Introduction: The Oldest Question
A tsunami kills 230,000 people.
A school shooter murders children on a regular Tuesday.
A drunk driver kills a family.
And you ask: Where is God?
This is the problem of evil—the most powerful argument against God's existence:
If God is all-good, He wants to prevent evil
If God is all-powerful, He can prevent evil
Yet evil exists
Therefore, either God is not all-good, or He's not all-powerful—or He doesn't exist
How do Christians answer this?
Let me show you what Scripture says—not with easy answers, but with truth that holds when everything else falls apart.
What Is Evil?
Evil = that which opposes God's will and harms His creation
Two types of evil:
1. Moral Evil (Human Sin)
Murder
Rape
Theft
Lying
Pride
Caused by: Human free will (we choose to rebel against God and His law)
2. Natural Evil (Suffering from Nature)
Earthquakes
Tsunamis
Cancer
Disease
Death
Caused by: The Fall (Romans 8:20-22)
"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption."
When Adam sinned, creation fell. Nature became broken.
The Biblical Answer: God Is Sovereign Over Evil (But Not the Author of Evil)
Premise 1: God Is Sovereign Over All Things (Including Evil)
"I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)
"Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?" (Amos 3:6)
Nothing happens outside God's sovereign will—not even evil.
"Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one." (James 1:13)
"God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5)
God does not tempt anyone. God does not sin. God is infinitely holy.
Premise 3: God Ordains Evil for a Greater Good
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." (Genesis 50:20)
Joseph's brothers chose to betray him (moral evil). God ordained their choice to save a nation (greater good).
Both are true:
Humans are responsible for evil (they chose it)
God ordained evil to accomplish His purposes (He used it for good)
The Mystery: Concurrence (God's Sovereignty + Human Responsibility)
Scripture teaches:
God ordains everything (including evil)
Humans are responsible for their choices
This is called "compatibilism" or "concurrence."
Example: The Crucifixion
"This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." (Acts 2:23)
God predestined the crucifixion (definite plan)
Humans are guilty for killing Jesus (lawless men)
God's sovereignty doesn't erase human guilt. Both are true.
Why Does God Allow Evil? 5 Biblical Reasons
Reason 1: To Display His Glory (Justice and Mercy)
"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory?" (Romans 9:22-23)
God allows evil to display:
His justice (wrath against sin)
His mercy (salvation for sinners)
Without evil:
No need for justice (nothing to punish)
No need for mercy (nothing to forgive)
No cross (no sin to atone for)
The existence of evil magnifies God's glory.
"All of Redemptive History is a collection of Attributes God has choses to display about Himself to Humanity, and through Humanity, to all creation. All of what has happened and will happen, is God revealing who He is."
Reason 2: To Accomplish Greater Goods
God uses evil to bring about goods that wouldn't exist without evil.
Example 1: Joseph
Joseph's suffering (slavery, false accusation, imprisonment) led to:
Saving Egypt from famine
Saving Israel from extinction
Positioning the Israelites in Egypt (for the Exodus)
Creating a Type and Shadow of who the Messiah will be: rejected by his brothers, unjustly punished, raised by God, revealed to his brothers at last for their salvation, and the salvation of the Gentiles. Even the taking of a gentile bride is pictorially connected to the Messiah and his bride.
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good." (Genesis 50:20)
Example 2: The Cross
The crucifixion (the worst evil in history) led to:
Atonement for sin
Salvation for billions
The ultimate demonstration of God's love
"Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood... to show his righteousness." (Romans 3:25)
Without evil (the crucifixion), there's no salvation.
Reason 3: To Demonstrate Human Free Will
God created humans with the capacity to choose:
Love or hate
Obey or rebel
Good or evil
Why?
Because love requires freedom.
If God forced everyone to love Him, it wouldn't be love—it would be programming.
But freedom means the possibility of evil.
"And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve." (Joshua 24:15)
God values genuine love over forced obedience.
Reason 4: To Refine His People
"In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Evil and suffering refine faith like fire refines gold.
Without trials:
No perseverance (James 1:3)
No character (Romans 5:3-4)
No dependence on God (2 Corinthians 12:9)
God uses evil to make you more like Christ. This is the process of Sanctification, where God allows all circumstances you encounter to produce a sanctifying work in your spirit.
Reason 5: To Ultimately Defeat Evil (And Magnify His Victory)
"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." (1 John 3:8)
God didn't just prevent evil. He entered into it—and defeated it.
At the cross:
Sin was punished
Death was defeated
Satan was crushed
"He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him." (Colossians 2:15)
God's victory over evil is greater because He defeated it from within.
In the Garden, the serpent tempts by challenging God's authority in their hearts. That's the very essence of Sin, who holds the ultimate authority in the universe, and ground zero is the human heart of Adam and Eve. Because even there, even in the heart, there is only one throne, and man chose to sit in it.
I taught my wife this way: How do you define any and every sin? They all have one thing in common: It's a heart telling God, "Not You but me!"
In the throne of your heart, who sits? Every sin, every sinner, will always, directly or indirectly, say to God, "You don't sit here, I do. You stand."
And that turns the created order upside down. By God creating, He holds forever the supreme authority over all of His creation. Nothing, anywhere, can challenge His authority and get away with it. To do so would be a violation of His character and nature.
So God's victory over Sin must start where it started. In the human heart. And salvation effectively becomes the walking back of that first sin. It’s when the heart says:
"Not me, but You!"
"You sit on the throne of my Heart." This is what declaring Jesus as Lord is. That's where it starts.
All of the cross, all of the evil done to the Lord, is to allow that change in the heart. And it does not happen otherwise.
How is Satan defeated? When Evil no longer rules who gets to sit on that throne. When we do not become afraid of whatever evil may come on us, Jesus still sits on the throne of my heart. At that moment, Evil is powerless and has lost its effect. Sure, we suffer, but we were always going to suffer something; pain will not make us move the Lord from his rightful chair.
The Ultimate Answer: God Suffers With You
God doesn't watch evil from a distance. He enters into it.
Jesus Experienced Every Form of Evil
Betrayal (Judas—Matthew 26:48-49)
Injustice (false trial—Matthew 26:59-60)
Physical torture (crucifixion—Matthew 27:26-35)
Abandonment (disciples fled—Matthew 26:56)
Spiritual separation ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"—Matthew 27:46)
Jesus didn't suffer to understand you. He already understood.
Jesus suffered to save you—and to show you He's with you in evil.
"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)
You don't have a distant God who watches evil.
You have a God who descended into evil—and conquered it.
Common Objections
Objection #1: "If God is good, He should prevent all evil."
Response: If God prevented all evil, He would have to eliminate free will. If God prevented evil, you would never know Him. You would be too focused on your own self-pleasure and pursuits to care about Him.
And without free will:
No genuine love
No moral responsibility
No meaningful relationships
God values freedom (and the love it produces) over the absence of evil.
Objection #2: "Why doesn't God stop tsunamis and cancer? Those aren't caused by free will."
Response: Natural evil is a result of the Fall (Romans 8:20-22).
When Adam sinned:
Spiritual death entered (separation from God)
Physical death entered (our bodies decay)
Natural death entered (creation groans)
God still uses those things for his purposes.
When my father-in-law was living with Stage 4 Lung Cancer, we were almost every day at the Cancer Institute in Miami. The hardest moments are seeing the children with cancer, bald, in wheelchairs, waiting for their infusions. It tore all of us up. My father-in-law and I looked at each other with the look that says, "I'd take that from them in a heartbeat if we could."
Now, imagine the parents? How must they be feeling? I can understand enough to say that God even chooses those situations, to press the parents to absolute desperation, and call it good if it makes those parents (or family members) cry out to Him.
Sometimes the worst pain is not what happens to you, but what happens to those you love, and you can't do anything about it. It reminds you of your reality: you are powerless, you are desperate, this life is ultimately disappointing in one way or another, and you need a savior.
Those moments...are really good reminders of your predicament. They're God's object lessons.
