Why? (Part 1)

There is no question that the world is filled with a major  amount of evil and suffering. We are impacted by this reality every day on all levels: emotionally, intellectually, and practically. As such, it is not surprising that people have a difficult time reconciling this harsh reality with the idea of an all good, all powerful God.

According to the Handbook of Christian Apologetics, the problem can be summed up by the apparent contradiction between the following four propositions:
(1) God exists.
(2) God is all good.
(3) God is all powerful.
(4) Evil exists.

If we affirm any three of these propositions, it seems we must reject the fourth. For example, if we accept that God exists, is all good and that evil exists, we must reject the idea that God is all powerful, otherwise He would put a stop to evil. Or, if God exists and is all powerful and yet evil also exists, then God must not be all good, because He wills or allows evil to exist.

The Handbook suggests five possible responses to this problem.

(1) Atheism solves the problem by denying proposition one, that God exists.

(2) Pantheism, the belief that God is everything and that everything is God, denies proposition two and allows that God could be both good and evil.

(3) Polytheism, the belief in many gods, denies proposition three, and reduces God to just one of many gods.

(4) Idealism, the belief that reality is a product of the mind, rejects proposition four and states that evil is just an illusion.

(5) Christianity, on the other hand, affirms all four principles and denies that there is any inherent contradiction between them.

How then is a Christian solution possible? Because it is always feasible that God could have a good reason for permitting evil; a reason of which we are not aware. As long as this is logically possible, there is no contradiction between the existence of an all good, all powerful God and the existence of evil. Just because we may not be able to figure out what that reason is does not mean it does not exist.

God has not left us completely in the dark. This world is clearly not the best of all logically possible worlds, but it is the best world God could create given His commitment to create genuinely free creatures like us. Free creatures are the only beings who can love and experience love. Since one of God’s main purposes in creating us was to have a reciprocal love relationship with us, God created the best of all actually achievable worlds. God cannot make people freely choose to good or freely love Him. If He makes them do it, they are not free. If they are genuinely free, then He can’t make them do it. That would be a contradiction. Therefore, the possibility of free creatures choosing evil is not something God can control without eliminating free will. And a free will is not just a nice addendum on human nature, it is an integral part of who we are. This being the case, if God were to eliminate evil, He would also be eliminating free will. And in doing so, God would be perpetrating the most horrendous evil of all: the annihilation of the human race.