Why, God?
Why does God allow tragedy? We've all heard it stated in many ways. Why does He allow babies to be born with disabilities? Why does He permit wars to rage? Why does He seem to turn the other way when innocent people are being killed? What about all of those horrible injustices in our world? This hurricane. That epidemic. This wildfire. Why do these horrible things afflict our world? If God can prevent such tragedies, why does He allow them to take place?
Here is the classic statement of the problem. Either God is all-powerful but He is not all good, therefore He doesn't stop evil. Or He is all good but He is not all-powerful, therefore He can't stop evil. And the general tendency is to blame all of the problems of the world on God. To say that God is the one who is somehow responsible.
"If God is so good and loving," people will say, "why does He allow evil?" Now the first part of that question is based on a false premise. By even stating it in that way, what I'm really saying is that I don't believe God to be good and loving.
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By questioning God's goodness and love, I am in essence saying that I know more about it than He does. The fact is, God doesn't become good because that's my opinion of Him, or because I happen to personally agree with His actions or His words. Nor does He become good because we vote on it and all agree that is the case.
God is good because God says He is good. And it's not up for a vote.
Jesus said, "No one is good except God alone" (Luke 18:19 NIV).
You see, God is good whether I believe it or not, and He alone is the final court of arbitration. As the apostle Paul said, "Let God be true, and every man a liar" (Romans 3:4 NKJV).
What, then, is "good"? Good is whatever God approves. And by the same token, bad is exactly what God says is bad.
Some might say, "That's circular reasoning." Yes, you could say that. But I would describe it as biblical reasoning. The Word of God is our source of truth, defining right and wrong, and what our values ought to be.
In Isaiah 1:18, we read: "'Come now, let us reason together,' says the Lord" (NIV).
Or as another translation puts it, "Come let us argue this out, says the Lord" (NLT)
God is saying, "Here's the way I see things. You need to see it the way that I see it." And He goes on to tell us that His thoughts are above our thoughts and His ways are above our ways.
So God is good. Period.
Let's come back to the second part of that question. Why does He allow evil? The first thing we have to remember is that mankind was not created evil. Man and woman were created innocent…ageless…immortal. Their responsibility in the Garden of Eden was to tend it, watch over it, and discover all that God had created. But of course we know that our first parents made the wrong choice, ate the forbidden fruit, and everything changed down to this day.
But don't be too hard on Adam and Eve, because if you had been in the Garden, you would have done the same thing. And so would I. We might have fallen sooner or we might have fallen later, but we would have surely gotten around to it, as evidenced by the fact that we all make wrong choices throughout our lives.
The result of that original sin (we know all too well) was that death entered into the human race. As we are told in Romans 5:12, "When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone for everyone sinned" (NLT).
So we need to keep in mind that humanity, not God, is responsible for sin.
In light of that, one might then ask the question, "Why didn't God make us incapable of sin?" Answer: Because He didn't want puppets on a string. He didn't want windup robots. He didn't want preprogrammed people with neither choice nor will.
Today's devotion is excerpted from the first chapter of Greg Laurie's book, Why, God? (Dana Point, Calif.: Kerygma Publishing, 2007). To order a copy of Why, God? while supplies last, click here to visit the Harvest Store.
Used with Permission
