Below are my notes and PowerPoint from a lesson I taught on dealing with the "Problem of Evil." I hope this helps you answer questions that may be coming your way.
INTRO
a. Read Wikipedia Article: Virginia Tech Massacre.
b. It’s times like this where we can’t help but ask, “What is the World coming to?”
c. And every time something bad happens in the world you can always count on one thing: People (especially anti-religious) will come to you with a myriad of questions expecting you to answer their questions.
d. They raise a real issue: THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.
i. It’s the #1 Question in response to tragedy: “How could a loving God allow this to happen?” What would you say?
ii. Albert Einstein: This was Einstein’s objection to the existence of the God of the Bible. His scientific discoveries convinced him that there must be a God, but he opted for an impersonal account of God because of the problem of evil.
iii. C.S. Lewis: Famous Christian writer (Chronicles of Narnia) Got married late in life (55) and a couple years into the marriage lost his wife. He didn’t question the existence of God, but His character.
2. Expose Need:
a. Not only do we need to be ready to give a reason (1 Peter 3:15) for the hope that we have as Believers, but we also need to take advantage of unfortunate events like this and use them to point people to the truth.
i. When Peter wrote his epistle, he was talking to believers who were suffering for doing good. The punch line was for them to “set apart Christ as lord and always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in them.”
ii. We can apply this to ourselves when we address unbelievers and critics: Set apart Christ in us and give a reason for our hope!
b. And we need to realize that situations like this don’t really prove that God doesn’t exist anyways!
i. First, situations like this actually prove God exists and that the Bible is true and…
ii. Second, situations like this show us how much people really need to admit that they need God and stop suppressing the truth (Romans 1).
c. But, then again, there is no easy way to address the Problem of Evil.
i. You can’t offer a quick fix (30 sec rebuttal)
ii. It’s also raised in the midst of some crazy catastrophe.
d. We can’t even begin to calculate all the evil, pain and suffering that mankind has experienced.
3. Orient to Message/Big Idea:
a. The Problem of Evil goes like this:
i. If God is all powerful and all loving, then why would he allow so much suffering and evil in the world?
ii. He is either all powerful, but not all loving or he is all loving, but not all powerful.
iii. He either CAN’t destroy evil or he DOESN’t Care.
iv. Or, maybe there is no such thing as God and the fact that Evil exists is proof.
b. And to make the Problem of Evil more difficult, it also refers to NATURAL EVIL.
i. Nature: Floods, Earthquakes, tornados
ii. Diseases: Cancer, small pox
iii. Developmental Disability: Autism, Downs Syndrome
iv. Accidents/injuries: Being burned, drowining, falling.
v. Note: Sometimes natural and moral evil are combined. In Ethiopia, thousands of people are starving to death, but it was cauased by the political leaders who were using food as a political weapon against the resistance.
c. Remember that this is the #1 Argument for Atheism and it’s not even that good. Keep these thing in mind:
i. There is a perfectly good explanation why God allows evil.
ii. It’s because of his Love and Goodness that he allows it.
iii. In fact, Evil in this life is part of the Master plan. W/o it the plan doesn’t make sense. It plays a part.
TRANSISTION: We’re going to use our time to learn how to respond to THAT question, but first, we must lay out some ground rules. It will challenge your thinking. This is how church should be.
1. First Point: Evil Is Something. Evil Exists. It’s Real.
a. Some believe in RELATIVISM. That is, they believe everything is RELATIVE.
b. How can we know if somebody is a relativist?
i. What’s right for you isn’t right for me.”
ii. You can’t legislate morality!” But, the law IS morality! (Don’t kill, steal or destroy).
c. Relativism is SELF-refuting!
i. IF THEY SAY: “I don’t believe in moral absolutes. What’s right for you is right for you, etc…”
ii. ASK: “are you absolutely sure?”
iii. THEN: Take his car keys and he’ll start believing in Absolutes real quick.
d. Examples of moral relativism and the notion of “Tolerance.”
i. Premarital relations? If that’s what they want to do its okay.
ii. Abortion? It’s their body. Let them do what they want.
iii. Killing? “It depends, if the person deserves to be killed.”
iv. Homosexuality? “Who are we to say that isn’t true love?”
e. People are drowning in a sea of Moral Relativism.
f. BUT, no matter what, built inside us is knowledge of God. Men just suppress the truth.
