Why Does God Not Stop Evil & Suffering?
Kyle Austin • Jul 20, 2020
1. Removing evil removes man’s freedom.
Think with me just for a moment. Try to take God’s place and create a better world in which you stop all suffering but in doing so you must think completely through each choice and thus the consequences of everything you do. Each time you use force to remove evil you are removing man’s freedom. To prevent all evil and suffering would be to remove all freedom. Now you have reduced humans to mere robots who have lost the ability to love.
2. There is the potential for good to come from evil & suffering.
The life of Joseph is a perfect example of how God can bring good from evil and suffering. He was severely mistreated and the evil against him was undesired and unjust. Jospeh would say to the very ones who committed the evil acts against him, "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive."
(Genesis. 50:20) One writer said, “all suffering contains at least the opportunity for good but not everyone actualizes that potential.”
How could anything good come out of evil and suffering?
- Suffering tests and strengthens faith. Suffering doesn’t destroy faith, it refines it. Only by testing is real faith discovered.
- Suffering of the cross produced eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. Who would have thought that through the false accusations, a rigged trial, beaten to the point of death, being unjustly hung on a cross to die, and the tremendous suffering emotionally and physically could have produced anything good. The disciples of Jesus sure could not see it at first but God brought about the absolute greatest from the absolute worse, eternal salvation!
- Suffering brings repentance. Pain and suffering are the means God uses to motivate people to surrender to Him and seek Jesus Christ for salvation. CS Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
3. Suffering and evil are compatible with God’s love when it is used to bring about a better good.
This occurs in the medical field everyday. The surgeon must inflict more pain and suffering in order to bring about healing. Here is an illustration. I broke my hip in an ATV accident and walked around on it for five days. My knee was the only area of my body that hurt a little. I finally went to the hospital because I started dragging my leg. Here the x-ray revealed the break. I was rushed in for surgery and when I woke up the pain was absolutely excruciating! I went in with only a sore knee and after the surgery I was in intense pain for a couple of days. The surgeon had to inflict more pain to bring about a better good which was me being able to walk on that leg for life. Another illustration to consider is how a doctor uses chemotherapy which can cause severe sickness and suffering in order to heal the cancer.
It may be that we need to adjust our view. Rather than asking God, “Get me out of this suffering”, we need to be asking “God what can I get out of this suffering.”
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I am so moved to remember the value of life, both the first breath of infants, and the life we receive from Christ. It is in the first life where so much beauty is unraveled from the caring intimate creation of the Father. It is in the second life that we witness such grace and mercy. Grace and mercy which has no greater example than that of the Jesus Christ on the cross. After all, there is no greater love than that which He so faithfully displayed on the cross. Now because of these two lives, we are never individual nor alone. We have such a duty to connect with others. Our greatest call as Christians is to go and reach the world! We have no need for loneliness, for in Christ we have a great Friend, in the body of believers we have an established family, and in the world we have souls which must be reached! My prayer for all God’s children is that we never devalue the precious lives around us, and that we are prepared to give all for them… even unto death.
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