My Friend Sam After seeing you after church the other day, I am so glad that you have been stirred in heart to ask the question of evil in the world, and the very existence of God. So many people disbelieve in God today, even He has said, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good..” (Psalm 14:1, King James Bible) Why did God record those very words so many eons ago; well He knew our lineage, that we all have a common starting point, Adam. It is by Adam and his fall in the garden that we have inherited his sin nature, and because we know that through Adam sin entered the world, we can see why there is so much evil. So then, why this “problem of evil”? Technically it is a label man has given for problems involving good and evil. According to Elwell, “the problem of evil then, is a problem of both theological and philosophical interest as well as a matter of religious import.” (Elwell 2001) Since we can adapt evil to the theological, philosophical, and religious ideology it encompasses man as a whole, so then we must dig a little deeper and talk about the moral evils of this day, and also the natural evil. Natural evil and moral evil go hand in hand; in the Bible we see that natural evil is the result of moral evil. For instance, Job was convinced at one point that the natural suffering he was experiencing was in direct relation to the very internal moral evil that existed within. As a simplified example pertaining to today’s application we can see that when moral evil reigns, maybe by the lust of the flesh, and if you were a married man, than the natural result could be an extra marital affair, or worse yet, be a violation of trust, that could eventually lead to divorce. This however makes us ponder, why did Job even think that there was such thing as moral and natural evil, how can we know the difference? Looking at our Creator we can see that all He created was “good”. If that was so how did evil appear, well my humble and scriptural opinion is; evil appeared in the garden in the guise of the serpent, that is the animal Satan chose to use to tempt man to evil in the Book of Genesis Chapter 3. What was that “evil”; it was the willful disobedience of God’s command to not partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When Adam willfully partook of the fruit that was presented in the garden, not only did he sin, but also the knowledge of what he did became evident, evil came into the world. By now you may be shaking your head and saying why would a God in Heaven give man free will knowing that he could and would abuse it? Simply put, God in His loving-kindness decided it would be better for us to exercise pure love for His goodness not out of guilt, restraint, or a “gun to our head” rather than a bunch of “puppets on a string.” He in His omnipotence considered the removal of evil and the alternative of free will and has decided that the good that could come out of free will greatly overpowers the evils in this world, especially when we are acting freely to the will of God! When looking at this view, there are of course other views to consider, most of these views fall short of a pure implication of evil in the world on a scriptural standpoint based off the text of Genesis 3. Consider if you will that of Gottfried Leibenz’s theory as it was structured “for his extreme rationalistic theological system.” He states “that there are not only reasons that God does whatever He does, but such reasons are necessary laws”. (Elwell 2001) Keeping God in the law realm would make evil in God because then He would have chance to break even His own law in decision for good, thereby making Him now sinful, and we know the Bible says “Let God be true, but everyman a liar” (Rom 3:4)
