3. The Problem of Evil and Theodicy

Watch this lesson on YouTube, or listen to it here.

Access the slide deck here. 

1) Define the logical problem of evil.

A)   There is an apparent contradiction between the classical attributes of God and the existence of any evil at all in his creation.

B) God is omniscient. He knows everything.

1) This one is often left out of the equation, but it needs to be on the list.

2) One way people sometimes try to “get God out of trouble” is by saying, “God chooses not to know something.”

3) Two things:

(a)   Either God is all knowing or he’s not.

(b)   God does not need us to make excuses for him.

C) God is omnipotent (all-powerful). God can do anything he wants.

D)   God is omnibenevolent. God is all good.

1) Note here that God is the standard of goodness. He is not ruled by a higher standard of goodness that applies to him. Rather, goodness is defined as such because it reflects God’s character.

2) If there were a standard of goodness that God was required to live within, then that would be a higher force than God himself.

3) In other words, God does not do good things. Good things are good because God does them.

4) Pss. 25:8; 34:8; 100:5; 119:68; 145:9

5) Mk. 10:18

E) Evil and suffering exist

F) The alleged problem is that these attributes and evil cannot coexist.

1) If God was all-powerful, then he could destroy and prevent evil and suffering.

(a)   He could destroy evil and suffering.

(i) i.e. If I could remove all suffering from the world—if I had that genuine ability—and yet I chose not to, would that change your opinion of me?

(b)   Ask the question: Could God have created a world without evil and suffering in the first place.

(i) We don’t just need to deal with the face that it exists. We need to deal with the fact that God created it all knowing that it would exist.

(ii)  1 Pet. 1:18-21 – “before the foundation of the world”

(a)   God knew we would be sinners in need of redemption.

(b)   God’s plan for Jesus’ death, the greatest act of evil of all time, was in place before the world (Acts 2:22-23).

(iii)          Eph. 1:3-6

2) If God was all good, then he would destroy and prevent evil and suffering.

(a)   He would destroy evil and suffering.

(b)   Ask the question: Would an all good God have created a world without suffering in the first place?

(c)   e.g. Bart Ehrman

(i) He has been a religious studies teacher of religious studies at UNC-Chapel Hill since 1988.

(ii)  In 2008, he published, “God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer.”

(iii)          “Eventually, though, I felt compelled to leave Christianity altogether. I did not go easily. On the contrary, I left kicking and screaming, wanting desperately to hold on to the faith I had known since childhood and had come to know intimately from my teen-aged years onward. But I came to a point where I could no longer believe. It’s a very long story, but the short version is this: I realized that I could no longer reconcile the claims of faith with the facts of life. In particular, I could no longer explain how there can be a good and all-powerful God actively involved with this world, given the state of things. For many people who inhabit this planet, life is a cesspool of misery and suffering. I came to a point where I simply could not believe that there is a good and kindly disposed Ruler who is in charge of it.”

(iv) “The problem of suffering became for me the problem of faith. After many years of grappling with the problem, trying to explain it, thinking through the explanations that others have offered— some of them pat answers charming for their simplicity, others highly sophisticated and nuanced reflections of serious philosophers and theologians—after thinking about the alleged answers and continuing to wrestle with the problem, about nine or ten years ago I finally admitted defeat, came to realize that I could no longer believe in the God of my tradition, and acknowledged that I was an agnostic: I don’t ‘know’ if there is a God; but I think that if there is one, he certainly isn’t the one proclaimed by the Judeo-Christian tradition, the one who is actively and powerfully involved in this world. And so I stopped going to church.”

(d)   Side note

(i) It’s important to know that if you send you kids to a state school and they take a religious class, this is who’s teaching it.

(ii)  And if you pick up a popular-level book at the library, this is who wrote it.

(iii)          And if you see a “religious expert” being interviewed on the news, this is who they are.

2) What is our goal?

A)   Theodicy is the term used to describe attempts to defend / justify God’s goodness and power in the face of evil.

B) Words

1) theos = God

2) dikē = Justice

3) “The justice / rightness of God”

C) We need to be careful about how we think about this. God doesn’t need anyone to defend him or justify him. He’s God, and we don’t serve him because we like him. We serve him because he’s God.

D)   This class is not about defending God, or justifying God, but trying to understand whatever we can about God whether I like it or accept it or not.

E) Here’s an example of someone who demands that God live up to her standards or righteousness rather than worshiping God for who and what he is: God! (screen shot at the end of these notes)

1)     Here’s the initial post: “I’m not religious, but I know some of y’all are, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d say a quick prayer for my brother - he was in a car accident and is in the hospital. He’s not going to die, but there’s some internal bleeding and his leg is badly broken - he’s in surgery now.

2) Here’s a later comment: “My biggest problem, though? God is unfair, and I feel like fairness is such a basic part of being a decent person that even if I believed that “Bible God” existed, I would refuse to worship him. If you want praise, you have to be praiseworthy, and a deity that allows this much pain to exist while demanding the slavish devotion of his suffering creations, sending them to Hell for eternity if they don’t get it right, doesn’t meet my standards for praiseworthy.”[1]

F) I will worship God regardless of how I feel about the way he works BECAUSE HE IS GOD.

1) Job 1:21

2) Hab. 3:16-18

[1] https://x.com/sappholives83/status/1917581302615716308