THE PURPOSE OF EVIL

God looked at everything He had made, and it was very good (Genesis 1:31)

Five times in Genesis 1, God looks at that which He has created, and pronounces it "good". Then on the sixth day He creates Man, and says that His creation is now "very good". God's pronouncement of His creation, which would be everything around us and includes ourselves, as "very good" is hard to reconcile with that which we see on a daily basis -- a reality in which we experience much pain and cruelty from ourselves and nature. These negative experiences we call "evil".

Evil, in this sense, is a very broad term, and needs to be defined. In general terms, "evil" is that which works against the life-giving power of God, and seeks to thwart God's will. In the Bible, the term "evil" is used to describe anything that brings sorrow, distress, calamity, and moral wrong-doing. In more modern times, "evil" has been associated with warfare, especially chemical and nuclear warfare, as well as problems associated with over-population, racism, ecological destruction, and worldwide disease. Indeed, evil is so much a part of our lives, the very term seems to have lost meaning. It is not uncommon in public debates to hear one side associate the other with evil, casually placing their opponents on the side of Satan and destruction.

So, what did God mean when He said that His creation was "very good"? Did He simply mean that He was finished, and that evil was an intentional part of His design? Or did evil come afterward, suggesting that it was beyond His control? This is a vexing question to those of faith, especially in the Judeo-Christian faith, who believe in an all-powerful, loving God. If God is good and loving, and God is all-powerful, why is there so much evil in His creation? The answers to this question break down into three categories: the Atheist; the devoutly faithful; and those that would question the idea that God is all-powerful.

An Atheist would use the above question to argue against the existence of God. How could a loving God allow so much evil, suffering, and despair in the world? There are several answers to this question from a religious point of view, some of which I will examine, but to an Atheist, they will all sound like reasoned excuses, but ultimately meaningless ones, by people of faith.

At the core of Atheism, I believe, is a moral relativism. I don't mean this as a harsh critique, suggesting that Atheists are immoral, but as a comparison to a devoutly religious person. People of faith see their moral values as coming from God, written in Scriptures, and the word is passed along at the churches, synagogues, and mosques. They see moral codes such as the Ten Commandments as being divinely given and eternal, not to be questioned and interpreted differently to fit modern society's lifestyle. Atheists, on the other hand, view the world in more shades of grey, a civilization where morals are malleable and ever changing.

The easiest example of moral relativism would have to do with global politics and warfare. Just how easy is it for an ally to become an enemy, and therefore, obviously, evil? Communist Russia was the "Evil Empire" when we were adversaries during the Cold War, and now we send the people of the former Soviet Union aid and consider ourselves to be on friendly terms. Iran was once one of our few friends in the Middle East, and now they consider us to be the "Great Satan". Every society, including ours, will demonize our opponents, trying to make them seem less then human, undeserving to survive, and evil.

The hidden message that lies at the heart of the attempt to paint your enemy as evil, of course, is that "our side is good". This is a necessary component when trying to lead men in open warfare. Not even the Nazis, the easiest group in history to name as "evil", got out of bed every morning thinking, "We are on the wrong side". Every side in an armed conflict, throughout history, has claimed God to be on their righteous side, and an Atheist, with some sarcasm, might point out that the historical "good" side was always the side that won.

However, one does not have to look on such a broad scale for changing attitudes about "good" and "evil". Our society has evolved over time, for better or worse, and our morals have with it. The arguments for and against Capital Punishment come to mind. Murder is "evil", and always has been. There was a time when our society felt that murdering a murderer was also a sin. Now, Capital Punishment enjoys broad support, and many would consider it "good". This is a complex social issue, without easy answers, or even easy definitions of "good" and "evil", and given time, these definitions could change. Other social issues like abortion, divorce, gay rights, and poverty, to name a few, likewise have overlapping and difficult explanations for which side of an issue is "good" and which side is "evil".

Another social "evil", deadly disease, is also fodder for the Atheist argument that there is no God. Anyone with a loved one suffering from terminal cancer, especially at a young age, will try to find the reason for the "evil" in their lives. To this situation, an Atheist might point out that, from a biological or scientific point of view, there is nothing inherently evil about a cancer cell. It is a kind of life form: it grows, it breeds, it feeds. Although the effect on the human body can be considered "evil", the cancer cell itself has no sinister motives. It just is what it is, it hurts us, and we perceive it to be evil.

So, from an Atheist point of view, what defines and delineates "good" from "evil"? An Atheist is likely to believe in the Sociological Theory of Religion, as defined by John H. Hick in his book, Philosophy of Religion. The Sociological Theory states, basically, that society defines what is "good" and "evil", and in fact created God and religion, which "suggests that the Gods whom people worship are imaginary beings unconsciously fabricated by society as instruments whereby society exercises control over the thoughts and behavior of the individual." (Hick, p.30).

