The Problem of Evil - Conclusion
In my last post, I looked at the “external” version of the problem of evil and also showed how the problem of evil actually implies God’s existence.
If I have satisfactorily answered the objections to the existence of God on the basis of evil in the world from a philosophical perspective, this may be of little comfort to the individual enduring great suffering in life. This we call the emotional, or existential, problem of evil. Ronald Nash points to two books written by the great Christian writer, C. S. Lewis as illustrative of the differences between the philosophical, or theoretical approach, and the emotional approach to the problem of evil. Lewis wrote The Problem of Pain to address the theoretical problem of evil. After his wife, Joy Gresham, succumbed to her battle with cancer, he wrote A Grief Observed. These books demonstrate how each approach differs. While undergoing suffering, one may have little interest in philosophical arguments, but instead needs comfort. This comfort may come in the form of silent support and friendship or from Christian teachings which portray God, not as a distant or impersonal force, but as a loving Father who cares for us. The Christian God, in fact, entered into this world in Christ’s human body and bore the sufferings of sins of all humanity. Indeed, it is only the existence of God that makes any suffering bearable. If God does not exist, one’s suffering is meaningless. God himself, therefore, is the solution to the problem of evil.
The Christian worldview, it seems, provides the only answer to the problem of evil or even provides a framework within which to even speak of the problem of evil. The problem of evil for the atheist or the naturalist is that he really cannot speak of evil as a moral entity. Furthermore, he has a problem of good in that he cannot speak intelligently of good in the world. Naturalistic and atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell well described the world from the naturalistic foundation:
Brief and powerless is Man’s life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way.
He further describes the world from a naturalistic perspective:
That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of the unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
The Christian worldview makes sense of both good and evil. The atheistic one does neither.
The classic story for the examination of the problem of evil is the story of Job in the Old Testament. Job, after enduring intense suffering, encountered the God who had allowed the many evils to transpire in his life. Here is the story as told in Job 42:1-6 (Holman Christian Standard Bible):
Then Job replied to the LORD: I know that You can do anything and no plan of Yours can be thwarted.
[You asked,] “Who is this who conceals [My] counsel with ignorance?”
Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
[You said,] “Listen now, and I will speak. When I question you, you will inform Me.”
I had heard rumors about You, but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I take back [my words] and repent in dust and ashes.
In conclusion, I repeat that which was stated earlier: God is the ultimate answer for the problem of evil. When Job encountered God, he took back his words, realizing both his smallness and finitude and God’s greatness and infinitude.