FIRST QUARTER 2025
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #7
FEBRUARY 15, 2025
"THE PROBLEM OF EVIL"

 

If God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and morally perfect, why do evil and suffering exist in the world He created? This challenging question, known as the problem of evil, has been discussed by atheists and theists alike.

How Long, Oh Lord?

The biblical writers recognized the problem of evil:

“Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You; yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?” (Jeremiah 12:1, NKJV).

“You have wearied the LORD with your words; yet you say, ‘In what way have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them,’ Or, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (Malachi 2:7).

“Why do You stand afar off, O LORD? Why do You hide in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1).

We are not alone when we are questioning troubles, evil, and suffering in the world and in our lives. Notice what the psalmist writes when facing the trouble and afflictions of life:

“Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favorable no more? Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?” (Psalm 77:7-9).

The struggle to reconcile an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God with evil in our lives and in our world is a real one.  The tendency or temptation the theist runs into is to diminish one or more of these qualities to explain the evil that touches us.

Notice how Job calls into question the moral perfection and self-sacrificing love of God by his words:

“He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes. I cry out to You, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You regard me. But You have become cruel to me; with the strength of Your hand, You oppose me. You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride on it; You spoil my success. For I know that You will bring me to death and to the house appointed for all living” (Job 30:19-23).

There Are Many Things We Do Not Know / The Skeptical Theist

In His response to Job, God asks a series of questions, each of which emphasize how little Job actually knows about the world and the One who made it.  To this point, Job concedes. God then points Job to the larger picture and to one he cannot contend with.  God calls this other “Leviathan” (Job 41:1) and “king over all the children of pride” (Job 41:34).  This dragon, or serpent-like beast of which God is speaking, is the adversary brought to light in Job 1 and 2.

There is a behind-the-scenes activity that often is not immediately apparent. However, the biblical narrative in the book of Job and elsewhere offers important insight into this activity, lending insight to the “problem of evil.” The Great Controversy theodicy reveals an originator and propagator of evil and suffering. This accounts for both the moral and natural evils we encounter in the world today.

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!… Those who see you will gaze at you and consider you, saying: 'Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners?’” (Isaiah 14:12,16-17).

Yet even with this insight provided in the inspired record, we may never know every reason for every atrocity or act of evil. And while we continue to grapple with the problem of evil, we eventually run out of answers. It is at this point that we must either part ways with God, in part or entirely, or move forward by faith, resting in the knowledge that God has a good moral reason for allowing evil and suffering to persist until that promised day when every tear will be wiped away.

“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

Only a clear understanding of God's character and faithfulness will equip, inform, and guide our thinking, providing a sure foundation for our faith. This understanding will also prevent evil from ultimately rising again in the eternity to come.

The Free Will Defense

J. L. Mackie and H. J. McCloskey are two twentieth-century philosophers have written extensively about the problem of evil (Mackie, J. L., The Miracle of Theism, Oxford University Press,1982) (McCloskey, H. J., God and Evil, Philosophical Quarterly, 10:97-114, 1960). As non-theists, they contend that it is impossible for God to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good while evil coexists.

To show that these four concepts can coexist without contradiction in the philosophy world, one must establish a morally justifiable reason for an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God permitting evil and suffering.

Alvin Plantinga has presented the most prominent contemporary defense known as "The Free Will Defense” (Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil, Grand Rapids, MI,: Eerdmans, 1974).  This free will defense goes something like this:  God’s creation of persons with morally significant free will is something of tremendous value. God could not eliminate the possibility of evil and suffering without thereby eliminating the greater good of freedom to choose.

Plantinga successfully articulated a scenario in which God has a morally sufficient reason to permit evil without being its cause. He created beings with morally significant free will—the ability to choose whether to perform or refrain from a given action.

While Plantinga offers a reasonable answer to the problem of evil, the Great Controversy theodicy, as previously mentioned,  gives an answer to some of the objections he left unanswered. While our choices and moral failures are part of the equation of evil and suffering, there is one who first stepped away from God through unbelief in God's self-sacrificing love. He, the fallen angelic being, was responsible for the events that followed as he exercised the freedom freely given him.

“And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:7-9).

Love and Evil?

Free will was afforded to all of God’s created beings. And they were all created to live in a posture of self-sacrifice and love for one another. Freedom was afforded to all, by God who is love, because love itself can only exist in an atmosphere of freedom.

Oh, it may be possible to program someone to do loving things for you.  But is it possible to program, direct, or force a being to actually to love you?  Implicit in love is the free desire of one's heart to give to another.  And if one is not free to not give, then they are not truly free.

