Some of the questions posed by those who are non-believers concern the character of God. If God is indeed a loving God, then why does He not stop all the evil that is going on in the world? How can I believe in a God who lets such terrible things happen? Is He not all powerful after all? Or if He is, then isn’t He cruel not to prevent them when He could? Well… good questions! They may seem daunting to answer, but the answers have much to do with perspective and from where one sits to view.

First of all, it helps to consider Who is God. Is He greater than you, or are you greater than Him? Do you know more than Him, or does He know more than you? To find adequate answers to the original questions requires agreement that God is greater than all of us, and that His knowledge - and also His wisdom - is greater as well. It also requires a more basic agreement that God does exist and that we can have knowledge of Him (or why ask such questions in the first place?)

Now to digress for a moment… Our pet moggy got herself in a fight and was rewarded with a very nasty deep puncture wound in her neck. When we discovered it, the wound was already beginning to fester and it was obvious she needed to be seen by the vet. This always causes a problem for our moggy who hates travelling in vehicles almost as much as she hates taking medicine. But without medical treatment our moggy’s life would certainly be in considerable danger and a painfully miserable end be quite likely. So we bundled her into the car anyway, subjected her to the indignities of a thorough examination by a stranger, a needle stuck into her body, and a course of tablets daily for the following week. She howled in protest and her cries were piteous. Her torturers were the most evil beings imaginable for inflicting all this upon her. But how could she know, as we did, about the existence of pathogenic micro-organisms and what is required to combat their disastrous effects? Or that the vet had spent years at university studying such matters, or that the trip by car was necessary? How could she know that the tablets we had to force her to swallow were in effect saving her life, and that the evil we were doing was not evil at all? It would have helped us greatly if she could have had more faith in us, in that we knew more than she did about these things, and that the outcome would be best for her in the long run. But from our moggy’s perspective, we were certainly thumbs down.

If we believe that we are purely physical beings, that there is nothing more to us than a body and mind, and that these things which are temporal are all there is to us, then we are not sitting in quite the right place to have much of a view. The view stops at the temporal horizon and goes no further. There is no way to see anything beyond - into the spiritual realm. It is quite easy from there to say such a realm does not even exist. Of course that would seem so… if one does not see it. And if there is no acceptance of ourselves as spiritual as well as physical beings, and the existence of a spiritual realm, then questions about God (who is spirit) become rather meaningless anyway, as do accusations about Him. It is necessary to be somewhat open-minded to the view that we are not just physical beings, but spiritual ones also. And that our temporal existence is momentary in time, and secondary to our spiritual being. Could it be possible that God, who has greater knowledge and wisdom than we, is considering our spiritual well-being far beyond this temporal world wherein events occur that we call evil, even allowing this evil to occur while having our best interests at heart?

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Just as a wounded animal may not understand the reason for those things that it finds distressing and protests against, we often do not understand why God allows us to be afflicted by evil events. It is an assumption to jump from that lack of understanding to the conclusion that God is not all powerful to stop it, or that if He is all powerful then He is cruel to let it continue. Is it right to assume that evil events must always have evil outcomes? And that if evil events do not necessarily have evil outcomes, then in order to be loving that God must stop evil? I think those assumptions are fallacious; they are short-sighted. They are certainly understandable to entertain from a temporal perspective, but not so from a spiritual one. They are not accepting of the view that God has far greater knowledge and wisdom than I, and that He is indeed loving when He allows them to occur where their outcomes are in my best spiritual interests. This perspective acknowledges our temporal existence as momentary and secondary to our spiritual existence.

Only from this spiritual perspective can we have an adequate answer to the problem of evil in this world and how God, since He is sovereign, allows it to occur. If worldly answers are required, then they will be found wanting. And the one who wants an excuse not to address God and His invitation to meet at the foot of the cross will have found what he wants, albeit not in the best interests of his non-temporal soul.

1 Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.
3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37

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