My stab @ "If God is good, why all the bad?"

A pastor friend of mine was asked to write about the co-existence of evil and the good God who created all things. I thought I'd take a stab at it also. Since this can take us into several related conversation (about sin, about the image of God, etc.) I'll make this a series and post several times this week, with each post aiming at a different aspect of the original issue. First things first: If God is good, why all the bad?

The doctrine of a providential God has traditionally maintained that God creates, provides, takes care of, supervises, enables, all things. If it has been understood that God is wholly good, and that He claimed His creation to be good, there is then conflict with the evil activity that is present in the world. This sin is experienced in two forms: natural evil, and malice. Natural evil refers to injury, suffering caused by diseases, accidents, earthquakes, tornados, fires, and floods, etc. Earthquakes and tornado are not in themselves evil, but when a person and tornado share identical location harm will result. Malice refers to evils preformed out of intentional or desired evil that involve moral or ethical judgments. Moral evil is a possible result when humans exercise their free will. If a person does not choose good, they choose against God; they choose evil. Assuredly, there is a knowing and decided evil at work. Nevertheless, God reigns and evil is firmly under God’s control.

Traditional theology has approached this quandary by several methods. *Many even choose to not attempt to explain how God can remain sovereign and good while the world is filled with evil. These, rest in the incomprehensibility of God; that all is a part of His providential plan, and that we should simply trust that God is good. *Others have supposed that evil exist as the substance of divine punishment. This would include that both natural evil and malice are allowed, or even ordained by God, to punish the wickedness of mankind’s separation from the Creator. This concept would allow that humans today suffer both for the sins of Adam, as well as for their own individual sin.

The reality of evil is the result of the freedom with which God endowed men. By giving mankind the freedom to choose him, God gave mankind the freedom to not choose him. God has said he is “The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity” (Isaiah 45:7). It is still difficult for us to comprehend what is God’s place, and there may be many variations of explanation of how the Justice of God works out amidst the world’s sin. What is true is that through our struggle between good and evil, God is growing and shaping us to submit to Him more and trust Him more. In the Bible, Jacob found himself stuck between possible danger with his in-laws and possible dangerous revenge from his own family. In his place of desperation and anxiety, he wrestled with God, begging for blessing (Genesis 31:1-33:11). In this experience he was faced with the realities of good and evil, and he would settle for nothing less than the good blessing of God. The key to Jacob’s experience is to be faithful to God even when it might appear that God may not provide; and part of a faithful response to God is to protest evil. This requires on our part, a full engagement of our physical, emotional, logical selves to our spiritual selves as we trust God, grow closer to Him relationally, and conform to His image. In this way we can begin to reach our full potential in Christ.

The Bottom Line

In “Our quest for coherence, however, [we] must resist the temptation to build a system of ideas that pretends to know more than we do and thereby loses touch with both faith and lived reality. While we can have confidence in the truth of God revealed to us in Christ, our knowledge of God is not exhaustive” (Daniel Migliore). And so in some regard, I must simply trust that God is in control of all things, and that His goodness will be provided through the end of time. As well, I must engage myself in imitation and reflection of God’s good ways by being aware of evil and choosing to ask God for his provision of blessings, and by working against worldly evils as He give me strength. Through these efforts, I believe too, that God is working to conform me to His good image.