Why does God allow evil things to happen?
Few questions cut deeper than this one, and Scripture does not treat it as an insult to be brushed aside. The commentators answer it on several levels at once: where evil came from, why God has not yet stopped it, what He is doing with it in the meantime, and when it ends.
Where evil started
The world we live in is not the world as God made it. One writer traces the whole chain of suffering back to a choice made by man, not by God:
J. T. MawsonGod is good, ten thousand times ten thousand voices bear witness to His goodness, but the world as such has rejected God, and despised the riches of His goodness and patience... In Eden Adam listened to the voice of Satan and turned his back on God, and by that act of disobedience sin entered into the world, and death by sin (Rom. 5:13). When sin came in, peace spread its wings and flew away. "There is no peace," says the LORD, "for the wicked" (Isa. 48:22). The world has been Satan's world since that day, and suffering and sweat and tears and blood are the result.
But why make creatures who could choose wrongly at all? Because the alternative was no real creature at all:
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.
Consequences that teach
Much of what we call "God allowing evil" is simply God refusing to cancel the results of what people do. Pollock puts it with a household picture:
A. J. PollockWhy does God allow a child to burn its finger when it thrusts it into the fire? To teach it to avoid fire in the future. To avoid a repeat of the pain. To avoid a greater disaster. The child knows no better, and yet it has to learn its lesson.
Commentators are careful, though, not to turn this into a rule that every sufferer is being punished. Writing on Job, William Kelly grants that sin generally brings suffering, then adds the correction Job's friends missed:
William KellyBut is that the sole or the whole truth? Is God limited to His government? In no way. That is where Eliphaz and his companions were wrong; and Satan knows well how to bend to his own purposes that particular side of truth which we either choose or overlook.
Permitted, and still governed
"Allowing" is not helplessness. Nothing reaches a believer that has not passed God's hand first:
Alfred E. BouterGod does not cause the suffering of His own, but He allows it to happen, so that His servants can benefit from the experience (for example, increase their faith), and also for His own glory. Two examples are Job, whom Satan tested to the uttermost (Job 1 and 2), and Peter, whom Satan desired to sift as wheat (Luke 22:31).
The cross, where the question was settled
The deepest answer is not an argument but an event. God did not stay outside the suffering He permitted:
J. N. DarbyMorally speaking, the cross maintains it all. The question of good and evil, raised in the garden of Eden, was settled at the cross. I get the blessed Son of God, never using His divine power to screen Himself from suffering... Where could you find full righteousness against sin? Nowhere but the cross, which gives perfect righteousness against sin and love to the sinner in that same blessed work.
Why He has not stopped it yet
The delay is not indifference. It is deliberate room given for people to turn:
J. T. MawsonThe question is asked, why does God not 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)... this is not the day of judgment but of mercy.
An expiry date on evil
The permission is temporary, and its end is described in detail:
William Kelly"The new heavens where righteousness dwells" will be a scene of absolute good, when all evil has been judged and consigned forever to the lake of fire. From then on the separation is eternal... Good is then alone; evil is punished and put away forever.
What we still are not told
Honest writers stop short of claiming full understanding. After giving his answer, Pollock admits:
A. J. PollockAnd while we give this answer — the only answer that can be given — we are still left with incomplete knowledge on the subject. And this incomplete knowledge will continue as long as we remain on this earth.
Summary
- Cause. Evil entered because man chose against God, not because God authored it — He made creatures able to choose, not machines.
- Consequence. Much suffering is simply reaping what was sown, like a burnt finger — though Job's friends prove it is wrong to read every sorrow as punishment.
- Control. What God permits, He also governs; Job and Peter were both handed to Satan within limits God set, for their good and His glory.
- Cost. At the cross the question of good and evil was settled, with God's Son inside the suffering rather than shielded from it.
- Conclusion. The delay is mercy — space to repent — and it ends in new heavens where evil is put away forever, though until then our knowledge stays incomplete.