I don’t want to explore the problem of evil. I want to use that question and the arguments made by atheists and agnostics to discuss how we use our resources to analyze and respond to such questions. 1 Peter 3:15 is the basis for Christian apologetics: always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…

When I was college I took an honors level class simply titled Critical Thinking. I think it should have been required of all entering freshmen; definitely wished our debate team in high school could have spent a few weeks each year in that course. I didn’t go to a large state funded university that spent four years trying educate the faith out of us or teach me that everything my parents ever believed was wrong. At a private liberal arts college, affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention, the professor wanted us to think things through, use logic and empirical data, in order to defend whatever position we claimed. He was not an atheist trying to turn us against the Christian faith, as some have claimed when I share this story. He posed us this dilemma so that, like iron sharpens iron, we could work through a proper response: God is either all powerful or all good but cannot be both. If he is all good then evil exists because is unable to eliminate it. Conversely if God is all powerful then he must be evil as he chooses not to do away with it. Discussion ensued.

Here’s where my story gets kind of foggy in the details. A few days later I came across a verse or passage that I went back to that professor with. He said in all the years of his leading that exercise no one had ever responded that way. In my faulty memory there’s a verse in scripture that says something to the effect of “were it not for evil we could not know that God is good.” There is no such verse. We’re talking about a conversation I had nearly 30 years ago. There was barely internet and certainly no Google. I have since searched online, talked to other “scholars” and read through the Bible several times in different translations. I have always thought I would know it again when I saw it. Here is how I would respond to that question if asked today.

Romans 9 describes how a potter makes vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor from the same clay. The fine China in your grandmother’s China cabinet is made from the same stuff as your toilet. God likewise creates some individuals to serve in different capacities, some for honor and others for dishonor. He allowed Pharaoh to build an empire and raise a powerful army, which he told Moses at the burning bush he would destroy – as a demonstration of his power – in order to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Romans 9:22 in particular says “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction…”

I submit that evil exists in the world, at least for the present time, because it serves God’s purposes. Romans 8:28 says “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Things that are good, bad, and those that we just ignore because they seem ordinary; God works things together for good, even things that taken by themselves are not good at all. Now, take what we know about how God works from Romans 8 and 9 and filter this verse from Isaiah through that understanding:

I form light and create darkness;
    I make well-being and create calamity;
    I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Isaiah 45:7

Forming light and creating darkness might just be a reference to creating the world in Genesis 1 if he didn’t go on to say I make well being and create calamity. Some take this verse to mean God created evil. He certainly creates an environment in which humanity and evil are in the same place at the same time. This is the realm of Satan and the angels that fell with him from heaven; which most of us will agree are demons and evil spirits (though I know Christians fall into various schools of thought on this subject). There should be no argument to the devil seeks whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). God knew Adam and Eve would be tempted when he placed them in the garden. God uses evil to accomplish his purposes. He will do away with it completely, someday… when he is finished using it.

If God uses evil and/or created evil, does this mean God is evil? I’m going to say no then explain. When someone claims “I refuse to believe in any god that _______ ” that person is making a value judgement. In his or her judgement a righteous God would not do some specific thing. We are informed of good and evil in the Word of God. He is the definer of what is good and what is evil. If we get our definitions elsewhere, if we are informed of what it means to be evil by any other source of information than God, then we are wrong. It is hubris to declare to God that he is in error. There are people willing to make bold claims about what they will say to God if he does indeed exist and there is in fact a Day of Judgement. What they will really do is stand before Almighty God in speechless awe just like the rest of us. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And no one will tell God what he should have done instead of what he did.

God is good and yet evil exists in this world as long it serves God’s purpose. That is the truth of scripture.