Many think that the existence of evil disproves God’s existence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Evil is a real problem we must wrestle with, but it argues for God’s existence, not against it.
For evil to be a problem, evil has to be real – not just an expression of human desires, preferences, or opinions. Evil is the absence of good, so for evil to be real, an objective standard of goodness must exist that transcends human beings.
What is the source for that standard? God. He is the Good, and we recognize good because we are made in His image.
Besides, denying God’s existence because evil exists does nothing to solve the problem of evil. Only if God exists can we have hope that evil will be overcome and those who commit evil face true justice for their moral crimes.
Thinking to Believe 
March 22, 2016 at 3:58 am
All that there is, according to the creationist, is created by God and that necessarily means evil.
It is impossible for the Omnipotent not to be responsible for the cause of its own effect. It is ludicrous for the believer to try and blame evil on anything other than the creator.
How does the creationist explain the food chain cycle of all living creatures? One creature created to be the food of another creature?, which itself is the food of another creature? and so on and so forth?
Is man himself not food for the parasite, virus, bacteria. pathogen and goodness forbid, shark and piranha. lion and tiger, bed bug, flea and mosquito, the lice, the mite and things that fly by night.
Where the body is there will the vulture gather.
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March 23, 2016 at 3:56 pm
Atheists consider the existence of evil their strongest argument. They seem to have a good point, but the existence of evil, as you say Jason, only accentuates that there is a difference between good and evil – and that means there is a God.
That evil exists is an argument, and a good one, that God is either not omnipotent, not omniscient or not all good. We Christians believe He is all three. Most Christians have never worried about this apparent contradiction to our core beliefs, even though it is extremely important.
The correct solution, as I see it, is difficult to understand, though there is a completely coherent and logical solution. As I have said before on this site, anyone seriously interested in this could read Alvin Plantinga.
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March 24, 2016 at 12:12 am
Revelator, you do not understand the Christian view of evil. Evil is understood as a privation, not a positive reality. It is like darkness. Darkness is not a positive reality in itself, but merely the absence of light. The same is true of evil. It is the absence of goodness.
Jason
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March 24, 2016 at 12:24 am
Randy, I’m not understanding. On the one hand you recognize that real evil requires a real God (and thus the problem of evil, though emotionally difficult to deal with, is evidence for God’s existence), but on the other you say it’s a good argument against a theistic god who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. But think about it for a moment. The reason evil is evidence for God is because God has to be the standard of goodness. That means the argument from evil cannot be reason to question God’s omnibenevolent nature, for if God were not omnibenevolent, then He could not be the transcendent standard of goodness. It’s precisely this perfection that makes Him that standard.
Another reason God’s goodness is not necessarily contradicted by evil is the fact that God could have a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil. It could plausibly serve some greater good (such as in the soul-making theodicies, or allowing for the possibility of loving relationships).
As for omnipotence and omniscience, in principle evil can call these attributes into question. But again, I don’t think the challenge is that serious. Let’s take God’s omnipotence. So long as it is possible that God created humans with freedom of the will because freedom is necessary for loving relationships, and He created us to be in a loving relationship with us, then evil does not call God’s power into question because no amount of power can do the logically contradictory, and it is logically contradictory to make free agents choose the good. If one is forced to choose X, then one is not free. Thinking that God’s power can make free creatures choose the good is like saying God’s power can make a square circle.
That leaves omniscience. Does evil call omniscience into question? I don’t think so. What is contradictory between evil and God’s knowledge of all truths? I don’t see any contradiction.
Jason
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March 24, 2016 at 8:21 am
Jason, good post !
There is this fallacy out there that God is the cause of all things, good or evil. So when something bad happens, people blame God or say why did God not intervene. This is bad theology and a wrong concept of God.
There are many players on the stage of life and more often than not, planet earth will come at you full steam and hit you hard. I believe that’s the reality of living in a fallen world where sin abounds. At the same time, I am thankful for the good things and like everyone else, I wish it was good all the time.
One day……
Naz
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March 24, 2016 at 9:48 am
Jason:
That evil is the absence of good is exactly the reason that the world’s people who call themselves religious demonstrate their lack of GOOD. Which explains the world’s dilemma: 86% of the world’s people claim that they are “religious” yet about the same percentage is in total conflict, at war or are planning attacks against their opponents which ironically are other religions: how quaint.
Compare: Christianity 32.5%; Islam 21.5%; Hinduism 14%; Buddhism 6%; Sikhism .4%; Judaism .2%; Other faiths 6%; non religious 16%.