One of Plantinga’s most significant conclusions is that in a world where God creates people with morally significant free will, He will not causally determine individuals in every situation to choose what is right and avoid what is wrong in order to produce a world where evil or suffering are not possible.  That would be like God telling you that you are free but ultimately He would make you choose for Him at every turn.  That would be as hollow for God as it would be for me to direct my wife’s every decision in favor of me while knowing she really can’t choose otherwise.  From the outside, that may look like the perfect marriage, but all the while, I would never know if she really loved me—only that I was directing her every step and that she followed my direction, not out of genuine choice, but because she had no alternative.

This is significant because it reflects precisely what non-theist philosophers argue—that a God who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving, would necessitate a world free from evil. I would venture to say that there is not a single atheist who uses the existence of evil and suffering as an argument against the existence of a loving God who would, for a moment, be willing to surrender their morally significant free will.

The Logical Problem of Love

In contrast to “The Problem of Evil,” we might pose a philosophical argument and entitle it “The Logical Problem of Love.” It might sound something like this:

The existence of love and acts of self-sacrifice in our world pose a significant challenge to the belief in the nonexistence of a perfect and loving God. If God does not exist, it seems that love and all self-sacrificing acts of giving need not prevail. If an all-loving God were absent, there would be no logical reason for self-sacrificing love to manifest. Moreover, if a creator God did not exist, then surely, in a world governed by the principle of survival of the fittest, self-sacrificing love would not logically emerge or, if it did, would be followed by relatively quick extinction. Yet, we find that our world is filled with numerous instances of self-sacrificing love and generosity. These observations about self-sacrificing love and giving seem to contradict the orthodox atheist assertion that a perfectly good God does not exist. This apparent conflict can be referred to as the problem of love.

“The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples;” (Deuteronomy 7:7).

"Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:16,17).

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

“For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again…. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:14-21).

“We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

“The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world's dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, ‘with healing in His wings.”’Malachi 4:2.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 22.

The Application

This past Monday, I was awakened by a phone call from my pastor at 11:45 p.m.  “The apartment is on fire, and we can’t find Sarah, Faith, or Sophia” were the words that jarred me from my sleeping state.  I got dressed and made my way to a member’s apartment.  Fire trucks were everywhere, the street was cordoned off, and all I could see was the fire-gutted remains of the top floor where the bedrooms were.

Sarah, a single mom, was baptized with her sister Shawna a few years ago.  The Lord moved mightily as 15 souls gave their lives to Jesus during this series of meetings in this small Northern California community.  Sarah and Shawna, from that day, grew as they continued to petition the Lord to help them in their lives and their family.

They prayed for their family continually.  They prayed that they would come to know Jesus as they had.  Shawna’s husband, Mark,was the next to be baptized the year following. Then Sarah’s daughter, little Sarah, followed soon after.  And then Shawna’s daughter Hannah and Sarah’s daughter Elli gave their life to Jesus in baptism the following year.  Most recently, at a baptism, the pastor asked if anyone present wanted to be baptized.  Faith, Sarah’s early teen daughter with Down’s syndrome, jumped up and exclaimed, “I do!”   Her mom's eyes filled with tears as the pastor took Faith into the watery grave of baptism.

Sarah’s daughter Elli, who was baptized the year before, was a single mother to a special bundle of joy, Sophia.  Elli asked to have Sophia dedicated to God this past month.

These families were filled with joy, faith, and confidence in God, who answers prayers. Their confidence in Him and the hope and joy He has brought them has grown, as was evident through the Holy Spirit's access and empowerment, which was outwardly visible in their lives.

The tragedy started about two months ago when Shawna’s husband Mark died in his sleep.  This sudden loss was a shock for the family and the church.  Why, God?  Why Mark? How do you explain why?  But there was no need to explain.  The Lord can answer for Himself, and Shawna has been a pillar of strength for herself and her children. Shawna and her sister Sarah had apparently been making plans to move to a house where the sisters could live together and raise their teen and young adult children together. 

But this past Monday night compounded the tragedy in infinite ways for these two families.  Sarah, Shawna’s twin sister, Faith, Sarah’s daughter with Downs Syndrome, and baby Sophia, Elli’s daughter, were lost in the fire.  Sarah left behind four older children ranging from late teens to early twenties.

I’m sure by now you can feel the loss and pain.  I’m sure you are trying to process how the 17-year-old single mom is processing the loss of her momma and her baby in the same night. Or how Shawna, who was just trying to figure out life without her husband, would not have to figure out life without her twin sister. And now, in one night, she feels immediately responsible for Sarah’s four children that were left behind, as well as her two. The potential for bitterness toward God is real for all involved.

