By now all the world knows about the Marathon Terror. If the question hasn’t already been asked, it soon will be: why does a loving God allow things like this to happen? Well, as in most things religious, it depends on how you think of or define God. Here’a an example from the Sanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in my own words.
Most believers think of God as all mighty, i.e., omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect. It follows from this that an omnipotent God would have the power to eliminate all evil. After all, if God is omniscient, God knows evil exists, and being all powerful, God could stop all evil. On top of that, if God is morally perfect, or as we might say in a more ordinary way, loving, then God would have the desire to eliminate evil. Yet, as we were reminded 15 April, evil exists. Therefore, if God exists, then either God doesn’t know evil exists, or if knowing, doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil. And perhaps worst of all, if God knows, and has the power and doesn’t eliminate evil, then God must now have the desire: i.e, must not be loving. Clearly, then, we must conclude that God as we prefer to think of God doesn’t exist.
In term of the study of logic, each premise of an argument (or position) must be true for the conclusion to be true. But how do we know the premises in the argument above are true? After all, there is a real sense in which we must conclude, as theologians have for hundreds of years, that God is ineffable: that is, too great or extreme to be expressed in words. One theologian (whose name I can’t remember) posed this way: anything we say of God is blasphemy because by trying to describe God, we impose limitations and God can’t be limited. By the way, that same theologian would say that that conclusion was comforting, but still blasphemy.
Here is the unsatisfactory answer I can offer to the question of why evil exists. Christians believe the day will come when God will eliminate evil. We believe that Jesus came to inaugurate God’s kingdom or reign and to declare that God, at some point, will make all things right. We often talk about this as the End Times or Judgment Day. Let’s leave aside whether or not we should think of it that way and just agree that we believe at some point in time, Jesus will return and God’s reign will begin in it’s most perfect form. That we might like that time to be sooner rather than later is irrelevant to God, who must have a different timetable for a different reason. What reason could that be?
If we believe that humans possess free will, that is, the ability to choose good or evil, and that that attribute is God’s gift, then God can’t logically impose goodness on humans. God must, rather desire that humans choose good over evil. Some of our Jewish friends believe that if for one day, all Jews kept the Law, the Kingdom would come into being. Some powerful streams of Christianity believe that the Kingdom will come when we as humans have started acting as citizens of God’s Kingdom. By that I mean, when we begin acting in “love and charity with our neighbors.”
In fact, on 15 April, before the smoke had cleared, men and women were risking their own safety and well being to aid those who were injured. They didn’t do this because they were first responders who are expected to do so. They did it because they felt compelled by their own moral compass to aid those who were injured. So while evil existed on that Monday, so did goodness. I say let us all refocus our efforts in creating a world where there is no place for evil rather than wondering why God won’t do it for us.
Peace, Jerry
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