Notes

The Problem Of Evil
The Problem of Evil - A Brief Biblical Solution
Atheists often declare that there is absolutely no acceptable answer for the issue of evil. They argue that each day, innocent children die at childbirth, from natural disasters and birth defects. They argue these children are sinless and blameless, yet they die by the thousands.


They argue that those that believe in a loving god have a lot of explaining to do and then quote Epicurus who said:

Is God willing to prevent evil, however, not able? Then he is impotent.
Is he able, however, not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?
That is one argument that atheists use to try to refute the existence of God. It does not prove, disprove or refute anything and only shows a limited understanding about what God has said about the problem of evil.

God is willing and able to prevent evil but he is neither impotent nor malevolent. Evil exists due to the consequence of rejecting God's way. God has nowhere guaranteed he will protect man when he chooses their own method of doing things.

Let me use an imperfect example to illustrate my point. Just for the sake of argument, why don't we compare the U.S. military to God (I understand, I know, terrible choice of comparison). Evil dictators in different parts of the world committing atrocious evil acts can represent the problem of evil . AMERICA military may be willing and able to "remove" these dictators but "most of the time" it chooses not to. Would it be correct, merely in virtue to the fact that it decides never to act against such dictators, to call it impotent or malevolent?

The solution is "needless to say not". Because the U.S. military could take out any evil dictator, it so chooses proves nothing about its ability or character. The same is true of God. Allow me to explain using what the bible teaches relating to this subject. (I needless to say recognize that atheists usually do not believe in the bible, their unbelief however, by no means makes what it says invalid, that is another issue)

The bible teaches that God created man with a free will. He gave him a choice between doing things their own way or the way that God prescribed. Man chose His own way. God gave the planet earth to man, it was something special. When man spurned God's plan and chose His own way God didn't take the gift back but Satan seized it when man followed his suggestion to oppose the will of God. Because of this, Satan replaced man because the ruler and guardian of the planet earth and after that, "all hell broke loose."

None of this needless to say is God's fault and He is in no way obligated to do anything against evil. He gave something special to man and man squandered it. God will be unjust to take back what He had directed at man. God being infinitely good however did put in play a plan to solve the issue of evil. It really is called the program of redemption also to summarize it He sent His own Son as a man to resolve the issue of man and thus through the sacrifice of Christ paid in full man's debt to God and through Him he could help man take the earth back from Satan. To put it simply, much evil still exists, not because God is impotent or malevolent but because not all men have surrendered to the task of Christ on the cross.

Therefore, the basic difficulty is man's bad choice in defying God's ways, thus the perfect solution is to the issue of evil... it is man's fault not God's. God gets the solution, but He will not eradicate evil until man universally accepts His way of doing things. Since that may never happen God has set a time limit and one day Christ should come back and set things up, because they should be.

My Website: https://ygodallowsevil.com/love-2/