A Few Common Sense Answers

So far it might appear as though everything that people have thought about the problem of evil was wrong. But as a matter of fact, people have thought a good many sensible things about the problem of evil as well. Before we turn, in the next chapter, to some of the specifically Biblical answers to the problem, it will be worth-while to take note of some of the things that common sense has had to say. Here, then, are four factors that, taken together, will cast some light at least on our problem.

1. The existence of dependable laws. If the law of gravity were suddenly "repealed," this book might fly up to the ceiling while the chair you are sitting in slid out the window. You might be unable to get up after you fell down. The bus outside might refuse to budge or it might only go backward. Everything would be chaotic. Nothing would be stable, dependable, or predictable.

The fact that these things do not happen, that there are dependable laws, helps to make human life possible. And it means that some kinds of evil can be partially explained as instances in which we have disregarded these laws or put ourselves in situations where they work against us rather than for us. It would be sheer chaos for everybody else if God were to suspend the law of gravitation for five minutes because a window washer on the sixty-fourth floor got dizzy and fell off the ledge.

There is a hint of this approach in the words of Jesus, that God "sends rain on the just and on the unjust" ( Matt. 5: 45). The universe in which we live is ordered by God in a certain way, and we have no right to expect him to tidy things up for us if we happen to cross his purposes or break his established laws.

2. The necessity of risk. Almost every joy in life involves the fact of risk. You have to accept the risks in order to experience the joys.

If you make a good friend, you run the risk that the friend may be false to you. But you have to run that risk in order to have a friend at all.

If you fall in love, you run the risk that you may be hurt. Your beloved may not love you in return, or she may jilt you at the last moment for someone else. But people seem to agree that falling in love is worth the risks.

If you marry and have children, you have to take the risk that your child may hate you, or may grow up to be a thug who robs banks. But parents take those risks in having children, because they would rather have children, with the risks, than forego the joy of children.

The more deeply we love, the more deeply we can be hurt, and yet we would not forego the joys of love to avoid the possible risks of hurt.

3. Values in suffering. If we don't try to press it too far, we can see that there are sometimes provisional values in suffering. In some cases, suffering can be a means of developing responsibility. An individual who sees human misery, poverty, or unemployment, may be moved to do something positive and constructive about righting those wrongs. And there are many instances where suffering has deepened the compassion and understanding of those who have endured it. The woman, for example, who has had polio, and has struggled through pain to a new kind of self-mastery and God-given compassion, can usually do more to help other people in similar situations than someone who has never really known that kind of pain at first hand. She can do this precisely because she has suffered herself, in a very extreme way.

4. The fact of human freedom and sin. It is important to remember that much evil and suffering are due to our own abuse of our freedom, and cannot therefore be chalked up directly to God. God has given us the freedom to choose him or to reject him, the freedom to live as he wishes or to defy his wishes and live unto ourselves. The fact of our freedom has within it the possible fact of our sin, and the fact of our sin has within it the disruption of the way God intends life to be lived. If we did not have this freedom, however, we should be mere puppets dangling on a string, or robots controlled by a mechanism-absolutely powerless to have any say about what we did or what became of us. But since we have this freedom, there is no way of avoiding responsibility and saying that it is God's fault if we choose wrongly and get into trouble. This is the price we have to be willing to pay for the gift of freedom.

These four facts, taken together, give us some light on the question, Why is there evil in God's world? But we must now attempt a more complete "answer" by looking directly at the Biblical treatment of the problem.

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