The Real Problem of Evil

Does Christianity have an adequate answer to the problem of evil? I don't think so. In this episode, we cover why Christianity doesn't have an answer to evil, why no else does either, and why that is to be expected. Listen on Spotify. Listen on Apple Podcasts.

First, let's look briefly at the problem of evil. The problem of evil is the idea that an all-knowing, all-powerful, and good God would not allow evil and suffering because he would have the capability and desire to stop it. Since evil exists, God must either not exist, or not be powerful, knowledgeable, or good. It is important to note that the problem of evil is not an attempt to disprove God. The problem of evil deals only with a good, powerful, and knowledgeable God. The logical contradiction created by God and evil has been traced to Epicurius in 300 BC and had been referred to as the “rock of atheism.” To rationalize the existence of God and evil Christians and other theists have employed a variety of arguments. Typically, the arguments are broken down into two categories. The first category deals with moral evil and the second with natural evil. So, we are going to start by looking at moral evil. Moral evil is the suffering and harm that comes about as a result of actions by an individual. For example, murder. Moral evil can also include harm that is more indirectly linked to choices by an individual. Typically, Christians, who are not reformed, account for moral evil with the doctrine of free will. Free will, the ability to choose your own actions and thus moral consequences, is a supreme good. Without it, humans could never achieve a relationship with God. One of the side effects of letting humans make choices is that people will make bad, evil choices. God could not remove evil from the world without removing human autonomy which is a greater good. Therefore, allowing evil is the best choice God can make.

I think that this is a good response to the problem of evil. However, other major aspects of Christian theology contradict the belief in free will. The first theological contradiction is sin nature. According to compellingtruth.org sin nature is “that part of human beings that impels us to commit sin. The Bible teaches that we have a sin nature. Not only do we commit sin, but it is our nature to do so.” The website goes on to explain “Being sinners by nature, we cannot help but sin.” This is the contradiction. If moral evil is accounted for by free choice to do right or wrong, but humans cannot help but do wrong, free choice appears to be lacking. For humans to have free will, we must have the option of doing right. Supporters of sin nature and free will would probably respond to me by saying: people have the option to do right but the nature to do wrong. This is still a problem. If you are compelled by nature to do something, it is hardly fair to hold someone morally accountable for it. This would be like holding a cat responsible for killing a bird or mother bear responsible for mauling a tourist petting her cub. Supporters of the doctrine of sin nature would respond to me by saying that the difference between a human and a cat or bear is that humans know right and wrong. We know when we are violating God’s moral law, even if we can’t help it. As you will be no doubt surprised to learn, I don’t agree with this. For humans to know they are violating God’s law, there would have to be a bit more consensus on the topic of does God exist? and what is his law? Within Christianity, there are diverse interpretations of what is right or wrong. Some Christians think war is moral, some think pacifism is the only moral option. Some think that Obama was the Antichrist and some are democrats. If Christians cannot even agree about when God’s Law is violated, how can non-Christians be held accountable based on the premise they know God’s law?

To sum this up: sin nature is the doctrine that humans cannot help but do wrong. This implies that human nature is responsible for evil, not individuals. This begs the question, who is responsible for human nature? There are two possible answers: Adam or God.

To investigate this, I am going to assume that Adam was real which is not something I would normally assume. Anyhow, that argument is that after Adam sinned, each child would inherit a sin nature from their parents. I see two major issues with this. First, the age of accountability. This is the doctrine that only after the ‘age of accountability’ will individuals be responsible for sin. So, if a child dies while it is very young, it’s sin nature does not count, and it goes to heaven. If individuals were truly born with a nature that makes them irreconcilable with God, apart from the choice of salvation, no one, even babies, could go to heaven apart from choice. As a result, most Christians admit that sin nature is not held against a person until they can understand and accept the gospel. This implies that sin nature is not something children inherit from their parents.

My second issue with sin nature being inherited is that of Jesus. Jesus is typically thought of as being wholly human and wholly God. He had the complete traits of humanity and the complete traits of God. Whether or not that makes sense, is a topic for another day. The point is if Jesus had all the traits of humanity, and sin nature is a trait of humanity, Jesus would have had a sin nature. All the Christians I am familiar with, reject that conclusion which leaves us with the options of Jesus was not fully human or sin nature is not an inherent trait of humanity.

So back to our question: is God or Adam responsible for sin nature? Because sin nature does not appear to be a hereditary part of all humans certainly before a certain age, the answer points away from Adam and towards God.

This obviously creates issues for the Christian response to the problem of evil. If God is in some way responsible for the nature which causes people to sin and do evil, God is kind of responsible for evil. For this reason, I think that the doctrine of sin nature and the doctrine of free will contradict. Personally, I believe there is a much stronger warrant for free will than sin nature. So now we are onto the second theological contradiction to the doctrine of free will. This contradiction is God’s plan. Biblically, God’s plan is often depicted as using bad, or some might say evil, actions to carry out God’s will. For instance, in the Old Testament, the Israelites are routinely punished for ignoring God by being conquered by other people. Ordinarily, conquering another people group is wrong. However, in this instance, if the Canaanites had decided to act morally, and not conquer Israel, they would have been thwarting the will of God, which is wrong. So, by acting morally, God’s plan would not be carried out. A second example is that of the crucifixion. The Roman soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross were arguably acting immorally by killing an innocent person, in fact, the only truly innocent person. However, had they refused to crucify Jesus, God’s plan of salvation would have ended somewhat anticlimactically. Here an immoral action carries out God’s plan. In these instances, God seems complicit in evil because it is a part of his master plan. Furthermore, did the Canaanites conquering Israel or the soldiers crucifying Jesus have a choice in their actions? Could they disobey the will of God in such pivotal moments?

