Christianity’s Thick Answer to the Problem of Evil

After college, I spent a semester interning in Washington, DC. One day I went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It’s a dark experience where you’re confronted with the tragic deaths of 6 million Jews, 2 million Poles, 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, and many others during World War II. As you walk through the museum, you’ll be shocked and disgusted by the radical nature of evil.

For Christians, this raises one of the hardest––if not the hardest––question to answer: Where was God during the Holocaust?

This is the problem of evil. It can be stated in a few ways but one of its most popular formulations goes like this: Christians believe God is all-powerful and all-good, yet evil exists in the world. Therefore, either God isn’t all-powerful (or else he’d prevent evil), or he isn’t all-good (because he has the power to stop evil and doesn’t).

Too many times, people think one response will answer the problem of evil. But what we actually need is a thick, multifaceted approach. A single answer doesn’t satisfy, because the problem of evil is too complex. A multipronged approach, however, can help us reckon with evil in the world.

Human Freedom

Christians believe in human freedom. God created us not as robots who do whatever he wishes. We’re not programmed to act in certain ways, though because of Adam and Eve’s fall we are all born with sin in our nature. If we don’t affirm human freedom, then we must affirm that God made a world where our choices don’t matter. We have freedom to choose good or evil. God made Adam and Eve good; when they chose to rebel against him, their decision resulted in moral evil, which results in God’s judgment. We’re responsible for our actions, and these actions are still part of God’s sovereign plan (Acts 3:17-18). However, because we are free, atrocities like the Holocaust aren’t God’s fault but the choice of human beings who turned from God and rejected what he calls good.

Part of answering the problem of evil is rightly defining evil. Evil isn’t a thing––it’s the deprivation of a thing, the corruption of a good thing. God didn’t create evil; he created things good, but we corrupt his good creation.

We’re responsible for our actions, and these actions are still part of God’s sovereign plan.

While this answer is partially satisfying, it still raises questions. Human freedom explains moral evil, but it doesn’t fully explain natural evils like wildfires, tsunamis, or earthquakes. Did humans cause those? It also raises the question of why God would make a world with so much suffering. The animal kingdom experiences much suffering. Have you ever seen an injured animal in the wild and wondered, How could God allow this to happen if he’s good? It seems like he could have designed a better plan.

Dark Spiritual Forces

Another explanation for evil involves acknowledging the existence of dark spiritual forces. God created not only human beings with freedom but also spiritual forces who rebelled against him and were cast down to earth out of heaven.

If your theology accounts for the fall of spiritual beings, you can assert that natural evil began when evil began. As many theologians throughout Christian history have attested, all evil cannot be pinned on the human fall alone; the fall of angels is also culpable for the origin of natural evil.

Satan is known as the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2). The book of Job tells us that Satan came before God and asked if he could torment Job. Then fire fell from heaven and consumed Job’s livestock (Job 1:16), and a great wind came on the earth, striking the four corners of the house so all his children died (vv. 18–19). Dark and fallen spiritual beings have great power in this world and can cause havoc. Therefore, part of the answer to the problem of natural evil is that the dark spiritual forces are causing chaos all over the world.

Yet this explanation still raises questions: Why did God let the angels fall? Why does God let it continue? Couldn’t he fix it all right now? Aren’t some instances of natural evil excessive and disproportionate?

Greater Good

God allows evil to occur for the greater good, even though we can’t always see the greater good. While this explanation is often hard to accept, it is a principle we see play out over and over again in Scripture.

One prominent example of this dynamic at work in Joseph’s story in Genesis (Gen. 37–50). When Joseph was 17, his brothers were so jealous of him that they sold him into slavery. Joseph came to be in charge of the Egyptian Potiphar’s house, only to be lied about by his master’s wife and then sent to prison. Joseph was in prison for a long time––perhaps as long as 12 years. Joseph was no doubt thinking, Why is all this happening to me?

God allows evil to occur for the greater good, even though we can’t always see the greater good.

