How Can a Good God Permit Evil?

by David Gibson

This has been called atheism’s strongest argument. And yet it is not an argument that cannot be refuted.

The Bible itself records countless cases of horrific evils perpetrated by people with no fear of God, who commit unspeakable crimes against humanity with apparently no remorse whatever. The same is true today. It is hard for many people to get their minds around how utterly depraved people can be.

Points to ponder:

• God hates all evil and will punish all wickedness.
• Through His prophets, God pleaded repeatedly with His erring people. “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11).
• Even though God despises evil, He allows it to exist. Why? Because He has arranged this world so that every person has free will. We can choose to obey God or rebel against Him. God does not make anyone do right.
• If we did not have free will, we would be like animals operating by instinct or robots programmed to act in certain ways.
• Because God does not make us love Him, when we choose to love Him, it truly means something to both Him and us. Who would want to own a robot programmed to say, “I love you. I love you. I love you . . .”?

Passages that can help

If we feel frustrated by all the evils running rampant in our world, it would do us good to read a pair of psalms that address this issue: Psalm 37 and Psalm 73. (Note the transposed numbers.) Both psalms encourage the righteous to keep doing right because God will richly bless them. And He will punish the wicked when the time comes. He is a just God.

Living in an evil world is not pleasant, but it is necessary for our spiritual development. With the Bible as our guide and God as our helper, we can get through all the troubles of this life and live forever where only righteousness dwells.

This He has promised. This is our hope!