2. The Problem: Relativism simply says EVIL does not Exist. How do we prove this?
a. If everything is relative (allowed) then nothing is ultimately wrong. Then nothing can be considered evil!
i. We can only say something is evil if (and only if) we assume that there is GOOD (i.e. absolute truth).
ii. Evil = the opposite of Good (aka. Absolute Moral Truth).
iii. You cannot have evil without having Good!
iv. All in all, Evil is simply a departure from the way things ought to be.
b. NOTE: If there is no Standard (way things should be), then there can be no departure; and thus no EVIL.
i. C.S. Lewis: “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I gotten his idea of just and unjust? A man does not call something crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line” (Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 31).
ii. If relativists believe there is no standard; no absolutes.
iii. Then, they can’t complain about evil.
CASE IN POINT: That’s like someone complaining about crooked lines but doesn’t believe in straight lines either.
c. AGAIN: The problem of evil argument is based on the existence of evil, which is an absolute!
i. The phrase, “evil exists” is an absolute.
ii. For evil to exists, then there MUST be things that are ABSOLUTELY wrong.
iii. These departures from good are called EVIL.
d. But REMEMBER the problem with Relativism: Everything is subjective (i.e. it depends on the SUBJECT). Imagine how silly this conversation would sound:
“I can’t believe in God!” -- “Why not?” -- “Kim-Chee!” -- “Kim-Chee? What does Kim-Chee have to do with anything!?”
“I hate Kim-Chee! and I can’t believe that an all loving God would create something I hate so much. I almost die when my
workmates open their Tupperware’s full of kim-Chee.”
e. The PROBLEM with relativism is seen in this translation:
“How could a good God allow things that make me mad or sad exist? If it offends me then God should not allow it!!!!!!!!”
f. Relativism is completely self-centered! It’s all about YOU and what makes YOU mad/sad/angry.
3. Relativism and the problem caused by objective evil are strange bedfellows. They couldn’t possibly both be true at the same time.
a. If morality is ultimately a matter of personal tastes (like preferring a snickers over Kim-Chee)
b. Then the objection vanishes, because the objection depends on the fact that some things are absolutely evil.
c. But, If there’s no absolute right or wrong then there is no evil, and how can we hold God responsible for something that doesn’t exists?
d. A relativist can’t complain about the problem of evil because there is no EVIL to create a problem.
i. There is no Right, and therefore no wrong.
ii. To complain about it is nonsense.
iii. You can’t have both feet firmly planted in mid air.
4. However, if you can complain about evil (because true evil does exist), then you can’t be an atheist. Real evil must mean there’s a real Good and a real God.
a. If there is no God, there’s no perfect standard, no absolute right or wrong, and therefore no departure from that standard.
b. If there is no God, then, there is no evil, and we’re back to personal likes and dislikes again (relativism).
5. How do we know what’s ABSOLUTELY(intrinsically) evil?
a. God is the one to define it!
b. Our standards are too subjective because the truth is we just care about ourselves!
i. Everyone thinks he’s basically a good person (ROLL PLAY).
ii. “I’m a good person. At least I’m not like HIM; he doesn’t go to Church…”
c. You may not be a Hitler, but you’re’ not a Jesus Christ either, and you’re probably a lot more like Hitler than you are like Jesus.
d. If God defines evil, it involves a lot more than kill, steal and destroy.
6. So we face an ironic situation: The problem of evil only exists if a personal, moral God exists.
a. This is why the existence of evil is one of the best evidences for the existence of God, not against it.
b. Once cannot even BEGIN the debate if there is no God.
i. There will be no true evil to discuss, just OPINIONS.
ii. Pluralistic Lady Story:
“people should worship God however they want.”
