If God is Good, Why Did He Create Such an Evil World?

Ephesians 2:8 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God

Sitting in front of my Christmas tree in the wee hours of the morning, I am reflecting upon a conversation I had yesterday on the sidewalk of the abortion center with someone who hates me and most of what I stand for. When the conversation started, the usual anger and accusations were spewing from her mouth, and I turned to her and said, “If you want to have a monologue, then you can do so. If you want to have a real conversation, ask me questions and then hear my response, I am happy to do so. But not with screaming, swearing, and interruptions.”

To my surprise, she agreed.

The crux of her litany of questions was this: why do you worship a God who causes infant mortality, child abuse, children born to poverty, and so much cruelty? God is cruel. How can you follow a cruel God?

The first thing I told her was those were good questions. I remember very clearly before I knew God, before I came to Jesus and asked Him to forgive me of my sins and submitted my life to His Lordship, I asked the same exact things.

If you look at the depravity and horror of the world of which there is plenty AND you believe God is in absolute control, it is a logical question. Why, God, why? God clearly could stop every single one of those terrible things. Why doesn’t He?

She was making one of the clearest arguments FOR God, I believe. Every fiber of her being was railing against a standard of goodness that she KNEW was being violated. This begs the question — if there is a violation of a standard, who set the standard? I asked her that and she said she did. I asked her what about a psychopath who sets the standards for himself and has no sense or care of right from wrong? Does it make sense that each of us with varying standards is THE standard by which we determine good and evil? If she calls God evil, on what basis does she call Him evil? There were cultures who practiced child sacrifice. Is their standard “good”? 

If there is a law, a moral code, a standard of good and evil...there must logically be a law giver, a moral governor, a standard developer. If we each develop our own standard, good and evil is relative and she has no right to call God evil or ANYTHING evil.

Which is ludicrous. 

She is correct in her anger against evil in the world. There is evil and we all know it at the core of our being.

The evil person abuses the innocent child. God could stop the consequence. He could prevent all evil from having any consequence. Every parent on earth knows that to remove the consequences of our own children’s actions results in spoiled children who never mature. How much more so is the problem of humanity that God encounters.

From the moment humanity was created, Adam and Eve were given a choice to choose God or to choose not God. To create humans without the capacity for choice would be to create robots. Human freedom of will was more important to God than forced obedience. He knew what would result. He knew the self-serving desire of all mankind would result in every one of us rebelling against God’s standards. He COULD remove all consequences of our rebellion, but then what would ever turn us from our rebellion back to the one we should be worshipping, should be following, should be loving above all else? 

It is always through struggle and suffering that we recognize how imperfect we are, how imperfect the world is. It is through the intensity of my worst struggles that I finally began to understand why I so desperately needed and WANTED God. I cannot reach the standard of goodness I know in my heart exists, and I cannot find it in the world around me. I can find it in God who created the standard, and alone can uphold it.

The question of evil in the world is resolved by the Cross. God knew how far we would stray. He knew from the beginning of creation that the answer to the problem of evil was to let man see where evil leads and then give man a way back to the only GOOD available, back to God.

A good God must punish evil, in the same way the woman on the sidewalk knew the world’s evil should be punished, should be ended. God has no choice but to condemn each one of us if it is based on a standard of absolute Good. All of us fall short.

So God sent His innocent son to earth to bear the full penalty of the punishment the world deserved. And once again, as at the beginning, offers a choice. Do you choose to accept what God has offered as a path to return to Him, to return to the source of All Goodness...or do you choose to continue to rebel against Him? He will not force you, but like my friend on the sidewalk, we see that the choice to rebel against goodness, against God, has not led her any closer to the world she longs for.

So I sit in front of my Christmas tree praying for that woman I spoke with, and for all of us whose struggles and choices lead us away from God rather than to Him.

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John 15:1-27 

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ...

Psalm 37:39 

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble.