely to have as comfortable a life as possible, then die and just be dirt forever, then God would be immoral in letting pain and suffering occur. If the sole purpose of us being here is to experience pleasure and have fun, then suffering could never be good or used for good.

However, if the purpose of life is to be in relationship with God for eternity, then we have a completely different way to look at suffering. This life is incredibly short when compared to our eternity after this. In enduring momentary pain in order to prepare us for an eternity that is ahead, God is just in allowing pain. He has His sights set on eternity. We all know this same principle to be true for ourselves. We floss our teeth even though it is boring, we workout even though it is painful, we diet even though it is uncomfortable, we work hard even though it is hard work. God is preparing us for eternity.

One time when I was a kid, I went to fill the tub up for a bath. Not knowing what I was doing, I turned the hot knob to full and left it on. After a searing couple seconds of dipping my foot in a full bathtub, I never carelessly threw on the hot water again. Despite this being a small and insufficient metaphor, it is similar to my point. If pain and suffering teach us lessons, make us more loving, more educated, better prepared for eternity, than this would all prove as evidence that suffering can be used for good. In this way, I learned and grew. Similarly, could God not allow instances of pain and suffering so that we grow? Become more like who we’re meant to be for eternity?

Because the purpose of this life is not just to experience pleasure and ease, God is just in allowing us to experience evil.

Jesus and the cross

A major part of answering objections about evil is the punishment of evil. It would be a cruel and unloving God who could look on all the evil that occurred in 1930’s and 40’s Germany and decide to let it all slide by unpunished. A loving God, a just God, cannot tolerate evil going unpunished. Letting sin go unpunished is loving to neither the evildoer nor the victim.

We know God cannot tolerate evil unpunished. We also know that God wishes for us all to spend eternity in relationship with Him. Then what about the evil I’ve committed? That’s what makes Christianity so special.

In order to make sure our evil gets punished, yet we are still free to live with God for eternity, God decided to take the fall for us. In offering up His Son, Jesus, as payment for our sins, we are made right with God. Being fully man, Jesus was able to die for all humanity. Being fully God, Jesus’s death was a payment of infinite worth. He was both able to be punished in our place, and worthy enough to fully “pay the bill” if you will.

Therefore, through faith in Christ, we are so gracefully granted the free gift of Christ’s righteousness (as He never sinned and lived a perfect life) and our sins are credited to Christ’s account.

In this way, God is able to both be in relationship with us, and also able to punish evil at the same time.

Emotional Suffering

Recently, I posted on my Instagram story an encouragement to listen. As apologists, we sometimes place so much emphasis on answers and responses that we sometimes lose sight of listening.

When we suffer there are things the Lord wants us all to know.

His heart breaks with ours. Jesus wept with families who lost loved ones, even when He knew He was about to raise their loved one from the grave. This seems weird at first, but it’s because His heart breaks with ours. He knows why this is happening, He knows the good He is about to do through it, but His heart breaks with ours all the same.

He loves us. He loves us all dearly. He loves us so much that he could count the hairs on our head. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He loves us so much that He created a world in which He knew evil would exist but said “I love you so much it’s all worth it to me”. There is nowhere we can run that will be outside of His love. No pain so strong He can’t love us through it.

We are not alone. Jesus is with us. His heart breaks with us because He is with us. Right here right now. That is why we are able to pray to Him and He is able to hear us, because He is with us, not forsaking us in our pain.

When someone in the midst of pain comes to us with an emotional objection, we don’t list arguments and reason. We let the person know of these things. Sometimes we don’t let them know these things by telling them, but by just being there. We let them know they are loved and they are not alone with our loving presence. We let them know the Lord’s heart breaks with them when our hearts break with them. We get the opportunity to reflect Jesus in those moments. And as always, we pray for them.

Problem of evil | Definition, Responses, & Facts | Britannica

The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity: Strobel, Lee: 9780310234692: Amazon.com: Books