God is supposed to be both all-loving and all-powerful, yet evil and suffering exist. Therefore either God can do something about it but won’t – in which case God is not all-loving; or God wants to do something about it but can’t – in which case God is not all-powerful. Kim Fabricius
One of the most troubling issue for atheists, agnostics and even people of faith is the problem of evil in the world.
Basically, the issue boils down to:
If God is all powerful, then why are bad and tragic things permitted to happen? It must be that God is not all powerful.
If God is all loving and either causes or allows evil, then God cannot be loving.
What are we to do with such a conundrum?
The Quandary
Frankly speaking, this is a bitch of a dilemma! It is and always has been the major stumbling block in belief in God and in growing a deeper faith for believers.
Oh, people can give you all sorts of answers and rationalizations and explanations, but in the end we are left gob-smacked with the facts of events like 9/11, the Holocaust, and all the other ethnic cleansings that have taken place, the Inquisition, floods and hurricanes and earthquakes, oh my!
And babies with cancer, car accidents that kill a whole family, rape and violence, war and oppression, greed and control, poverty and disease. It’s mind-boggling, really.
And all this takes place on this bonny blue dot floating on the edge of the Milky Way; an insignificant mite in the immenseness of the cosmos.
This world of ours is staggeringly beautiful! Travel a bit and you are in awe of the variety of landscapes, flora and fauna. Sun-rises and sun-sets gorgeous enough to make one weep. Majestic mountains, and tranquil lakes, geometric rice paddies and fields, unique architecture, statues and monuments and ancient structures, bustling cities, rural splendor.
But this lovely Lady, earth, is capricious as well! In a twinkling there are natural disasters- many of which are not under any human control…tsunamis, earth-splitting quakes, drowning floods, winds, freezing cold and enervating heat. The good and the bad, the blessings and the evil.
My Breaking Point
This yin-yang, this tension between beneficial and malignant happenings, finally walloped me my second year in seminary.
I had always struggled with the concept of God’s relationship to the troubles of the world, but then came the tipping point!
National Geographic had an article showcasing recent technological advances. While reading the article, I came upon a picture showing a baby still in utero with the tragic image showing a brain tumor. 
I totally lost it.
This innocent fetus, never yet having taken a breath of air, doomed.
All the troubling questions about God’s goodness, and whether or not life was a series of random events erupted.
I spent a tearful, ragged, difficult year wrestling with unresolved moral quandaries and the ramifications of theodicy, which basically is attempts to answer or ponder whether a just and loving God, who created us, can be all-powerful and all-knowing yet permit terrifying evil and painful suffering.
The whole year was spent in deep pondering, massive reading, philosophical discussions with my professor, and ended in writing an opus on my understanding of the relationship of God and evil and suffering.
That work guided me through all the years of helping people deal with illness, death and tragedy.
Others’ Thoughts on God and Evil
Bishop NT Wright said, “What ‘we would want God to do’ – to have God measure up to our standards of ‘how a proper, good and powerful God would be running the world!’ – seems to be the very thing that Jesus was calling into question.”
“The universal problem is a philosophical one; it is not just a problem for Jews, but for anyone who conceives of God in a certain way. If God knows everything, then God knows about all evil. If God is all-powerful, then God can prevent all evil. If God is perfectly good, then God should prevent all evil. And yet, evil exists. How can this be true?” MJL
Open theism, also called Free Will Theism is an alternative understanding of the nature of the Christian God. According to Dr. John Sanders: “God, in grace, grants humans significant freedom to cooperate with or work against God’s will for their lives, and he enters into dynamic, give and take relationships with us….God takes risks in this give-and-take relationship, yet he is endlessly resourceful and competent in working toward his ultimate goals. Sometimes God alone decides how to accomplish these goals. On other occasions, God works with human decisions, adapting his own plans to fit the changing situation. God does not control everything that happens. Rather, he is open to receiving input from his creatures. In loving dialogue, God invites us to participate with him to bring the future into being.”
Dr. R. Albert Mohler refers to “openness theists” as those who “argue that God is always ready with Plan B when Plan A fails. He is infinitely resourceful, they stress, just not really sovereign” in the conventional sense of the term.