"For the creation was subjected to futility... in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption." (Romans 8:20-21)
Natural evil is temporary. One day, God will restore creation:
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away." (Revelation 21:1)
Objection #3: "I can't worship a God who allows children to suffer."
Response: God allowed His own Son to suffer—and that suffering saved you.
If you reject God because He allows suffering, you must also reject the cross.
But the cross is where God answered evil:
He didn't ignore it (He punished it—on Jesus)
He didn't prevent it (He used it—for salvation)
He didn't watch from afar (He entered it—and conquered it)
The cross is God's answer to evil.
Consider the cost. This was the only way. Jesus prayed for an alternative. There was none. Either this, or eternal Hell for all of us.
The Cross acts like a giant mirror on all of humanity. This, this, is what it cost to save you. This is how much it cost to wash your sins. This is how ugly and vile they are. The more you look at the cross, and who was on it, the clearer that picture becomes.
Objection #4: "This is just theological manipulation. You're excusing evil to protect God."
Response: I'm not excusing evil. Evil is real, horrific, and destructive.
But I'm pointing to what Scripture reveals:
God is sovereign over evil (nothing happens outside His will)
God is not the author of evil (humans choose sin)
God uses evil for good (Genesis 50:20, Romans 8:28)
God will destroy evil (Revelation 21:4)
You can reject this. But the alternative is worse:
Evil is random (no purpose)
God is powerless (can't stop it)
There's no hope (evil might win)
Scripture offers hope: God is in control, evil serves His purposes, and one day He'll destroy it.
What the Existence of Evil Proves
Atheists say: "Evil disproves God."
But consider:
If God Doesn't Exist, Evil Doesn't Exist
If there's no God:
There's no objective morality (right and wrong are just opinions)
There's no objective evil (murder is just your preference against someone else's preference)
There's no injustice (just chemical reactions in skulls)
You can't trust your thoughts (they're atoms firing at random in your brain)
Atheism can't account for evil. It can only be called "unpleasant."
But we know evil is real—objectively wrong, not just unpleasant.
The fact that evil exists proves:
Objective morality exists (some things are truly wrong)
A moral lawgiver exists (God defines right and wrong)
Evil is a deviation from God's design (not just personal preference)
You can't argue against God using evil—because evil only makes sense if God exists.
The Hope: One Day, Evil Will Be Destroyed
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Revelation 21:4)
One day:
No more cancer
No more murder
No more tsunamis
No more sin
No more death
Evil is temporary. God's victory is eternal.
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away." (Revelation 21:1)
God will not just fix creation. He will make it new.
What to Do in the Meantime
1. Trust God's Character (Even When You Don't Understand His Ways)
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD." (Isaiah 55:8)
You don't need to understand why. You need to trust who.
2. Remember the Cross (God's Ultimate Answer to Evil)
The cross proves:
God takes evil seriously (He punished it)
God doesn't ignore suffering (He entered it)
God will destroy evil (He conquered it)
"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." (1 John 3:8)
3. Cling to God's Promises
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good." (Romans 8:28)
"The LORD is near to the brokenhearted." (Psalm 34:18)
"He will wipe away every tear." (Revelation 21:4)
4. Fight Evil (Don't Be Passive)
"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:21)
Christians should:
Oppose injustice
Care for the suffering
Proclaim the gospel (the ultimate defeat of evil)
We're not fatalists. We're soldiers fighting evil in God's strength.
Final Thought
How can a good God allow evil?
Because:
God is sovereign over evil (uses it for good)
God is not the author of evil (humans choose sin)
God entered into evil (Jesus suffered with us)
God defeated evil (the cross conquered sin and death)
God will destroy evil (Revelation 21:4)
Evil is real. But it's not ultimate.
God is ultimate. And He's already won.
"O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55)
Death has been defeated. Evil has been conquered.
And one day, you'll see it.
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If the problem of evil interests you, you'll also want to explore:
"Why Does God Allow Suffering?" → 5 biblical reasons
"How Can God Be Loving and Allow Suffering?" → Justice, love, and the cross
"Is God Sovereign Over Everything?" → God's control over evil
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