Philistines worshiped Molech by baby sacrifice
(lev. 18:21- don’t sacrifice your child to Molech!)
c. The alternative if God doesn’t exist?
i. Everything becomes relative.
ii. No right or wrong, and you do what you want.
iii. Problem: that will be chaotic.
SO FIRST, evil is something. If it’s real, it must be grounded in an objective, personal, moral standard of Good. Therefore, God exists.
1. Second Point: Evil is Not Some Thing.
a. Evil is not “stuff.”
b. Evil isn’t a blob of “stuff” crawling around infecting the universe.
c. It isn’t something that gets into to a man, forcing him to do bad.
d. We can’t put it in a piety dish and observe it.
2. It IS an unnatural or improper use of things (that are not evil in themselves).
a. Illustration: A Knife and a Human Body.
i. Are either items evil? No.
ii. The knife starts cutting up the Human. Is the knife then evil?
iii. What if there is a surgeon behind the knife? Is it evil?
b. What is the point of the illustration?
i. Evil didn’t need to be created. It is not a substance!
ii. Therefore, God did not create it!
3. Evil is a word that describes the condition of something missing, a privation (Augusting, Thomas Aquinas).
a. Doughnut holes and shadows are not things in themselves, but things missing.
i. Evil is a “hole” in goodness, a “shadow” that results when goodness is missing.
ii. “Sin” (Gk. Hamartia) refers to a target that was missed!
b. THE POINT: If evil isn’t some thing, then it wasn’t created.
Transition: Since the attack here is on the God of the Bible, let’s let Him answer for Himself.
Read the first three chapters and the last three chapters of the Bible to find the issue described, explained, and resolved.
So evil is something, but It’s not some thing.
What does the Bible say about where it came from?
1. THIRD POINT: Evil Is an Intruder, Brought by Man, Not God.
a. It was not something created by God.
i. Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that He had made and it was very good.”
ii. Genesis 1 uses the word “good” seven times to describe the world that God made.
b. Evil is a description of what happened when man refused God’s leadership.
i. It is a condition that resulted from man’s choice to disobey God.
1. Genesis 2:15-17 “You must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
2. Genesis 3:17 “Because you…ate from the tree…cursed is the ground because of you.”
ii. Adam chose to disobey. That infers that man has free will.
iii. The first Adam Failed! Now the whole world is born in sin.
c. We live in a world that WE messed up, and a messed up world produces messed people and messed situations.
i. What does the Bible say?
1. Romans 5:12 “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.”
2. Jeremiah 17:9 “The hear is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
d. The point: Evil is an intruder. THE WORLD WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE MESSED UP!
And it’s man’s fault, not God’s.
1. POINT FOUR: Evil exists because man is FREE to Choose.
a. If man has the choice between right and wrong, someone, sometime, will definitely choose evil; it is inevitable.
b. Back to the Problem of Evil
i. Review The Argument
ii. Critique the Argument
c. Two Hidden Assumptions
i. if God is all powerful than He can create any world He wishes.
ii. if God is all good, than He would prefer a world without evil over a world with evil.
d. ASSUMPTION 1: The objector reasons that since God is all-powerful He could create a world containing free creatures who always choose to do what is right or morally good.
i. Such a world would be an evil-free world.
ii. By the same token, since He is all-powerful He could also create a world where no natural evil/suffering exists. It would be a world free of all pain and suffering.
(VIDEO- QUIZZNOS COMMERCIAL) → God cannot create a world where we are free to always choose Good.
e. ASSUMPTION 2: he would prefer such a world over one that is affected with evil. If God had the choice of allowing a perfect world or a world with evil, they believe in his all-goodness/lovingness he would prefer the perfect one otherwise He himself would be evil.
