Why Do Bad Things Happen? (The Problem of Evil and Suffering)

Why Do Bad Things Happen? (The Problem of Evil and Suffering) 

Romans 8:18-25

The question can be asked in many different ways. Why do bad things happen is usually followed by the phrase “to good people.” Why do bad things happen to good people? 

We have to answer that question biblically. That has only happened once, on the cross of Calvary, to Jesus Christ, and he allowed it to happen. 

The deeper question is “why is there evil and suffering in the world?” 

Why are there wars and famine and murders and tornados, earthquakes and floods. Why are there orphans and starving children? 

I will propose to you this morning the logical and the theological question of evil and suffering. They are two different discussions, but I am going to combine them this morning and for time sake, I will present the simplified version. If you are interested in reading further I can give you resources. 

If God exists, and he is good and loving, he is all-knowing, and he is all-powerful. (He can do all things. Intrinsically impossible ideas like can God make a rock that he can’t move, can he make a triangle with four sides, can he make 2+2 equal 5, those things are intrinsically impossible. They aren’t things they are non-entities)

It is logical to think that a loving God who is capable of preventing evil would do so. And yet there is evil and suffering in the world. 

So, logically, if God is good and loving, he must not be all powerful. He would stop evil if he could, he just can’t. 

Or, God is all powerful but not good and loving. He can stop evil, he just doesn’t care so he chooses not to. 

Or, as the atheist would say, God simply does not exist. 

It poses many more questions as well. 

Is God the source of evil? 

Couldn’t God have created a world where evil didn’t exist? 

Would a good and loving God be required to prevent evil? Why would we assume that? 

Is it possible that there is a reason for evil and suffering? 

Has God done anything to remedy the problem of evil and suffering? 

1. God is not the source of evil. 

Is satan the source of evil? God created him, so isn’t God the source of evil? Evil has no source. It is not a thing that can be measured. Evil is simply the absence of good, like cold is the absence of heat and darkness is the absence of light. 

Specifically, evil is the absence of God. Evil and suffering did not exist in the created world until sin entered the world. When Adam and Eve chose to reject God and his word, they ushered sin into the world and with it, suffering. 

From God’s perspective the question we are asking today must seem absurd. Imagine the audacity of a human being willfully disobeying God, pursuing and worshiping creation rather than the creator, pursuing our own desires, created gods of our own design and worshiping them, and then questioning God for allowing evil in the world. 

2.  To create a world where evil was impossible God would have had to create a world with no free will, and that would be evil. 

God is all powerful, there are some things God cannot do. God cannot be cruel. God cannot lie. God cannot break his promises. 

God cannot make a human without certain features, and the primary feature of a human that sets us apart from all of creation, is free will. Humans would not be genuinely human without free will. 

For God to prevent evil, he would have had to make humanity other than it is. Genuine humanity requires the ability to desire to have and do some things contrary to God’s will and intention. For whatever reason, in God’s wisdom, he chose to create humans rather than robots. 

God created humans with free will. He created angels with free will as well. The angel Lucifer chose to rebel against God and suffered the consequences. Humans chose to rebel against God and we are still suffering the consequences. 

Furthermore, a world with no free will and therefore no evil would be a world with no morality and where no higher virtues could be attained. In other words, to understand good there has to be evil. 

C. S. Lewis on the MORAL LAW

  “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line…  “Thus in the very act of trying to prove God did not exist—in other words, I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense.” 

But even with this in mind…that God created us with free will and with the ability to choose…we get that, but Couldn’t God eliminate evil now? He could, but it would require destroying everything, and everyone who has free will and the capacity for evil. Are you sure you would make the cut? I’m certain I would not. He would have to wipe out the entire human race, and God promised he would not do that again (after the flood), and God cannot go back on his promise.

3. We know that God is sovereign and we know that He is good, so we must conclude that there is a reason for evil and suffering. 

God is not the source of evil, but because God is sovereign, he is in charge and in control of all things, so then God must allow evil. God has the power to stop or prevent individual occurrences of evil (and he does), but not always. 

A skeptic would say, there cannot be sufficient reasons for God to permit evil and suffering at the level it exists. 

On a global level, we are not in a good position to assess whether God has sufficient reasons to permit evil and suffering. God sees the end as well as the beginning. God sees the end from the beginning. We do not. God is not limited in time or in intelligence. We certainly are limited. 

Seemingly insignificant events in time can have ripple effects in history that we could never predict or understand. One small act of evil can have ripple effects that God uses for good. 

On a more personal level, God can use suffering in your life to accomplish things you can never predict or understand. 

-Paternal pain- 

You could call this punishment pain- but God’s disciplining us is not punitive. It is corrective. It is transformational. 

Job 5:17-18

See how happy is the person whom God corrects;
so do not reject the discipline of the Almighty.

For he wounds but he also bandages;
he strikes, but his hands also heal.

Hebrews 12:6- for the Lord disciplines the ones he loves. 

Is there something in my life that you are trying to correct? 

-Preparation pain-

To grow us

To prepare us for something else

Moses-

Joseph-

What are you preparing me for? What are you teaching me? 