This is the problem with evil and suffering. It hurts deeply. When we feel pain, our minds turn to God, but distortions of His heart and His involvement in evil arise when we don’t know Him as He truly is. During these times, finding an answer to why may not be the most important thing. A valid response to the why question can be simply, “I don’t know.” What truly matters is that we are reminded that evil and suffering were never intended to exist and that one day, all our questions will be answered. We must always remember that through all the evil and suffering, God feels and experiences it infinitely more than we do. When we hurt, He hurts. When we cry, He cries. It all comes up before Him. “Not a sigh is breathed, not a pain felt, not a grief pierces the soul, but the throb vibrates to the Father's heart”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 356. And when we go through a furnace of affliction, He goes through it with us, for He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

 

~Kelly Kinsley 

 

Additional Reading:

“To many minds the origin of sin and the reason for its existence are a source of great perplexity. They see the work of evil, with its terrible results of woe and desolation, and they question how all this can exist under the sovereignty of One who is infinite in wisdom, in power, and in love. Here is a mystery of which they find no explanation. And in their uncertainty and doubt they are blinded to truths plainly revealed in God's word and essential to salvation. There are those who, in their inquiries concerning the existence of sin, endeavor to search into that which God has never revealed; hence they find no solution of their difficulties; and such as are actuated by a disposition to doubt and cavil seize upon this as an excuse for rejecting the words of Holy Writ. Others, however, fail of a satisfactory understanding of the great problem of evil, from the fact that tradition and misinterpretation have obscured the teaching of the Bible concerning the character of God, the nature of His government, and the principles of His dealing with sin.

“It is impossible to explain the origin of sin so as to give a reason for its existence. Yet enough may be understood concerning both the origin and the final disposition of sin to make fully manifest the justice and benevolence of God in all His dealings with evil. Nothing is more plainly taught in Scripture than that God was in no wise responsible for the entrance of sin; that there was no arbitrary withdrawal of divine grace, no deficiency in the divine government, that gave occasion for the uprising of rebellion. Sin is an intruder, for whose presence no reason can be given. It is mysterious, unaccountable; to excuse it is to defend it. Could excuse for it be found, or cause be shown for its existence, it would cease to be sin. Our only definition of sin is that given in the word of God; it is 'the transgression of the law;’ it is the outworking of a principle at war with the great law of love which is the foundation of the divine government.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 492.

 

“Let us look, then, a little at the government of God. In order that there may be government, there must be people, there must be the governed. In order that there shall be government by the consent of the governed, there must be freedom of choice. Government without the consent of the governed is government without freedom of choice in the governed. Now did God create intelligences—angels and men—with, or without, freedom of choice?—Everybody who has the read the Bible, and who will think, knows that all intelligences were created with freedom of choice. It is written, ‘Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.’ ‘Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’ And when God created man, and put him in the garden, in the midst of the garden there were the two trees,—the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil,—and the man was left absolutely free to choose which way he would take,—the way of good and life, or the way of evil and death.

“Indeed, to speak of intelligences without freedom of choice, is a contradiction in terms. To have no power of choice is to be not intelligent, a mere machine. Such could not possibly be of any use to themselves or their kind, nor of any intelligent honor or praise or glory to Him who made them.

“Freedom of choice is essential to intelligence. Freedom of thought is essential to freedom of choice. God has made angels and men intelligent. He has made them free to choose, and has left them perfectly free to choose, and free to think as they choose. 

“Thus God is the author of intelligence, of freedom of choice, and of freedom of thought. And he forever respects that of which he is the author. He will never invade to a hair’s breadth the freedom of angel or man to choose for himself, nor to think as he chooses. 

“For God to create intelligences free to choose to serve him, in that very thing they are created free to choose not to serve him. Freedom of choice at all, involves freedom to choose to serve him or not to serve him, freedom to choose him or themselves, his way or their way, life or death. And such he did create all intelligences. 

“This of course involved the possibility of the entrance of sin,—the possibility that some would choose not to serve him, would choose the way of disobedience and rebellion. Then it may be asked, Was there not involved in this a provision against the results of this possible choice, before they were made—must not provision be made for the possibility of sin, before ever a single intelligent creature was made?—Assuredly so. And such provision was made.

“What could be, otherwise? Should he refuse to create, because, if he did create, it must be with the possibility of the entrance of sin?—That would be but eternally to remain self-centered and solitary. But that is not God. He is love; and love is not selfish. God’s love is not self-love. He is not a solitary self-satisfied existence. His joy is not fulfilled in wrapping himself within himself, and sitting solitary and self-centered. His love—himself—is satisfied only in flowing out to those who will receive and enjoy him to the full. His joy is fulfilled only in carrying to an infinite universe full of blessed intelligences, the very fulness of eternal joy. But for any intelligence to have all this, he must freely choose it. And in order freely to choose it, he must be free to choose it. And also in order for him to be free to choose it, he must be free not to choose it.