“Some theologians and philosophers argue that theodicy does not exist. There is ultimately no conflict between evil and an all loving, omnipotent and omniscient deity. They would argue that from our limited human viewpoint, we cannot see the broad picture. God is beyond time and is capable of seeing the past, present and future. If humans had the wisdom of God, we would not be arguing about theodicy; we would realize that God always works in a moral manner.” Religious Tolerance
Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light. Albert Einstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein said that “What’s ragged should be left ragged.”
We must confess that we don’t have the faintest idea why God permits evil. Kim Fabricius, Marilyn M. Adams
And Charles Spurgeon wrote, “There is much we do not understand. When we cannot trace God’s hand, we must simply trust His heart.”
I wish there were a one-size-fits-all answer I could give you. Alas, answers to this quandary have to be wrestled out for oneself. Take comfort in the fact that this is an issue with which even the best minds have contended.
With no “definitive answer” to the question of why God permits evil to exist, constant debates about theodicy continue among believers and unbelievers alike.
Robert F. Brown wrote, “theodicy remains a perennial concern for thoughtful religious commitment because how the divine can be compatible with the existence of evil in the world has perplexed profound thinkers and ordinary people right down to the present day.” Wikipedia
Contending With the Unanswerable
Sometimes we just need to ask the questions, even knowing there is no absolute answer. It is in the asking that we grow and stretch.
Lots of people agree-
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. Albert Einstein
Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning. William Arthur Ward
The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge. Thomas Berger
No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don’t ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives. Neil deGrasse Tyson
I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about. Arthur C. Clarke
I have learned from personal experience that putting trust in God means there will be some unanswered questions. That was a 
hard lesson for me because I naturally want to understand everything… to know what’s going on so I can feel like I’m in control. Joyce Meyer
In the past, I always used to be looking for answers. Today, I know there are only questions. So I just live. Sarah Brightman
Personally, I learn from hearing other people’s thinking. I discovered the following on Reddit, and found myself going off in a new direction of thought. Thanks to whomever you are!
“I find it fascinating that you never hear the question of why suffering exists from a physicist or a biologist. Why? To the evolutionary biologist or the cosmologist (that is, the study of the origins of the universe, not the science of makeup aka cosmetology!), pain, suffering and even evil are absolute requirements for life as we know it to exist. Evolution only works because of a freedom implied in the natural world: a freedom of genetic mutation, a freedom of natural selection and a freedom of randomness. This freedom led to the existence of conscious humans, but by necessity the same freedom also causes cancer, disease and natural catastrophes.
When we see God as a supernatural being designing the universe as a watchmaker might or playing with the universe in an ongoing chess game according to some divine plan, we fail to understand God as the creative structure of existence itself. Thus, the problem of evil is ultimately one of perspective: from a micro view we may see the sufferings that happen in the world, but from a macro view we can understand that this suffering is part of the very fabric of the nature of existence itself — an existence that on balance is good.” Reddit
So, my friends, ask those utterly hard questions, and see where they take you!
Take Action
For starters here are some thoughts to ponder:
- Consider- Creation is always a mixture of order and chaos
- Consider the issue of free will, and the consequences of humans being free to choose their actions and behavior.
- From where does our moral and ethical sense come?
- What is your conception of the characteristics of the ultimate in love?
- How do you define what is good and what is evil? What is the origin of these ideas of what is good or bad? Is it cultural? Ethical? Religious? Are these definitions the same for everybody?
- What is the most evil thing you can think of? Why is this the ultimate in evil for you? Do you think others would agree? Ask around!
- Have you ever done something you thought was the right action, and then have it backfire in your face? What caused the unpleasant consequences?
- What happens if you over-protect your child and run interference for that child constantly?
- As much as you love another, can you prevent all and any bad things happening to that person?
- What would happen if the Divine intervened constantly in our affairs, even for seemingly positive results?
- In nature, why do we have controlled forest burn-outs, and why do master gardeners cut back trees and shrubs?
- What is the nature of Earth’s geology? Does where we choose to build and live have consequences? Does our relationship with Earth’s resources and riches matter? What are some detrimental aspects?
- Consider Earth’s wild life. We see their life style, eating and mating habits as savage and sometimes horrid, yet they are living as they were created to live, in their own cycles of life.
Consider- If you were God for a day, what would you do or not do??? What do you think the long-term results would be?