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March 24, 2016 at 9:50 am
Pie Chart of world’s religions:
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/mysticism/world_religions_populations.html
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March 24, 2016 at 10:01 am
Jason what you call “…….allowing for the possibility of loving relationships” is merely the sexual drive of all living creatures, not love but sexual drive…..
It isn’t love that causes the rut and the aggression of the male to fight each other, to the death, for the mate, whether it be bird, man, mouse or hornet. It is what humans colloquially call, being “horney”.
That’s your loving relationship to put it bluntly.
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March 24, 2016 at 10:13 am
Naz:
How can you claim that the Creator of all things is not the cause of evil? How ludicrous is that?
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March 24, 2016 at 10:21 am
Leo, you don’t even believe in a Creator of all things so what is it to you ??
Naz
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March 24, 2016 at 10:29 am
Naz:
Just trying to save you from the fate of the fools.
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March 24, 2016 at 10:33 am
Naz:
Just because you did it doesn’t mean your guilty.
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March 25, 2016 at 3:49 pm
“What is the source for that standard? God. He is the Good, and we recognize good because we are made in His image.”
“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
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March 25, 2016 at 11:37 pm
Revelator, this is why I typically do not respond to you. You can’t stay on topic. You say God created evil, and I respond by saying that evil is not a thing to be created, but the absence of a thing. Instead of responding to my argument, you throw out red herrings about the lack of good among religious people and some bizarre definition of love as sex. I can’t take you seriously if you can’t engage the points.
Jason
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March 26, 2016 at 1:20 am
Jason:
I don’t mind you telling me if I seem to drift off topic. But silence is not an the best answer without being mean spirited.
You say that evil is the absence of good and I can agree that some evil is but that’s only if you look upon evil in terms of a human behavioral problem but it is not always that a two year child is the victim of her own lack of good when evil befalls her….
Nevertheless, darkness too is the absence of light and I have often described it in those terms too, yet In Isaiah, (and the Scripture cannot be broken) as Jesus said although one can argue that he spoke sarcastically because this was the stock and trade of the Scribes and Pharisees and he was teasing them about their dogmatic adherence to scripture when it suited them.
But how do you rationalize scripture away, to suit your statement that evil is not a thing to be created in light of the following:
21KJV, Isaiah 45:6 “………that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is none else.
7 I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things………..”
???
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March 26, 2016 at 8:02 am
Jason,
You stated ” God has to be the standard of goodness.” I know that is always assumed by Christians, and I 100% believe God is the only standard of goodness, but I have never been convinced that is a fact we can deduct through logic. And, I do understand the logical argument you have offered, but do not agree it is conclusive.
That God is good is a fact that one can determine only through revelation. God has told us He is good, and for a multitude of reasons, we believe Him. Keep in mind the ancients often believed in multitudes of gods – some pretty good gods, some very bad. The ancients were highly intelligent and educated and they came to their beliefs using logic. The Jews believed otherwise and their beliefs were formed through revelation, not logic. We Christians have followed the Jews, with the added revelation given to us by Jesus and the New Testament writers.
However, in order to account for the tremendous evil we all see in this world, and continue to believe that God is good, one must cross real barriers.
If God is omnipotent, omniscient and all good, then why does He not simply stop all evil? As Jesus said, He could have called for legions of angels to stop the crucifixion. The answer, as you know, is because there is a greater good in the ultimate outcome. Trying to logically establish the “greater good argument” has been a difficult puzzle that I believe the modern philosopher Alvin Plantiga has solved.
I basically agree with your assessment that at the core of all this is the question of free will. God gave us true free will. We are not robots that were programed to always do good. And, I agree, without true free will, then one cannot truly love.
There was an old television show where a man was left on a planet with a beautiful female robot whom he fell in love with. She was indistinguishable from an actual woman. At the end of the show, he chose to stay with her and not be rescued from the remote planet because there was not room on the space ship for his robot. He thought he truly loved her and that she loved him, but of course, those watching the show knew that the robot could not truly love him. Same is true with humans. If we were programed to do only good, then we could not truly love God. Free will is an essential element of true love. Keep in mind, that means God also have true free will.
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March 26, 2016 at 7:50 pm
The concept of free will is itself the invention of Christian apologists and philosophers. It is really just an opinion based conclusion to say that God is not responsible for evil because Bible scholar apologists needed to explain evil. The Bible scripture does not clearly state that God gave man free will. It is an apologetical assumption in order to make the idea of love being a choice and evil and the suffering that results not God’s fault.