(Illustration- Picture of PENUEL on Ramp) → God may have good reasons for allowing us to experience pain/suffering now.
f. The problem with the “Problem of Evil” is the two assumptions mentioned above:
i. they are simply not necessarily true.
ii. It is simply not necessarily true that God’s omnipotence entails that He could create any world He wishes,
iii. nor is it necessarily true that his omnibenevolence entails that He would prefer a world with no evil in it.
g. Omnipotence does not mean that he has the power to contradict himself.
i. God’s omnipotence does not mean He has the power to bring about logical contradictions.
ii. He could not create a round square, make 1+1=3, or makes something true and not true at the same time and in the same context.
iii. Thus, he could not create a world where he makes people always do good and be loving at the same time. Dictatorship is not love.
h. The point is that God cannot create a world where people freely choose to always do good.
i. If people are truly free, then not even God could make them choose good; they must be allowed the possibility of choosing to do wrong even though others might suffer because of it.
ii. So in a sense, God creates the person who has free will and stands back when that person wants to deviate from His ways.
i. In sum, the notion of a world where people always choose to freely do good is contradictory.
i. If they were truly free, then over time, it would probably be the case that eventually some time down the timeline that one individual would deviate from God’s ways and freely choose to do evil.
ii. The only way God could prevent this would be to take away that individual free will or to force them to choose good.
j. Conclusion: On those grounds alone, the argument of the logical problem of evil becomes invalid.
TRANSITION: Now we believers may be sitting there thinking, that’s nice, but why would God allow ME (a lover God) to suffer? I know man has free will, but why would God allow me (a good Christian) to suffer?
I. Possibilities (DOGS → Discipline | Others | God | Self
a. The choice is ours: We can do one of 2things:
i. React in PRIDE:
1. I must be doing something wrong.
2. No. Why doe it have to be YOU?
3. God may just be trying to get your attention.
4. Other considerations
a. Resist the temptation to FIX yourself.
b. Resist the temptation to react.
ii. Respond in HUMILITY:
1. Listen for God’s voice: “I’m going to let you experience what’s really goin on! [To let you see who you really are].
2. Pause: “Okay Lord. You have my attention.”
3. Reflect: This is an invitation to dialogue with God. Maybe God is trying to get your attention.
a. Read Wikipedia Article: Virginia Tech Massacre.
b. It’s times like this where we can’t help but ask, “What is the World coming to?”
c. And every time something bad happens in the world you can always count on one thing: People (especially anti-religious) will come to you with a myriad of questions expecting you to answer their questions.
d. They raise a real issue: THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.
i. It’s the #1 Question in response to tragedy: “How could a loving God allow this to happen?” What would you say?
ii. Albert Einstein: This was Einstein’s objection to the existence of the God of the Bible. His scientific discoveries convinced him that there must be a God, but he opted for an impersonal account of God because of the problem of evil.
iii. C.S. Lewis: Famous Christian writer (Chronicles of Narnia) Got married late in life (55) and a couple years into the marriage lost his wife. He didn’t question the existence of God, but His character.
2. Expose Need:
a. Not only do we need to be ready to give a reason (1 Peter 3:15) for the hope that we have as Believers, but we also need to take advantage of unfortunate events like this and use them to point people to the truth.
i. When Peter wrote his epistle, he was talking to believers who were suffering for doing good. The punch line was for them to “set apart Christ as lord and always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in them.”
ii. We can apply this to ourselves when we address unbelievers and critics: Set apart Christ in us and give a reason for our hope!
b. And we need to realize that situations like this don’t really prove that God doesn’t exist anyways!
i. First, situations like this actually prove God exists and that the Bible is true and…
ii. Second, situations like this show us how much people really need to admit that they need God and stop suppressing the truth (Romans 1).
c. But, then again, there is no easy way to address the Problem of Evil.
i. You can’t offer a quick fix (30 sec rebuttal)
ii. It’s also raised in the midst of some crazy catastrophe.
d. We can’t even begin to calculate all the evil, pain and suffering that mankind has experienced.
