The Problem

In my previous post I alluded to the classic problem of evil as the ultimate objection to the existence of an all-powerful, all-good God. Clearly, there is a lot of very bad stuff happening everywhere, all around us that causes us to ask, "where is justice? where is goodness? where is love?" The bottom line is this: if the one in control were good there wouldn’t be so much bad.

There are many who consider the presence of pain, suffering and evil to be an airtight argument refuting the existence of God. I think however this line of reasoning actually poses a problem for those who advance it. What they are responding to is a world in which they find all sorts of things that are objectionable, disturbing and awful. In other words, there is the way things are, which does not measure up to what they should be. There is not only what “is,” but also what “ought” to be. However, in a purely material universe, devoid of God, there is only “is,” leaving us without a basis for objections concerning the outworking of its mechanistic process. There is no “ought” to which we can appeal.

Furthermore, assuming for a moment that God – ultimate personal, moral reality - were only good but not ultimately powerful, evil and suffering would not be as perplexing as we experience them to be because it would not be in God’s power to restrain them. If God were powerful but not good – which seems to be the most common position even among those who claim a disbelief in God (I think “Seinfeld” pretty much got it right: Jerry: I thought you didn’t believe in God; George: I do for the bad stuff.) – we also would not experience evil and suffering as inconsistent with the essence of the way things should be because they would be consistent with God’s character, which would not require their elimination. However, it is because the essence of reality is all-powerful and good that evil and suffering are the exact problem we recognize them to be. Our visceral response to them only makes sense in light of God’s power and goodness since our expectation that things shouldn’t be this way are justified. The anguish that causes us to reflexively cry out “how?” and “why?” is not irrational babbling disconnected from the way things are, but firmly rooted in a reality that requires they be dealt with and ultimately eradicated.

It is worth noting at this point that in all our objections, there is an implied assumption not taken into account. Clearly, we, people, are the culprits in the overwhelming majority of the bad stuff that goes on. When we blame God for the state of our world and our own lives, we are actually blaming him for making us because we are the ones destroying our world, ourselves and each other. We are blaming him for making us with the capacity/freedom to choose. Implicitly, we are confessing our accountability for our wrongdoing. At this point, it would seem that the one who is all-powerful and good, to be true to his nature, would be compelled to include us in his eradication of evil and suffering. More than being a problem for us, evil and suffering are ultimately a problem for God.

Instead of leaving us to wallow in our angst or casting us aside, ultimate goodness and power came and dwelt among us. He did not remain detached, but entered into our mess, fully engaged with those he lived among. In his engagement, he confirmed for us that things aren’t they way they are supposed to be by his making whole human bodies that were broken, even displaying his power over the fate that awaits all of us, death itself.

And then, startingly, he went on trial, taking the finger of accusation that we point against God, even as he had done no wrong. He experienced injustice, pain, abuse, abandonment, humiliation and death. He not only absorbed the consequences and effects of evil and suffering, but he did so for us. Instead of our being included in the eradication of evil and suffering, it is Jesus who takes the evil and suffering and is eradicated. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Does God not care? In the face of evil, is it the case that a God who is good and loving cannot exist? More than giving us an answer, God gives us himself. Jesus Christ, who is all-powerful, surrenders all power in order to rescue and restore. By accepting humanity’s verdict that he is not good and not true and deserving of death, he exposes it for its inexcusable irrationality, thus setting us free from our enslavement to it.

I want to be clear here that the purpose of my writing is not to win an argument for “my” religion; or in having those who are not religious become so. I write as a fellow human being seeing and experiencing the same world as all of you and grappling with it. As I’ve already stated, I think the “problem of evil” compels certain conclusions about the nature of reality, different from those who commonly point to evil as “the problem.” In presenting Jesus as “the answer” to the problem, I hope it is clear by now that I do not offer him as one of a group of really important religious figures, along with Muhammed, Buddha, etc., who are all pretty much the same. I write about Jesus, as he has been given to us in the documents preserved for us in the New Testament, who made claims that the other prominent religious figures in history do not make – that he is God himself who has come to “seek and save that which is lost.” He does not only say, as all the others do, “here is teaching about God or about how to be good, follow it," though, he does, of course, teach profoundly. He says “come unto me, follow me, know me, trust in me, for in me is the life that is truly life.” I realize that in 2000 years, up to the present, the name of Jesus, the 1st century son of Israel, carries with it connotations, unrelated to who he is and what he did. I hope you consider setting those aside in thinking about what’s been presented; for it is intended as the pronouncement of genuine hope, not based on wishful thinking or sentiment, but firmly grounded in events that actually took place.