According to orthodox Christian theology however there was an omnipotent being existing in the void of space or lack thereof all by itself. At some point a decision was made to create something, a world. Then another decision was made to create people. Then you say a decision was made to create freedom of will. Everything that results is the cause of the creator. Anything that lacks is the cause of the creator. The creator is therefore responsible for all resulting choices of the creatures.
Free will can only exist if the intelligence of the creature is co-eternal with the creator and independent in its ability to act. Evil must be an eternal principle otherwise there is no basis for eternal good. There is no freedom of choice without opposition. The fact is we need suffering and inequality to make life meaningful. It is only unjust if it lasts for ever and it doesn’t. We are relieved of mortal suffering at death.
To conclude that God is the standard of goodness can only be assumed if there is an immutable law by which he governs and exists that is as eternal as he is. If he created the law then he created sin as well. Sin however exists because the law does. To behave in a good or evil way is an active choice not a lack of one or the other. God is seeking to give us a way to avoid the harsh consequences of breaking the law.
Consequences may still follow our actions but we can only be evil and accountable for if we are aware of the law. Rational beings make choices based on the verifiable outcome for choices. Predictable outcomes only exist when a consistent law exists to provide them. That is why God can provide an escape based on eternal principles of justice and mercy. Otherwise the death and suffering of Christ would be a reactionary response to the choice made in the Garden of Eden.
The underlying principles of mainstream Christian thought indicate that it was not God’s intention for us to be in this mortal situation and it actually was his intention for us to be here otherwise we would be mere robotical creatures soaking up some fantastical existence in the Garden with no understanding of good or evil. Fortunately better theology than the orthodox exists that explains the purposes for which we live temporarily in a fallen condition.
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March 26, 2016 at 8:09 pm
Charlie here is the explanation for the typos in your commentary.
When I read your commentary it was amazingly confounded and I wonered why so?
I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! If you can raed this forwrad it.
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March 26, 2016 at 10:08 pm
Semes to me yruo’e not altcaluy rdaenig yrou’e dpcihenerig truhgoh iitrnelapontg.
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March 27, 2016 at 12:25 pm
Does evil prove there’s no God?
No. What Evil proves is that religion exists.
One of the worse evils in this world is religion’s false teaching that the paranormal exists, that suspension of the laws of physics is performed by spirits from the other side and miracles are the result of supernatural intervention.
With the help of Hollywood we see this over and over again in shows like the Ten Commandments, The Exorcist, even Documentaries are peppered with film excerpts of miraculous events in: Finding Jesus, The Shroud of Turin, the Finger Bone of John The Baptist, Splinters of Wood said to be from the cross of Christ. It is an evil beyond the pale that the Gods are responsible for everything from the alignment of the planets and that all men must feel guilty for the terrible creatures humans turned out to be after being made in the image of God. But whose God are they talking about Christianity; Islam; Hinduism; Buddhism; Sikhism; Judaism; Other faiths; Secular’s Bingo the Money God? Only Jesus has defined the God of Mankind and very few Christians understand the nature of the God that Jesus defined.
This nonsense about Heaven, miracles, the Gods, Parting of the Sea, the face of Jesus and Mary in pieces of pizza, potatoes and gems that fall out of the sky from heaven. And movies made for box office millions further augments religious insanity by the make-believe artists in Hollywood all of which have world of humans in a state of constant Nuttery; they don’t know whether they are coming or going. One person attributes prayer intervention that saved his life; a miracle from God or Heaven or Jesus that allowed him to live and recover from a horrible event but what he is not saying is that he is something special above and beyond the prayers of 3,000 people who perished in the Twin Towers catastrophe or the 250,000 that perished in the 2004 Tsunami who were obviously not worthy enough for the same miraculous intervention.
EASTER SUNDAY SERMON BY SPIRITUAL GIANT:
Let Reality Set In:
(God)”…….became one of us and experienced it (evil) Himself……..WHAT?
May I remind the Believer that Jesus had no more a role in his conception and birth than any other human being on this planet. But what Jesus did have and acknowledge were the tools at human disposal to question and challenge the world around him and compare that, to his understanding of how the world around him should be operating. And when Jesus began to accept that role as a human being to improve the lot of the people, he used the evolutionary tools he inherited which he knew was the result of natural adaptability of the human experience and that all there was of humanity is available to the human who makes himself available to all there is of humanity with a view to effect the notion that, “as good as it gets” depends on each and everyone of us using the resident sensory spirits within human consciousness as the Father to guide the son/daughter so that s/he in harmony with that internal guide can demonstrate a physical visible behavior worthy of that invisible, internal relationship.