3. Orient to Message/Big Idea:
a. The Problem of Evil goes like this:
i. If God is all powerful and all loving, then why would he allow so much suffering and evil in the world?
ii. He is either all powerful, but not all loving or he is all loving, but not all powerful.
iii. He either CAN’t destroy evil or he DOESN’t Care.
iv. Or, maybe there is no such thing as God and the fact that Evil exists is proof.
b. And to make the Problem of Evil more difficult, it also refers to NATURAL EVIL.
i. Nature: Floods, Earthquakes, tornados
ii. Diseases: Cancer, small pox
iii. Developmental Disability: Autism, Downs Syndrome
iv. Accidents/injuries: Being burned, drowining, falling.
v. Note: Sometimes natural and moral evil are combined. In Ethiopia, thousands of people are starving to death, but it was cauased by the political leaders who were using food as a political weapon against the resistance.
c. Remember that this is the #1 Argument for Atheism and it’s not even that good. Keep these thing in mind:
i. There is a perfectly good explanation why God allows evil.
ii. It’s because of his Love and Goodness that he allows it.
iii. In fact, Evil in this life is part of the Master plan. W/o it the plan doesn’t make sense. It plays a part.
TRANSISTION: We’re going to use our time to learn how to respond to THAT question, but first, we must lay out some ground rules. It will challenge your thinking. This is how church should be.
1. First Point: Evil Is Something. Evil Exists. It’s Real.
a. Some believe in RELATIVISM. That is, they believe everything is RELATIVE.
b. How can we know if somebody is a relativist?
i. What’s right for you isn’t right for me.”
ii. You can’t legislate morality!” But, the law IS morality! (Don’t kill, steal or destroy).
c. Relativism is SELF-refuting!
i. IF THEY SAY: “I don’t believe in moral absolutes. What’s right for you is right for you, etc…”
ii. ASK: “are you absolutely sure?”
iii. THEN: Take his car keys and he’ll start believing in Absolutes real quick.
d. Examples of moral relativism and the notion of “Tolerance.”
i. Premarital relations? If that’s what they want to do its okay.
ii. Abortion? It’s their body. Let them do what they want.
iii. Killing? “It depends, if the person deserves to be killed.”
iv. Homosexuality? “Who are we to say that isn’t true love?”
e. People are drowning in a sea of Moral Relativism.
f. BUT, no matter what, built inside us is knowledge of God. Men just suppress the truth.
2. The Problem: Relativism simply says EVIL does not Exist. How do we prove this?
a. If everything is relative (allowed) then nothing is ultimately wrong. Then nothing can be considered evil!
i. We can only say something is evil if (and only if) we assume that there is GOOD (i.e. absolute truth).
ii. Evil = the opposite of Good (aka. Absolute Moral Truth).
iii. You cannot have evil without having Good!
iv. All in all, Evil is simply a departure from the way things ought to be.
b. NOTE: If there is no Standard (way things should be), then there can be no departure; and thus no EVIL.
i. C.S. Lewis: “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I gotten his idea of just and unjust? A man does not call something crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line” (Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 31).
ii. If relativists believe there is no standard; no absolutes.
iii. Then, they can’t complain about evil.
CASE IN POINT: That’s like someone complaining about crooked lines but doesn’t believe in straight lines either.
c. AGAIN: The problem of evil argument is based on the existence of evil, which is an absolute!
i. The phrase, “evil exists” is an absolute.
ii. For evil to exists, then there MUST be things that are ABSOLUTELY wrong.
iii. These departures from good are called EVIL.
d. But REMEMBER the problem with Relativism: Everything is subjective (i.e. it depends on the SUBJECT). Imagine how silly this conversation would sound:
“I can’t believe in God!” -- “Why not?” -- “Kim-Chee!” -- “Kim-Chee? What does Kim-Chee have to do with anything!?”
“I hate Kim-Chee! and I can’t believe that an all loving God would create something I hate so much. I almost die when my
workmates open their Tupperware’s full of kim-Chee.”
e. The PROBLEM with relativism is seen in this translation:
“How could a good God allow things that make me mad or sad exist? If it offends me then God should not allow it!!!!!!!!”
f. Relativism is completely self-centered! It’s all about YOU and what makes YOU mad/sad/angry.