“More than this: For God to shrink from creating intelligences, because of the possibility of the entrance of sin—and there could be no possibility more dreadful—would not only be to remain eternally solitary and self-centered, but would in itself be to cease to be God. for what would be a god, or what would he be worth, who could not perform his own will, nor fulfill his own wish and pleasure? Such a god would simply be no God.

“But thank the Lord, such is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He made all intelligences free to choose, and to think as they choose, and therefore free to choose not to serve him, free to sin, if they choose. and at the same time, in his infinite love and eternal righteousness, he purposed to give himself a sacrifice to redeem all who should sin; and so give them even a second freedom to choose him or themselves, to choose life or death. Those who the second time would choose death,—let them have what they have persistently chosen; and those who would choose life, the universe full of them, angels and men,—let them enjoy to the full that which they have chosen, even eternal life, the fulness of perfect love, and the dear delights of unalloyed joy forever.

“Thus it is, and this is why it is, that Jesus Christ ‘verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,’ and ‘was manifest in these last times for you.’ And thus the cross of Jesus Christ is an eternal witness to the divine truth that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” —Alonzo T. Jones, Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald, June 20, 1899.

 

“But in this mercy the justice of God appears. He has made man in His own image, with faculties capable of the highest enjoyment, for He has given him the freedom to choose his own way, and has set everything before him. The highest possible enjoyment is found in the most perfect freedom; and this God has given to man, in giving him the utmost liberty to choose whatever he will. In this choice there is absolutely no restriction put upon man by the Lord. His strict justice is shown in His not interfering with man’s personal right of choice as to what he will have. God knows that only in Him can man find his highest good, and therefore He places Himself before man in the most attractive light, and pleads with him to accept Him; but He will not intrude His presence where it is not wanted. He will not coerce the will of man. He has in making man guaranteed to him perfect liberty, and He Himself respects the rights which He has bestowed on man. To attempt to compel men to accept His ways, perfect though they be, would be to deprive him of that liberty which is inseparable from God; and so it would be to defeat His own purpose.

“‘I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live; that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him; for He is thy life, and the length of thy days; that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.’ Deuteronomy 30:19, 20. Whoever chooses God will have life; for God Himself is life. When the man has yielded to the persuasion of the Lord, so far as to indicate his preference for Him, then the Lord Himself gladly comes in and supplies all his need. He gives him the power to do right, or rather, He Himself lives His own righteous will in the man. As long as the man continues to yield to God, so long will he have life, even to all eternity. God has promised that He will never forsake the man who puts his trust in Him and therefore that man must continue to live as long as God lives. That man will find that God’s plan for him is the very best thing possible for him. In the presence of God there is fulness of joy.

“But what of those who will not have Christ to reign over them? What of them who persist in their rebellion against the Lord? Here is the answer: ‘For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; they would none of My counsel; they despised all My reproof; therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.’ Proverbs 1:29-32. They resist the Spirit of the Lord, refusing all its pleadings, until it is useless to strive longer with them. They utterly refuse to have anything to do with the Lord, and so He lets them have their own way, which is destruction. ‘There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.’” Proverbs 14:12. 

“Such ones are self-condemned. Their condemnation to death is not merely the decision of a Judge, but is the natural result of their own course. They have hated the Lord, have resisted all His advances, and have shown their desire to have nothing to do with Him. Since they positively refuse to live with Him, He has no other alternative but to leave them to themselves; and as they have no means of self-existence, they necessarily suffer destruction. In addition to that text quoted in the preceding paragraph, which showed this to be the case, read the following:

“‘Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds.’ Romans 2:1-6.

“The same love has been bestowed upon the wicked that has been bestowed upon the righteous. It is common for people to say that God has been very good to such and such a person. This is true, but it is not all the truth, and it may convey a wrong impression. The fact is that the Lord is good to everybody. ‘The Lord is good to all; and His tender mercies are over all His works.’ Psalm 145:9. The Lord is goodness itself. He is love. He cannot at any time be any other than He is, and therefore He is just as good to one person as He is to another. He is equally good to everybody and just as good as He can be all the time. Therefore it is not because they have not been drawn by the love of God, that some are destroyed. It is because they have despised that love. Having hardened their hearts against God’s love, the more He manifested His love to them, the harder they became. It is a trite saying that the same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.” —Ellet J. Waggoner, Present Truth United Kingdom, February 23, 1893.