Does the Lord simply sit back with folded arms, while he watches the terrible events that take place on earth? Why did he let the Black Death occur in the 14th century AD, wherein some 40 million people died? Why did God permit the European Witch Hunts to occur for about two hundred years during the 16th and 17th centuries AD, wherein over 40000 people were slain? Why did God permit the Transatlantic Slave Trade to occur during the 16th to the mid-19th centuries AD, wherein some 12.5 million Africans were taken as slaves to other countries? Why did God permit the Holocaust to occur during World War II, wherein over 6 million Jews perished in Nazi death camps? If God can foresee all things, before they occur, why does he permit them to occur at all?
What kind of person, if he knows how to do good, would be content to allow evil to occur, instead? Isn’t such a person culpable? If help can be given, but a person restrains his compassion and does nothing, what kind of person is he (cp. James 4:17). What kind of God would restrain his mercy and compassion for the innocent who are so abused, as those mentioned above? In fact, why not take this a step further? Why is there suffering at all? Why is there pain, sickness and death? If God is good, why doesn’t he prevent these things from occurring?
At this point the philosopher Epicurus comes to mind:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Let’s begin with addressing the Lord’s foresight. It seems that folks find it difficult to keep from putting God into his own creation. If he answers prayer, then he must be **in** the universe to do so. If he predicts what will occur, then he must dwell in time etc. These are wrong conceptions about God. We live in time, so God can predict what will occur to us, because we have a past, present and a future. God does not. All things occur in his presence simultaneously. In other words, he has no future. Things occur to us and at the same “time” it occurs to him. He has no past, so after it occurs to us, it is still present with him. So, the terrible tragedies that occurred centuries ago for us, vis-à-vis the Black Death, the European Witch Hunts, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Holocaust and others that could be mentioned, are still present with God.
The idea that, because God can foresee what will occur for us, he is, therefore, culpable, because he did nothing is a misnomer. Have they ended? With us they have, but not with God. He is still aware of their terrible tragedies as though they were still occurring for us. Did he do something about it? If they are no longer occurring, do we conclude he hasn’t acted because immediate miracles weren’t performed to end the Black Death or the Transatlantic Slave Trade tragedy on the first day? What if World War II occurred to end the Holocaust? Does this offend the reader that God used the pain of war to end the pain of the Holocaust? I’m afraid that those of us who accept the philosophy of Epicurus have also adopted his philosophy that pleasure is the chief end of life—chiefly the pleasure of the mind: tranquility, free from pain, disquieting emotions—especially the fear of death.
Why doesn’t God perform miracles to stop such tragedies? Would he be a good parent, if he did? If we didn’t understand the consequences of the evil we do, would keeping the consequences of evil from forcing us to bear our guilt be good parenting? God created a vast and often dangerous place – our universe, and he told us to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” (Genesis 1:28). The Hebrew word for subdue is kabash (H3533) and means to bring it into subjection, conquer it. There is danger here, but we are capable of bringing that danger under our control. The Lord didn’t create a Disneyland, where everything is supposed to be like a plaything that brings joy to children. He created a dangerous place for his children to bring under their control. He has given us freewill, which even he, himself, won’t violate, but men are able to violate the prime directive, if they rebel against their Maker, which they, indeed, have done (Genesis 3). Men do violence to one another, and God brings that to an end by having men solve the problems we’ve created, by having men solve the problems we’ve brought upon ourselves.
This is not to say there aren’t any innocent victims. Many innocents suffer at the hands of men. Violent men bring guilt and violence upon themselves. It is, indeed, difficult to know that the innocent suffer through it all, but men put their heads in the sand decades before bringing Nazi Germany to account for the atrocities they were committing. Yet, we are so willing to blame God for being complacent, while avoiding our own guilt in the matter. How would a good parent address the problem of apathy in his children? How would a good parent cause his children to understand the evil they commit, when they do nothing to prevent evil from occurring? How would a good God show the world that it wallows in guilt (1John 5:19)?
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