3. Relativism and the problem caused by objective evil are strange bedfellows. They couldn’t possibly both be true at the same time.
a. If morality is ultimately a matter of personal tastes (like preferring a snickers over Kim-Chee)
b. Then the objection vanishes, because the objection depends on the fact that some things are absolutely evil.
c. But, If there’s no absolute right or wrong then there is no evil, and how can we hold God responsible for something that doesn’t exists?
d. A relativist can’t complain about the problem of evil because there is no EVIL to create a problem.
i. There is no Right, and therefore no wrong.
ii. To complain about it is nonsense.
iii. You can’t have both feet firmly planted in mid air.
4. However, if you can complain about evil (because true evil does exist), then you can’t be an atheist. Real evil must mean there’s a real Good and a real God.
a. If there is no God, there’s no perfect standard, no absolute right or wrong, and therefore no departure from that standard.
b. If there is no God, then, there is no evil, and we’re back to personal likes and dislikes again (relativism).
5. How do we know what’s ABSOLUTELY(intrinsically) evil?
a. God is the one to define it!
b. Our standards are too subjective because the truth is we just care about ourselves!
i. Everyone thinks he’s basically a good person (ROLL PLAY).
ii. “I’m a good person. At least I’m not like HIM; he doesn’t go to Church…”
c. You may not be a Hitler, but you’re’ not a Jesus Christ either, and you’re probably a lot more like Hitler than you are like Jesus.
d. If God defines evil, it involves a lot more than kill, steal and destroy.
6. So we face an ironic situation: The problem of evil only exists if a personal, moral God exists.
a. This is why the existence of evil is one of the best evidences for the existence of God, not against it.
b. Once cannot even BEGIN the debate if there is no God.
i. There will be no true evil to discuss, just OPINIONS.
ii. Pluralistic Lady Story:
“people should worship God however they want.”
Philistines worshiped Molech by baby sacrifice
(lev. 18:21- don’t sacrifice your child to Molech!)
c. The alternative if God doesn’t exist?
i. Everything becomes relative.
ii. No right or wrong, and you do what you want.
iii. Problem: that will be chaotic.
SO FIRST, evil is something. If it’s real, it must be grounded in an objective, personal, moral standard of Good. Therefore, God exists.
1. Second Point: Evil is Not Some Thing.
a. Evil is not “stuff.”
b. Evil isn’t a blob of “stuff” crawling around infecting the universe.
c. It isn’t something that gets into to a man, forcing him to do bad.
d. We can’t put it in a piety dish and observe it.
2. It IS an unnatural or improper use of things (that are not evil in themselves).
a. Illustration: A Knife and a Human Body.
i. Are either items evil? No.
ii. The knife starts cutting up the Human. Is the knife then evil?
iii. What if there is a surgeon behind the knife? Is it evil?
b. What is the point of the illustration?
i. Evil didn’t need to be created. It is not a substance!
ii. Therefore, God did not create it!
3. Evil is a word that describes the condition of something missing, a privation (Augusting, Thomas Aquinas).
a. Doughnut holes and shadows are not things in themselves, but things missing.
i. Evil is a “hole” in goodness, a “shadow” that results when goodness is missing.
ii. “Sin” (Gk. Hamartia) refers to a target that was missed!
b. THE POINT: If evil isn’t some thing, then it wasn’t created.
Transition: Since the attack here is on the God of the Bible, let’s let Him answer for Himself.
Read the first three chapters and the last three chapters of the Bible to find the issue described, explained, and resolved.
So evil is something, but It’s not some thing.
What does the Bible say about where it came from?
1. THIRD POINT: Evil Is an Intruder, Brought by Man, Not God.
a. It was not something created by God.
i. Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that He had made and it was very good.”
ii. Genesis 1 uses the word “good” seven times to describe the world that God made.
b. Evil is a description of what happened when man refused God’s leadership.
i. It is a condition that resulted from man’s choice to disobey God.
