Why does God allow evil?
Few questions press harder than this one: if God is good and almighty, why does a world full of cruelty, disease and death go on unchecked? The writers in this collection answer it not by softening the problem but by tracing evil to its source, and then showing what God is doing with it.
Evil Did Not Come from God
The first thing the commentators refuse to concede is that God invented evil. He permits it, and He permits it for reasons of His own:
A. J. PollockThere is only one answer to be given. God is not the author of evil, but He has allowed sin for His own glory. He did not create creatures who were incapable of choosing between good and evil, otherwise He would have created mere machines—infinitely more wonderful than motor cars and aeroplanes, but still on the same level.
Real Choice Required Real Risk
If God wanted a creature who could genuinely love and obey, He had to make one who could also refuse. That is the cost built into being made in God's image:
F. G. PattersonThe answer is plain. If He would create a glorious creature — man, after His own image, and in His likeness, free to choose either good or evil, and not a creature governed by a mere chain of instinct, like the birds and beasts around him — He must leave the entrance of evil to him a possibility, though not a necessity.
Much of It Is Our Own Doing
Some of what we blame on God is simply the harvest of human choices. Writing while a war raged, one commentator pointed out that the guidance was already available and ignored:
A. J. PollockNot only has God allowed this war, for it is clear that He has, but in His wisdom He has permitted it. Indeed, as we look into the matter, we think it will be seen that God could not, being true to Himself, have hindered it. God has given a Book to the world, and if the nations had governed their conduct by that Book there would have been no war.
Evil Is Never Out of God's Hands
Permission is not helplessness. Evil is an enemy, yet it is an enemy forced to work for the very God it opposes:
James BoydAlthough God is not the author of sin, but its Judge, He, for His own wise purposes, allowed it to enter His dominions. He will make it serve Him, and He will get glory to His great and holy name through it, and in the end banish it from His sight forever; and we may be sure of this, that if it were not destined to serve the purposes of His heart, it could have gained no entrance.
The Cross Is Where the Question Was Settled
The worst thing men ever did — killing God's Son — became the very means of blessing them. That is the pattern by which God handles evil:
J. T. MawsonGod was not responsible for the evil that was in the hearts of men, but He showed His supremacy over all by restraining that evil for a while, and then, when the hour came and it poured out in unrestrained and determined hatred against Him, by turning it into the channel by which it became the means of glorifying Him, and more wonderful still, the way of blessing for men.
One writer put the reply to the objector bluntly, and tied the permission of evil to something greater than innocence:
J. N. DarbyGod was over it: this is the reason why He allowed evil and the fall — in view of a greater good to come in. My answer to the one who asks it is, "Why, you foolish man, if you had not been a sinner, you would not have had Christ at all."
Why Judgment Waits
Silence from heaven is often read as approval or absence. The commentators read it as restraint aimed at rescue, and they add an uncomfortable question:
J. T. MawsonThe question is asked, Why does not God deal in summary judgment with the men whose ungovernable and devil-inspired ambitions break up the peace of the nations? But if God were to judge all the bad men in the world, how many would escape? "If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" (Ps. 130:3). God is not indifferent to the unrighteousness of men... but this is not the day of judgment but of mercy.
Evil Has an Expiry Date
The permission is temporary. God dealt with sin in the same world where it broke in:
An Outline of Sound WordsGod, in His infinite wisdom, allowed Satan to tempt man and bring sin into the world; but in the very scene into which it was brought, God has dealt with it, in view of removing it from the whole universe... Not only will the evidences and effects of sin be taken away, but sin as an active principle will be banished from the universe of God.
Summary
- Permitted, not authored. God did not create evil; He allowed the possibility, because a creature who cannot choose is only a machine.
- Allowed, not uncontrolled. Evil gained entry only because God's purposes could use it — an enemy conscripted into His service.
- Overruled, not ignored. At the cross human hatred reached its height and God turned it into the channel of blessing.
- Delayed, not excused. The waiting is mercy, not indifference; this is the day of salvation, and judgment is still coming.
- Ended, not endless. Sin will be banished from God's universe — effects, principle and all.
One honest note from the same writers: even with this answer, our knowledge stays incomplete while we are here — "darkness to my intellect, but sunshine to my heart."