And while many who had gone before him claimed their laws were “as good as it gets”, Jesus demonstrated that the “as good as it gets” is the end result of the body we are born with. And set out to prove it, knowing full well that he would be rejected by his own for not obeying the status quo of the society into which he was born.
Jesus showed them the way, the truth and the life through virtues of goodness, love, understanding, compassion and forgiveness when it was required and chastisement when it was necessary, as opposed to the status quo that used supernaturalism, magic, deceit and lies to make the case that their ancestors fabricated to suit the goals of empowerment and financial security they sought as the elite of society.
Unfortunately Jesus’ methodology proved so totally irritating upon the toes of the religious he inevitably had to step on, that they began to plot against him in order to render him mute and impotent by virtue of arrest, mockery, imprisonment, trial, conviction and death penalty sentence by crucifixion. As John clearly notes in John 7:1 “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.” And John 7:7 “The (religious) world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.”
Death was the only cure for the arrogance Jesus was perceived to have displayed by disobedience according to the rulers of the Sanhedrin, the seat of Jewish religious power, Death for disobeying the rulers of the Church was the capital penalty for anybody who challenged authority in disobedience to the religious elite. That was their way, their truth and their life.
The astonishing campaign of Jesus however was to revolutionize religion and to neutralize the supernatural concept of an external God by performing ordinary acts of benevolence with extraordinary insight, planning and delivery. That is, the Jesus that too few Christians know and too few clerics acknowledge because of their use of the veil of haziness, smoke and mirrors, myths, magic, deceit and miracles.
The real Jesus of the bible has been hidden and continues to be hidden from the world by religion, as Jesus himself noted in his Matthew 23 indictment of the clergy: rendered this way in parallel scripture: Luke 11:52 “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge, (shutting the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter, who are trying to) you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.”
The audacity of belief: the creature trying to defend the belief in a supernatural Creator that the creature invented to support non-knowledge in the first place.
CLERIC PERPETUATION:
God’s will, so called, is revealed in the “holy” scriptures. The sacred book formulates the will of God and specifies what is to be given to the clergy. Clergy become parasites. “… All things of life are so ordered that the clergy is everywhere indispensable; at all the natural events of life, at birth, marriage, sickness, death. Not to speak of ‘sacrifice’ (meal–time prayers)… .” Natural values become utterly valueless. The Clergy sanctifies and bestows all value. Disobedience of God (the clergy) is ‘sin.’ Subjection to God (the clergy) is redemption. Clergy use ‘sin’ imposition on the people to gain and hold power; the very thing Jesus campaigned against and for which he suffered the torment and ridicule from the religious self proclaimed righteousness that justified clergy as authority instead of truth as authority.
Personally I believe that Jesus was a person who existed and walked this planet but for those who do not accept this I will say: But just because Jesus is a storybook character, to you, that doesn’t mean he’s not a good character, doesn’t mean he hasn’t got wisdom to impart. Didn’t He say the Kingdom of Heaven is within? Luke 17; 21, I think it was. And what a useful piece of information that is when you think about it.
Admittedly I do not claim to be a Christian So I think it’s probably just as well if Jesus didn’t exist, because, if he came back and he saw what people like you had made of his teachings, he’d quickly realize that nobody had listened to a word he said, that he was wasting his breath and that he’d wasted his life.
And to those who would ask, if you are not a Christian why are you here commenting on Jason Dulles site??
A similar question was asked of Jesus “If you’re not a Jew why are you preaching in the Synagogue? To which he
Jesus replied:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
Now you know the rest of the story.
Peace to everyone.
Especially Christians, both inside and outside the Kingdom of Heaven.
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March 27, 2016 at 12:37 pm
Remember to live each moment of your humanity, like your dog, with unconditional love, loyalty, energy and happiness.
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April 6, 2016 at 1:05 am
Randy,
Thinking that God is the standard of goodness is not based on a logical deduction per se, but on the very definition of what it means to be God. The concept of “God” is understood as the greatest conceivable being. Since it is better to be all good than to be evil or partially good, and since it is better to be the standard of goodness than it is to exemplify an external standard, God must be all good.
And yes, I agree that God has revealed the same truth to us in Scripture, but one need not know Scripture to know that God must be good if He exists at all.
Jason
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December 30, 2018 at 5:29 pm
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