-Platform pain- 

To give us a testimony

The man born blind:

John 9

3“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “‹This came about› so that God’s works might be displayed in him.

Who needs to hear my story? Who needs to hear about your goodness? 

-Perspective pain-

To put worldly things in perspective

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

What are the distractions in my life? What really matters? 

-Passage pain- 

To move us from this life to the next

Paul says in 2 Cor. that we groan in this body, but to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord.

Physical healing is only temporary. Even Lazarus had to die again. 

The promise of Romans 8:28 is that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. 

God can use all things, even evil, for his glory and our good. 

Only and good and loving God would use evil to accomplish something good for us.

If we don’t understand, it doesn’t speak to God’s ability to work good, it only speaks to our inability to understand his ways. 

4. God did create a world where there is no evil and suffering. 

It’s called heaven. He made a clear path for us to get there, at a tremendous personal cost to himself. 

God entered human suffering, endured unimaginable suffering, to be able to one day remove us from suffering. The only way human suffering makes sense is to view it through the lens of the cross. 

If the cross had never happened, you might be justified in calling God cruel for allowing suffering in the world. 

If the cross had never happened, you might be right for being angry at God for allowing you to hurt the way you have hurt. 

If the cross had never happened, you would have no hope of ever escaping the pain and suffering you are enduring. 

But the cross did happen, and on the cross God in human flesh took on human suffering and suffered like no human has ever suffered. He took upon himself the very wrath of God that our sin deserves! 

For creatures to question God’s character or his very existence because of evil when he has provided a way to escape its ultimate consequences is not only foolish, it is also blasphemous.

Hebrews 13:14 says this place is not our permanent home. We are looking forward to a home yet to come. 

Paul said the sufferings of this life cannot compare to the glory that awaits us in heaven. And heaven lasts for eternity, and so the longer we are in heaven, the more the the sufferings of this life become an infinitesimal moment in time that cannot be compared to eternity in heaven. It is a slight, momentary affliction. 

Why has your pain and suffering not ended yet? Because you aren’t home yet.

5. God promised to walk through suffering with us. 

As if making it possible for us to be delivered from suffering one day wasn’t enough, God is present in our suffering now. He gives us his presence! He gives grace, and strength, and wisdom, and peace, and resources. He gave us prayer!

Psalm 121

I lift my eyes toward the mountains.
Where will my help come from? My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip;
your Protector will not slumber. Indeed, the Protector of Israel
does not slumber or sleep. The Lord protects you;
the Lord is a shelter right by your side.[a] The sun will not strike you by day
or the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all harm;
he will protect your life. The Lord will protect your coming and going
both now and forever. 

Romans 8:26-27

In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with unspoken groaning. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 

Evil and suffering exist. What do we do until they don’t exist anymore? 

-Walk closely with God. 

Trust him. Rest in him. Love him and pursue him. 

Don’t let your suffering make you run from God. Run to God. Read his word and find the promises there. Pray. Pray. And pray some more. The closer you walk with God, one of two things will happen. Either things will make more sense, or you won’t care that they don’t make sense. The fact that they make sense to God is enough. 

-If you don’t know him yet, surrender to Him today. 

How tragic it would be to suffer in this life, turn your back on God, and then suffer for eternity.

-Be an agent of good in a world full of evil and suffering. 

The pain and suffering of others gives us the opportunity to extend love, kindness, and grace. Be the hands and feet of Jesus.

-Remember that the purpose of life is not our happiness, but the knowledge and glory of God. 

Remember two weeks ago when we answered the question “Why am I here?” What is my purpose? Our purpose is to glorify God. 

Ultimately the knowledge and glory of God will bring happiness, joy, peace, contentment, etc., but those are happy side effects of the purpose, not the purpose. 

If our purpose is to glorify God, then everything that happens to us serves to glorify God, then ultimately, the existence of evil and suffering serve to make God infinitely more glorious. 

How? Why? We praise and glorify him because of what he has done to deliver us from evil and suffering.  

Romans 9

14 What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! 15 For he tells Moses, I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.[l] 16 So then, it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy.   

19 You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” 21 Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor? 22 And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory— 24 on us, the ones he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 

God is not the source or the cause of evil, but ultimately He allows it because it fits into his glorious plan, set forth before the foundation of the world, to bring honor and glory to his name.  

The plan will be complete in heaven, when ultimately we are delivered from all suffering, and where we will glorify him forever. The old song says we will understand it better by and by. Maybe, but I’m not so sure. When evil and suffering are erased, there will be nothing to understand. The only thing we’ll be concerned with then is casting ourselves in worship before the throne of God. 

So the question for us today is not so much why do bad things happen. The question for us is…how, until I am delivered from evil, pain and suffering one day, how can I glorify you through my suffering. That question will help things make sense far better than the why. And it might even help you find your purpose. 

Sources: 

Christian Theology, Millard Erickson 

The Problem of Pain- CS Lewis 

Reasonable Faith- William Lane Craig 

John MacArthur- The Problem of Evil and Suffering 

This is not an exhaustive list. If you are interested in further reading, feel free to reach out to me.