1. Genesis 2:15-17 “You must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
2. Genesis 3:17 “Because you…ate from the tree…cursed is the ground because of you.”
ii. Adam chose to disobey. That infers that man has free will.
iii. The first Adam Failed! Now the whole world is born in sin.
c. We live in a world that WE messed up, and a messed up world produces messed people and messed situations.
i. What does the Bible say?
1. Romans 5:12 “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.”
2. Jeremiah 17:9 “The hear is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
d. The point: Evil is an intruder. THE WORLD WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE MESSED UP!
And it’s man’s fault, not God’s.
1. POINT FOUR: Evil exists because man is FREE to Choose.
a. If man has the choice between right and wrong, someone, sometime, will definitely choose evil; it is inevitable.
b. Back to the Problem of Evil
i. Review The Argument
ii. Critique the Argument
c. Two Hidden Assumptions
i. if God is all powerful than He can create any world He wishes.
ii. if God is all good, than He would prefer a world without evil over a world with evil.
d. ASSUMPTION 1: The objector reasons that since God is all-powerful He could create a world containing free creatures who always choose to do what is right or morally good.
i. Such a world would be an evil-free world.
ii. By the same token, since He is all-powerful He could also create a world where no natural evil/suffering exists. It would be a world free of all pain and suffering.
(VIDEO- QUIZZNOS COMMERCIAL) → God cannot create a world where we are free to always choose Good.
e. ASSUMPTION 2: he would prefer such a world over one that is affected with evil. If God had the choice of allowing a perfect world or a world with evil, they believe in his all-goodness/lovingness he would prefer the perfect one otherwise He himself would be evil.
(Illustration- Picture of PENUEL on Ramp) → God may have good reasons for allowing us to experience pain/suffering now.
f. The problem with the “Problem of Evil” is the two assumptions mentioned above:
i. they are simply not necessarily true.
ii. It is simply not necessarily true that God’s omnipotence entails that He could create any world He wishes,
iii. nor is it necessarily true that his omnibenevolence entails that He would prefer a world with no evil in it.
g. Omnipotence does not mean that he has the power to contradict himself.
i. God’s omnipotence does not mean He has the power to bring about logical contradictions.
ii. He could not create a round square, make 1+1=3, or makes something true and not true at the same time and in the same context.
iii. Thus, he could not create a world where he makes people always do good and be loving at the same time. Dictatorship is not love.
h. The point is that God cannot create a world where people freely choose to always do good.
i. If people are truly free, then not even God could make them choose good; they must be allowed the possibility of choosing to do wrong even though others might suffer because of it.
ii. So in a sense, God creates the person who has free will and stands back when that person wants to deviate from His ways.
i. In sum, the notion of a world where people always choose to freely do good is contradictory.
i. If they were truly free, then over time, it would probably be the case that eventually some time down the timeline that one individual would deviate from God’s ways and freely choose to do evil.
ii. The only way God could prevent this would be to take away that individual free will or to force them to choose good.
j. Conclusion: On those grounds alone, the argument of the logical problem of evil becomes invalid.
TRANSITION: Now we believers may be sitting there thinking, that’s nice, but why would God allow ME (a lover God) to suffer? I know man has free will, but why would God allow me (a good Christian) to suffer?
I. Possibilities (DOGS → Discipline | Others | God | Self
a. The choice is ours: We can do one of 2things:
i. React in PRIDE:
1. I must be doing something wrong.
2. No. Why doe it have to be YOU?
3. God may just be trying to get your attention.
4. Other considerations
a. Resist the temptation to FIX yourself.
b. Resist the temptation to react.
ii. Respond in HUMILITY:
1. Listen for God’s voice: “I’m going to let you experience what’s really goin on! [To let you see who you really are].
2. Pause: “Okay Lord. You have my attention.”
3. Reflect: This is an invitation to dialogue with God. Maybe God is trying to get your attention.
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