The Problem of Evil and God

So... I came across a real conundrum in my other blog; see Behold, this evil is of the LORD (Isaiah 31) and the comments thereon.

I have touched many times on the Problem of Evil in this blog, but it deserves a revisit due to the issues brought up in that post and the KJV. While more modern translations of the Bible take advantage of the nuance of the Hebrew word mostly translated "evil" in the KJV to translate it into words like "calamity" or "misfortune" or some other less charged word, the Hebrew word "raʿ" is the word used in Genesis chapters two and three in the phrase "tree of the knowledge of good and evil,"which seems unequivocally about evil, and there are many verses in the Bible that have God being the creator of "raʿ". Now nuanced translation of this word is not necessarily wrong, but it's still quite suggestive. To me it suggests that for the Jew and the Christian, there is a need to solve this conundrum:

A) God is good.
B) God is all-powerful.
C) God is all-knowing.
D) Evil and suffering exist, and...
E) Some evil and suffering is created by God.

It's much more challenging to formulate a convincing theodicy with statement (E) in the mix, don't you agree? Yet based on the Biblical evidence, (E) is difficult to deny.

My approach to a theodicy has always been first of all to place a caveat on statement (B) and say that God must be limited by the boundaries of logic. If God is not bound by logic, then nonsense becomes possible and throws all logic out the window. God can make himself not exist. God can give humans free will and make us always choose right. And especially apropos to this discussion, God can remove evil while letting evil still exist, therefore (D) is false regardless of your personal experience of evil and suffering. I hope people can see this is nonsense.

If we suggest that it is not logically possible to create a world full of beings with free will without allowing evil, that's a beginning, but it doesn't quite address (E). Particularly, of course, it would seem that (E) clashes with (A) almost in itself. I think there are two issues that need to be addressed with respect to this clash. The first issue is why a good God would add evil to a world that already has evil. I think this is easier to address than it may seem. I believe chiefly when God visits evil upon people, it's for the purpose of discipline. We as a society recognize a need to discipline children, although there are vast differences of opinion on how best to do so. Even if you are a parent who doesn't believe in corporal punishment, discipline of any sort tends to involve creating some sort of discomfort in children to make them reflect on why their actions were wrong. In other words, we feel that when children act in an evil manner, they need to suffer for it; it sounds more cruel when phrased this way, but I believe that is essentially the nature of discipline. On a wider level, society accepts that when people break the law, it is required to make them suffer. Maybe that is in some form of restitution, maybe incarceration, and sometimes even death. (While I am personally aganst the death penalty for numerous reasons, it can't be denied that there is a large segment of society that feels it is justified.) So, extrapolating from the moral standards we hold in society to the moral standards held by God, I would say that God is sometimes enacting evil for the sake of justice and discipline, which I suggest are greater goods.

The second issue is the more difficult one: why does God allow or even enact evil upon good people? As I said in the post on my other blog, the Book of Job shows us that sometimes God inflicts evil on good people. Perhaps Job is a special case, but it's quite evident from real-life experience that everyone experiences evil and suffering, and it's quite possible that some is inflicted by God. Let's question Job first; is there a purpose for Job's suffering? When I was in high school, we read Job in our humanities class; everyone in my class except for me was convinced Job must have done something to deserve him suffering, but if that was true, wouldn't God say so? No, Job was definitely suffering through no fault of his own, so why? I've heard it posited that Job is actually a key piece of scripture, because in a way it asks and anwers the question, "Is humanity really worth God's love and grace?" Do people just follow God for rewards, or is there a recognition of God's inherent goodness and sovereignty? Job is a test case, being one of the most upright and moral men God had at that time. If Job can be put through loss of all he has and further suffering on top of that and still praise God, then it shows there is something deeper in the relationship between God and mankind. And Job passes the test, even with God showing up at the end of the book to pretty much taunt him!

Now God, being omniscient, already knew this would happen before it happened. God knows how every individual will stand in the face of adversity. So why go through with it? Because everyone who witnessed it, including Job, Job's wife, Job's friends, and the "sons of God" (i.e. angels, including Satan), now can see Job's character for themselves. Adversity reveals character, which is useful for spiritual growth, and spiritual growth is very important. Towards the end of John's gospel, Jesus talks a lot about the adversity his disciples will see once he's gone to Heaven; Paul talks about his personal sufferings in his letters, and says it's for the glory of God. The Bible teaches that being a follower of God is a good thing, but not that it's pleasant; quite the opposite. God often promises to send comfort in times of trouble, but also, you should expect that trouble.

So what is my conclusion? Sometimes evil and suffering are tools to make people become better people. Sometimes we need to be pushed out of complacency and grow, and evil and suffering do that. Whether we're doing something wrong that needs correcting or doing something right that we need to be pressured in to persevering, sometimes we suffer for the greater good. Of course, I know not everyone will find this convincing, and there is always suffering and evil that seem too much to be appropriate, but it's always a possibility that it has purpose. As always, please feel free to comment.