One of the arguments expressed by religious skeptics to shed doubt on the existence of God is this question. Since God is supposedly all-powerful and all-knowing and all-good, why does he not stop human violence and suffering? Such instances as school shootings, human trafficking, child abuse, pandemics, and major catastrophes are given as examples of tragedies when innocent and vulnerable people suffer and die and God does not stop them from happening. The thinking is “if I were all-powerful and all-knowing and all-good, I would act to prevent the suffering and dying.” If there was a powerful and good God, he would step in and put a stop to such evil. He does not, therefore he is not.
I have to say that I do not see this as reason to not believe God exists. It could be reason to not like God and how he operates in the world. I suppose it is easier to say he does not exist than to admit he does but you blatantly do not like him and will not trust him. Anyway, many skeptics have concluded there is no God because of this problem of evil and suffering.
Many believers struggle with this question as well. Most will generally ignore it in their everyday lifestyles – just do not think about it. Some will come to a kind of rationalization to explain the dilemma, especially when something bad happens to a person they know and love. The most bizarre of these explanations that I have heard went like this: God allowed that person to die in a car accident because he knew that if she lived then something worse was going happen to her. That sounds to me like saying that God prevented one bad thing from happening by causing or allowing a different bad thing to happen, and the best plan he could come up with to stop future suffering was to kill her. No, that does not answer the question. Believers and unbelievers continue to wrestle with the problem.
Several theories have been developed to vindicate God’s existence and power and
goodness in light of the presence of evil and suffering. Such a theory is called a theodicy. I am not going to present those theories here. If you are interested in the subject, there are many books that cover it. A couple are “The Problem of Pain” by C.S. Lewis and “Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy” by Gregory Boyd. There are many others.
I am not claiming to have a complete and final answer for this issue. I do believe it is necessary to acknowledge the free will of all humans and that God does not control what everyone does with their free will. Here is what I offer to the discussion to complement those other explanations. Question: why doesn’t God stop the violence and suffering? Partial answer: maybe it is not his responsibility. What if people are expecting God to do something, like stop school shootings for instance, when it is not his obligation, but someone else’s? We must understand how God created the universe to operate, including humanity’s place in it.
According to the Bible, what was the first command that God gave to humanity? If you answered, “From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” in Genesis 2:17, you need to back up in the Scripture to Genesis 1:26-28 (NASB).
Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
The purpose for which God made humanity in his image was to “rule over” the creation. The first command – or we might say the mission statement for humans – was to reproduce and fill the earth with your offspring, take control of the earth, and govern all life on the planet. God delegated the administration of earth to the human race. As God’s living images – his representatives – we are responsible for what happens in the world. As long as we are conscientious in this mission then creation will maintain and, I believe, increase the goodness that God gave it (Genesis 1:31).
I am not aware of this command, mission, and responsibility ever being altered or rescinded.
Now, as believers, we know what happened. According to Scripture, humans who were given free will rebelled against God and his purposes (Genesis 3, etc.). This act essentially incapacitated humans from being able to carry out our God-ordained mission. Instead of being the living images of our Creator, we became “dead in your offenses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Instead of governing the earth as God’s true representatives, “they exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). The result is life on earth is not under our control. Hebrews 2:8, speaking about humanity and the creation, says, “For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.” We do not see humanity in control of what happens; violence, abuse, and suffering occur all over the place, and we don’t know what to do about it. Furthermore, the condition that humanity is in somehow has a negative effect on the condition of the rest of creation (see Romans 8:19-22). Everything in creation is supposed to be under our control, but it is not, because we betrayed our original identity and relinquished our original purpose.
We also know that God has not given up on us. He came into the world himself in the flesh – Jesus – and provided the way for us to be reconciled into a trusting and loving relationship with God and to be restored to our original design and to become competent servants once again (2 Corinthians 5:17-18, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Corinthians 3:6). Jesus is our Lord, our King, the one who now enables us to become what we are supposed to be and leads us to do what we are supposed to do.
If we will follow Jesus – have faith in him, surrender to him, learn from him, and live by his ways – we will be able to carry out the mission that God gave us in the beginning. If we construct our lives, families, communities, and world systems by following Jesus, violence and suffering will not happen.
Here’s an example. A man who had been a devout Roman Catholic, including being trained to teach in the church, explained why he had become an atheist. Part of his explanation referred to the horrible occurrences of priests sexually abusing children: “my wife & I looked on while God stood idly by & did NOTHING while God allowed the Church to be turned into a child-rape syndicate.” This man apparently believed it was God’s responsibility to reach down and forcefully stop the priests from committing those hideous offenses.
The reality is that God did not stand idly by and do nothing. He provided for and offered a way of life that excludes evil and enables good. Jesus came and died for the redemption and transformation of all humans. He sent his Spirit to renew and empower his people to live with love and integrity. But he is not a puppet-master god. Each person, those Catholic priests included, has the responsibility to accept God’s actions and live in his Kingdom. Those who don’t will continue to produce evil – they are the ones to blame.
Of course there are forces of darkness, spiritual forces of evil (Ephesians 6:12), who influence violence and suffering. Jesus has dealt with them as well (Colossians 2:15), so the world does not have to be under their power when people will “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power” (Ephesians 6:10).
Humanity is responsible for what happens in the world. God has not removed or taken over that responsibility. There is terrible violence and innocent suffering because the human race is not conducting the affairs of the world as God intended. With grace and truth, God has provided the way for us to regain our place as his living images and again rule over the creation so it can be good.
We believers need to realize what this means for us. Since humans rebelled against God, and Jesus has brought salvation and new life, there is another dimension put into our responsibility and mission. (Of course, we start by making our own lives characterized by the attitudes and actions of Jesus’ way of living.) Just as Jesus went into the world with grace and truth, with mercy and compassion, with healing and freedom for struggling people, so are we to get involved in the world with caring ministry (John 20:21). Since the hope for the world to overcome the violence and suffering is the gospel of Jesus, we must carry out his assignment to us: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). We followers of Jesus have received the high calling to help our fellow humans to remember who we are and how we can be free from our sin and rebellion and how we can live in love and peace and stop the violence and suffering.
