Photo by Raphael Cheng
If God is all good, then he must not want his creation to suffer. If God is all powerful, then he must have the means to make it so. Why, then, is there sin in this world? Why is there suffering? Does the existence of sin contradict the existence of God?
This is, in its simplest form, the problem of evil. Maybe you’ve never thought of it in this way before, but I’m sure something similar has at least crossed your mind at some point - that question of why God would allow for sin and suffering to exist. It definitely crosses my mind all the time. It’s a question that people have been trying to answer since before Christ came to earth - take Greek philosopher Epicurus, who said (in paraphrase):Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?
While I don’t believe that there will ever be a perfect satisfactory answer to this question until we are standing face to face with God, I do think it’s one that many struggling in their faith will come across at one point or another. In writing this, I hope to provide my thoughts on this question and how I reconciled it in my own mind. My answer is not, in any shape or form, objective truth: It is what I believe based on scripture and my current, limited understanding of God’s character. I could be completely wrong, though I would hope not. It’s not meant to be a definite answer either, simply a starting point to help you think.
Before I begin my reasoning, there are some points of importance that have to be established. First, I am not writing this to prove the existence of God - I am trying to prove that the existence of the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God that I believe in and the existence of sin is not contradictory. As such, the basis of my reasoning asserts that both God and sin exist on Earth, which I believe as a Christian to be true, and upon which I build my argument reconciling these two existences.
Secondly, I will use scripture to support definitions or lines of reasoning, which some may consider circular logic. However, looking at the verses will reveal that most of them simply provide a scriptural basis for the premises that I’m presenting: for example, Hebrews 4:13, relaying the omniscience of God, which is a characteristic of His we are already proposing to be true in order to set up the problem of evil. In cases where this is not evident, scripture is used to provide clarification for otherwise more unclear matters and holds true because of the basis of the problem - since God is all-good and all-knowing, and His Word reflects his character, it can be held as truth. This point is probably easy to disagree with me on, and I’m sure some will, so I will try and write this so that it holds to just reasoning as well.
Finally, you may notice that as I’m tackling this problem I’ll be mostly focusing on the coexistence of God and sin in particular. Yes, this can be seen as a simplification of the argument. However, I chose to use sin as an overarching term for suffering, death, and the general “bad” in the world because it allows for a more direct approach to the issue rather than trying to tackle all the aspects of wrong that we see in the world - and, more importantly, because as a Christian, I believe that all of what I mentioned above came as a result of sin (Romans 5:12).
So what is sin?
Scripture says sin is the transgression of the law of God (1 John 3:4). If God’s law is perfect (Psalm 19:7-9), then sin is lawlessness - in other words, sin is what is not of God, because God is perfect. There is God, and then there is sin, anything apart from God. This should hold true whether you believe in the validity of scripture or not. Does that mean it’s impossible for God to sin? Isn’t that contradictory to his omnipotent nature? Well, not exactly.
Scripture doesn’t say whether God can sin, but it does say whether he would - and obviously, the answer is no (2 Samuel 22:31). But to assume God chooses not to sin is also incorrect, as that statement implies that what is sin and what is not sin is out of his decree. It’s more accurate to say that God does not sin. It’s not that he lacks the ability to, or decides not to, but that it contradicts his character. God is the definition of holiness, absolute purity (Habakkuk 1:13), and it is that perfect character that determines what is and what is not sin (James 4:12). It’s not a matter of choice, but of character. There, God is omnipotent: he has the ultimate decision, the ability to do - or not do - anything that he decides. God is perfect, and what is not God is sin.
So how do we explain the existence of sin, if it’s not something that God would want, and not something that God does? To answer that, I’d like to start from the concept of free will.
Free will is a rather complicated topic that intertwines with other topics of debate, like predestination. However, for now I’ll just focus on the idea of free will - our freedom to make choices in our lives. We know that we have the freedom to sin or to not sin, the choice to follow God or disobey him, both from scripture (Galatians 5:13) and from… well, life. It seems contradictory, then, that a God who desires for good would allow his creation the ability to do evil. To answer this, I’ll pose another question: why would God give us freedom in the first place? It seems like creation would be a lot simpler if all we did was worship the Creator, even if we couldn’t do anything else - and in the presence of God, why would we want to do anything else anyways?
I guess when I phrase it that way the answer is rather obvious, if cliche.
Love.
God loves us (1 John 4:16, Psalms 136), and he also wants us to love him - but would it be requited love if we didn’t have a choice otherwise? CS Lewis says it nicely in Mere Christianity:“Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata - of creatures that worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water.”Here is the intersection of free will and love - for us to truly love Him, we must choose God. God created us with love, and because of this love, he in turn lets us choose what to love.
He gives us this choice, but he also demonstrates his love in an even more beautiful way - and this is where the redemption story comes in. The existence of sin not only allows for us to choose God, it also allows for God to choose us - not a choice between humans and sin, since God is perfect, but the choice of humans even though we sin (Romans 5:8). God showed us his love through the gospel story: the sending of Jesus and his death and resurrection makes it possible for us to even have the possibility of choosing God, of choosing a perfect being when we are so far from perfect ourselves (1 John 4:9-10). He didn’t just give us free will and then dip, he gave us exact directions on how to choose him - through his son, Jesus Christ (John 14:6). The reconciliation of man and God is a testament of how much he loves his creation, that he would take on everything we’ve done against him just so we could have the chance to be with him again.
But for there to be a choice, there must be choices.
In order for us to choose God, we have to be able to choose not God - or, sin. God detests sin (Psalm 11:5, Proverbs 8:13), don’t get me wrong. Sin does not have a place in eternity with him. However, because he loves us, he allows us to have the choice of God or sin. We know that God wants us to choose him (2 Peter 3:9) - he doesn’t want any of his creation to perish. But in order for us to actually come to him, to actually love him, he gives us the choice to turn away in the hope that, like the prodigal son, we will eventually come back to his open arms.
[Now, I want to quickly address something I mentioned earlier, and that is the topic of predestination. There’s multiple verses on the multitude God chooses for salvation (Romans 8:29-30, Ephesians 1:5) that points out a seemingly glaring problem with my argument: if God has already chosen who will be saved, what’s the point of us making the choice in the first place? I believe that the answer to this lies in the paradox of both God’s omniscience and his omnipotence, but I will not address that here - you’ll just have to trust me for now that I believe it is solvable).
Therefore, I believe the existence of sin does not contradict the existence of an all-good, all-powerful God. God did not create evil, but he does allow for its existence because in his love he has given us the free will to choose to love him. He is not responsible for sin, yet he allows it because without it, there can be no love, and without love, creation would not be worth existing at all. The redemption story of Jesus Christ is proof that while God allows evil to exist, he has also provided a way for us to choose him, and he will always pursue us, even when we choose sin.
Conclusion: It is the love of God that makes our choice between God and sin so significant, for it is through our choice that we can be saved.
