Why does God let evil exist?

There is ample light as to the origin and entrance of evil into this world, and with that we have been dealing. Scripture also indicates that it was through pride that sin found a place originally with the devil (1 Tim. 3:6), and under the title "King of Tyre" we appear to get a description of Satan's original glory and irremediable fall in Ezekiel 28:11-19. But as to why God, knowing all that would ultimately be involved, ever created Satan or man, and why He permitted evil to ever invade any part of His fair creation, Scripture is silent, and we know nothing.

Thus far we must needs go, then, with the Arminians, and the truth of predestination does not conflict with this in any way. We have here simply to inquire what is, and we can affirm that Omniscient Goodness willed it so to be, from eternity so willed it; did not of course desire or work the evil, but ordained to suffer it, and in this sense that it should be. The mystery of evil being thus suffered we accept, — do not explain, or suppose it possible to be explained. As a fact, we know it is, and know too that God is, and that He is against the evil. Scripture is of course in no wise responsible for it, while it gives us, not an explanation, but such a revelation of God Himself, and in view of it, that we can have perfect faith in Him, and leave it unexplained. The cross has glorified Him in every attribute more wonderfully as to sin than this could raise suspicion; while it demonstrates that not mere power could deal with evil, the victory must be that of goodness, and in suffering.

The judgment in Genesis 3 was upon Satan, though it was there for Adam to lay hold of. There was no promise to the fallen Adam, no promise to man in sin any more than innocent. Evil came in by the devil; with man, by temptation. God was over it: this is the reason why He suffered evil and the fall - in view of a greater good to come in. My answer to him who asks it is, "why, you foolish man, if you had not been a sinner, you would not have had Christ at all." And this is a true answer too, because it was in God's counsels to introduce and reveal Christ in glory ultimately.

The answer is plain. Because, 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, as the birds and beasts around him — He must leave the entrance to him of evil, a possibility, though not a necessity.

There 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, else He would have created mere machines—infinitely more wonderful than motor cars and aeroplanes, but yet on the same level.

But why should the creature be found in this unhappy ignorance of his Creator? Why should this world exist at all, with its self-love, its pride, its covetousness, its violence, its cruelty, its corruption? It forces itself upon the thoughtful mind that God, who is all-wise, almighty, omniscient, must have had some marvellous purpose in view when He allowed such a flood-tide of evil to enter His creation, and to sweep over this world of men in the way in which it has done. A benevolent Being—and everywhere do we find traces of His benevolence—would not have allowed His weak creature to be subjected to such a terrible condition of things, without having some wonderful purpose of blessing in view, and which in no other way could have been effectuated.

Let us go into some details. We begin with the story of man’s fall in the Garden of Eden. The Bible is the only book in the world to give us the origin of evil. We. Are faced with this fact. No explanation is given why God allowed it. An ordinary book, written by men, would have attempted some explanation to have satisfied the mind of man, and to have enabled him to receive it with some show of consistency. But God does not offer to explain anything. There is no defence of God attempted. The bare facts are given.

If there be sin, how can all have been according to God's will? And, on the other hand, if all has been according to God's will, where is there room for sin? It is plain that the two thoughts are mutually destructive. The idea that He has willed that man should frustrate His will is too flagrant an absurdity to need comment, and thus it is that man knows only too well when he listens to its voice that the Bible speaks the truth, when it says plainly to him that he is a sinner. He rarely in these days charges fate with the cause of all things as they are, because this palpably means, as it is not God, some power or principle to which even God must bow. With the revelation of God in the world, the darkness of such a thought (which, however, the wisdom of man had reached before the Lord came into the world) is dispelled, and so man, the poor dupe of one far more subtle than he, now tries to believe that God is responsible for everything as it now exists, heedless of the utter folly of the idea. It is true that He could sweep the whole creation into destruction by one word; and it is also true, most surely and solemnly true, for every unsaved soul, that ere long He will sweep all that is evil in the world into woe that is unutterable but yet is the only fitting resting-place for foul corruption. But the responsibility of the presence of the evil here, for God so ordered it at the beginning (as we have seen in the account of the establishment of responsibility), rests with him who introduced it into the scene of God's power in goodness; and meanwhile He who has power in judgment to remove all by destruction upon all yet waits, in grace bearing with the presence of the evil which He hates, in order that He may provide the means and the opportunity for man, the sinner, to be freed from the consequences of his sins.

I think this will help to clear the ground for the subject I have on hand. Men are so fond of asserting their own fancied rights, and disputing the rights of God, that they have almost given up the idea that there is any God but themselves. The moral foundations upon which God placed man in relationship with Himself have been destroyed, and that which bears the name of Christ is no better than the world. Men have got their own notions as to what God should be, and what He should do, and the revelation He has made of Himself does not suit their depraved notions. His love and His wrath are both alike to them cunningly devised fables; they believe in neither. When His servants pipe to them, they do not dance, and when they mourn to them, they do not lament (Luke 7:32). But where the wrath of God is believed, there is also present a sense of His goodness; and where His love is known His wrath is unquestioned, for both have been declared at the same moment in the sacrifice of Christ. And that evil might serve to the end that He should be known by His creature in all His attributes and in the love of His heart, God allowed it to enter His creation.

He is not the author of it: the devil is, he sins from the beginning (1 John 3:8). There was no sinner before him. Set in the most exalted position in which creature was ever set, his pride rose up in rebellion against the One who had made him, and who in goodness gave him that exalted place. We have him addressed by the prophet under the figure of the king of Tyrus (Ezek. 28), and he is told, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.” Sin began to exist in the thought of that anointed cherub. There the inky river whose foul waters found their way into the garden of Eden, and from thence have filled the world with violence, corruption, sorrow, death, and woe, is traced to its source. How many ages have run their courses since this terrific being brought sin into God’s fair creation Scripture does not say, but the earth seems to bear upon its granite ribs many a scar of past conflict, and violence seems to have been for ages rampant in the lower order of creation, as it is today; but whether this was due to the influence of sin’s primogenitor, or whether it was not, we cannot tell. We do know that he was the first transgressor, and that to this day he remains the same evil, lawless, God-hating being he ever was, and that all who have fallen under his baleful influence remain in their fallen condition unchanged—all except man, who has become the subject of grace, and from whose race God makes a selection, recreating the objects of His choice, that they may be vessels of His praise. The rest remain in their natural rebellious condition, the enemies of God and of His Christ and of the gospel of His grace.

Justice then or righteousness is that feature in God in which He is consistent with Himself in all He says and does. His word, which is the expression of His justice, is the guarantee of stability in all. If, for example, the law of gravitation ceased to act for one moment, the whole structure of the heavens and earth would immediately collapse, and fly to destruction. Moreover, if God ceased for an instant to honour His word, the whole moral structure of society would crumble up. The divinely ordered barriers between good and evil give way; the conflict between good and evil cease, and evil alone prevail, and chaos, moral darkness, cover all, to the everlasting defeat of God. How good and blessed it is to know, in a scene where evil is permitted, and often flourishes at the expense of the good, and where the innocent are often seen to suffer, that the God who for His own wise purposes permits all this for a moment, is Himself the sure and stedfast proof that all wrongs must be righted, and that evils must be punished, and what is of good prevail to the glory of His name, and the security and blessing of all that is of Himself. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. 18:25).