The overarching point is this: the problem of evil is typically responded to by using the doctrine of free will. However, two major Christian doctrines, sin nature and God’s plan contradict the idea of free will. Additionally, the idea of God’s plan often makes God complicit in acts of evil. This idea alone confirms the problem of evil. To conclude the discussion of moral evil: I think the idea of free will is the best response that accounts for why some types of evil exist. However, in affirming free will, other major doctrines have to be re-evaluated. So far we have addressed moral evil, which is the first half of discussing the problem of evil. The second type of evil is Natural evil. Natural evil is the suffering and harm that comes about as a result of the natural world. There is no culprit to directly blame for evil. An example would be an earthquake, a virus, cancer, flooding, etc. The free-will response to the problem of evil will not apply here because the evil is not as a result of a person's actions. There are typically three ways Christians respond to the problem of evil.

First, the idea that sin destroyed creation and thus caused all of natural evil. This argument is essentially an attempt to make the free-will response apply to all types of evil. It is pretty easy to see that this argument contradicts reality. For example, a lion killing a lost child is an example of natural evil. It is clear, although some deny it, that lions are carnivores and have always been carnivores. If God designed lions, he designed them to eat other animals. Therefore, there was no point in time where lions did not kill things. This form of natural evil has always existed.

Earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods and other deadly weather conditions are likewise caused by systems that existed before the original sin. It is absurd to say that the earth’s crust once functioned differently, or atmospheric pressure systems didn’t exist. These types of natural evil precede humanity.

The second response to natural evil is that natural evil is a punishment brought about by sin. This argument eliminates the absurdity of the first argument while still maintaining humans are the cause of all evil. The biggest problem with this argument in that Jesus debunked it. Twice. In John 9, Jesus is asked by his disciples why a man is blind. Is it because of the sins of the man or the sins of his parents? Jesus replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” In Luke 13, Jesus comments on some people who died when a tower fell “Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no!” Twice Jesus rejects the idea that natural evil comes as a result of punishment for sin. Blindness and architectural failures cannot be blamed on sin.

The third response to natural evil is that although the world is imperfect, it is the best possible material world. All the flaws we see are the best way to deal with the problems inherent to a physical creation. The main problem with this argument is that it limits God. It says that God could not make anything better than this. Most people can easily think of some small way that God could improve the world so this argument rings false. Additionally, the point of the problem of evil is to prove that God lacks goodness, power, or knowledge. This argument directly admits he lacks power, thus affirming one of the claims of the argument it is trying to refute. After looking at natural evil and the typical responses to it. I think a few things are clear. First, it is incorrect to blame the harms of natural evil on humanity. Second, there seems to be no good account of where natural evil came from except the creator of the natural world. So to recap: The problem of evil says that a good, powerful, knowledgeable God would not allow moral and natural evil. Moral evil can be explained through the free-will doctrine although it has some negative implications for other central doctrines. Natural evil cannot be explained away or justified. Ultimately, it appears as if God may have caused the evil that cannot be linked to free will. This is a pretty satisfying resolution to the problem of evil. However, I don’t think there are any better alternatives.

People who reject God based on the problem of evil obviously care very much about the evil present in the world. Evil is a term that is used to denote serious moral wrong, not just bad things. To accept that serious moral wrong exists, you have to accept some type of moral standard. If humans are just a collection of molecules with strong feelings, there is no rational basis to label anything evil. Things might be harmful, unpleasant, emotionally repelling, hurt the human species, or not evolutionarily productive. But things could not be deeply morally wrong like evil is. Without some type of religious or moral framework, there is not a problem of evil, because evil doesn’t even exist. Whichever religious viewpoint you hold, evil poses a problem. But, I don’t think that is surprising. A truly evil thing is all bad. If it made sense or could be rationalized it would not be 100% bad. The characteristic of making sense is good. So if an evil thing made sense, it would have at least some good in it. So, evil cannot make sense. For this reason, I do not think evil can ever be rationalized completely. It is something that lies beyond understanding. I don’t think the problem of evil will be resolved. I don’t think it can be. Whether or not evil is understood, Christians still face another problem. It appears that, like everything else, evil comes from God. Slightly more palatably, it appears that evil is allowed by God. These are not ideas that can be ignored or explained away. As I have discussed already, many of the Christian responses fall short of answering the argument.

So, how do I, a qualified expert, reconcile a belief in God with his creation and/or allowance of evil? First, I think it is important to consider that all good was created by or allowed by God: truth, beauty, justice, hope, etc.

Second, a more valuable question then is God responsible for evil is what lasts, good or evil? Ultimately, good will triumph over evil and it will no longer be an issue. In the short term, evil should not be expected to make sense because it definitionally doesn’t. The fact that good will prevail over evil, shows that, in the long run, God values and supports good and does not allow evil. I hope this episode has been enlightening or interesting and not too confusing. Please join me sometime in the future for the next episode!