While in prison, Joseph interpreted the dreams of two of Pharaoh’s servants, one of whom was restored to his position. And when Pharaoh had a dream he couldn’t understand, Joseph was remembered, and he came and perfectly told Pharaoh its meaning. Immediately, Joseph was released from prison and elevated to second in command over all Egypt. God used Joseph to save many lives—not only Egyptians but even Joseph’s own family—by storing up food in the seven years of plenty for the seven years of famine.

God sent Joseph ahead of his family and had a plan to preserve his people, but it included suffering for Joseph, who couldn’t see the greater good until the end. At the end of Joseph’s life, he said to his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (50:20). Joseph’s story illustrates how God turns evil to good in our lives. Paul affirms in Romans 8:28, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

But this explanation might still leave you with questions. Why is suffering necessary in creating this greater good? Couldn’t God just create a world where that greater good is already manifest, where humans and animals didn’t have to suffer to become those greater versions of themselves? Additionally, suffering is often excessive and seems to produce no greater purpose as it destroys people and their relationships. So while this point can be helpful, and we should affirm these verses, it doesn’t satisfy all our questions.

Mystery

Christians must also acknowledge mystery in the problem of evil, recognizing that God’s reasons for permitting evil are beyond human understanding. We aren’t in a position to grasp the larger divine plan because of our finitude. Therefore we shouldn’t critique God’s plan when we only see a fraction of it and he sees the whole thing.

This response is also represented in Scripture, particularly in the book of Job. Job questions why he’s suffering, and God replies that Job doesn’t know the pattern of creation as God does (Job 38–42:6). He asks Job if he was there when he laid the earth’s foundation, if he’s commanded the morning or seen the gates of death. God asks him if he knows where light and darkness come from and if he’s the one to send forth lightning. All Job can do in response is put his hand over his mouth.

This reality is wonderfully illustrated by one of Corrie ten Boom’s stories. She speaks of how when she was much younger, she was seated next to her father in a train, and she asked him about what it means to sin sexually:

[Father] turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case from the rack over our heads, and set it on the floor. “Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?” he said. I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning. “It’s too heavy,” I said. “Yes,” he said, “And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.”

We don’t always have the answer to the why of suffering or evil, but we’re probably too small to understand. We need to let someone else carry that answer for us.

For the Christian, someone has.

Jesus Christ Suffered

The cross is the ultimate answer to the problem of evil. God came in the person of Jesus Christ not only to suffer alongside and for us but ultimately to destroy all evil. God didn’t leave us alone in our suffering. The Christian gospel is the only one where a deity enters humanity’s suffering to ultimately take it away. Other religions view God as detached from suffering, but Christianity says Jesus suffered on our behalf.

He did this so the last enemy, death, might be defeated and justice might reign. Revelation says he did this so there might not be any more tears, sadness, or chaos of the sea (21:1–4). Jesus came that we might no longer suffer because of human choices but also that we might not suffer under the forces of nature either. God’s suffering on the cross shows he isn’t indifferent to human suffering.

Christian Response

Let’s return to our opening example. You’re walking through the Holocaust Museum and you rightly ask, How could God let this happen? Where was God in the Holocaust? This still isn’t an easy question, but at least Christianity has the resources to begin to answer it.

Other religions view God as detached from suffering, but Christianity says Jesus suffered on our behalf.

The problem is that we sometimes think only one of these responses is sufficient. But rather than stretching one explanation in unhelpful ways, the Scriptures point us to a thick or multifaceted approach to understanding suffering in the world.

The problem of evil isn’t just a problem for Christians; it’s a problem for everyone. Every religion or worldview must answer the problem of evil, and so you have to ask, Which explanation is most satisfying? Consistent secularists and atheists must conclude suffering is random, a matter of luck or power. Hinduism says suffering is deserved because of actions in a previous life. Buddhism says suffering is caused by your cravings for and attachment to material things.

Only Christianity says the problem of evil is real—our suffering is real, and we worship a God who loves us enough to enter our suffering in the sending of Jesus Christ and one day promises all evil will be vanquished. Christianity has good news for the problem of evil. That good news is most clearly displayed in the cross, where Jesus suffered on our behalf to defeat evil in the end.