Many religious thinkers and theologians, in trying to explain the existence of evil, sometimes lend credence to the Atheist argument when they try to distance God from evil in an effort to deflect responsibility from Him. Sallie McFague, in her book, Models of God, makes the case at several points that evil is solely a human responsibility. McFagues's main concern is the unleashing of nuclear weapons, arguably the worst evil the whole of mankind can face, and she feels it is dangerous to assume God can prevent this catastrophic evil. "In our situation, however, to envision evil as separate from human beings rather than as the outcome of human decisions and actions, and to see the solution to evil as totally a divine responsibility, would not only be irrelevant to our time and its needs but harmful to them..." (McFague, p.30).

Others who would distance God from evil include A. N. Whitehead, whose Process Theodicy argues that evil is a natural part of the creative process, and beyond God's control. Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, in his book, When Bad Things Happen To Good People, would agree, arguing that evil is really a result of universal randomness, a variability that is part of any complex system. Both of these views will be brought up again later, but McFague, Whitehead, and Kushner, while all believing in God, suggest that God has little, if any, control over evil. To these people, an Atheist might ask, "So why believe in Him?"

The polar opposite to an Atheist point of view would be that all good, bad, and evil in the world are part of "God's Plan". The argument is that God is good, God is all-powerful, and God works in mysterious ways -- ways that we aren't always meant to understand. "God's Plan" isn't readily available to mere mortals, and the suffering we feel in this lifetime serves a purpose beyond our comprehension. Even the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust had a reason, and served His purpose, and we should have faith in His wisdom.

An Atheist, of course, might point out that this makes for a weak argument, an apologetic defense designed to answer what an Atheist might feel is a gaping hole in logic of the Judeo-Christian concept of an all-loving, all-powerful God. What possible purpose could there be for evil? One religious answer for this question can be found in one of the most profound stories of the Old Testament: The Book of Job.

In Dr. James Dobson's book, When God Doesn't Make Sense, he suggests that one purpose of evil is to test a person's faith. Job is described as a "God-fearing man of antiquity that had done no wrong" (Dobson, p.15), and yet God allowed Satan to torment Job to test Job's faith. Even this brief description of The Book of Job carries with it a problem for those who believe the following: God is all-powerful; God is just and fair; Job is a good person. "We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love Him." (Romans 8:28). Would God allow a good person to suffer horribly just to test his faith? The answer from a "God's Plan" point of view appears to be "yes", and as The Book of Job appears to say, "who are you for asking?" As flip as that might sound, that is the summarized version of God's answer to Job when Job pleads for God to reveal to him the reason for his suffering:

What I find interesting about this enigmatic non-answer by God, is that it could be interpreted as insult to injury. God's plan for Job is only a mystery to Job, and not to anyone who reads his story. We know why God did it, it is not a mystery to us. Even though God does compensate Job in the end, Job, presumably, spent the rest of his life never knowing why he lost his wife, children, and riches in the first place.

The point of The Book of Job is that one must have faith in God and accept that He works in mysterious ways. "You don't know where the wind will blow, and you don't know how a baby grows inside the mother. In the same way, you don't know what God is doing." (Ecclesiastes 11:5). An important point to make about the Book of Job is that it has a happy ending, which fits easily into the Christian belief of a righteous God bestowing happiness to a faithful, good man. Real life experience, however, teaches us that sometimes faithful, good, decent people can still suffer their entire lives, and prayers for divine intervention to ease their suffering can go un-answered. Does this pain and suffering serve some purpose? To this, Dr. Dobson writes, "It is an incorrect view of Scripture to say that we will always comprehend what God is doing and how our suffering and disappointment fit into His plan." (Dobson, p. 13).

A "test of faith", can't possibly be the only reason for the extent of human suffering. Did the faith of six million Jews need to be tested in World War II? How about the victims of the Black Plague? Can these events still be considered to be a part of "God's Plan"? The Irenaean Theodicy, as developed by St. Irenaeus (c.130 - c.202 A.D.) and described in Philosophy of Religion, tries to deal with the idea of an imperfect world, populated by imperfect beings, purposefully created by a perfect, loving God.

The Irenaean Theodicy poses the idea that we started out as imperfect beings on the road to perfection, and that our time on earth is for the purpose of "soul-making". The purpose of evil, according to the Irenaean Theodicy, is to provide us with the obstacles necessary to enable us to choose morality and light, vice temptation, weakness, and the dark. So, in a sense, evil is a part of "God's Plan" -- a plan for mankind to evolve into a more perfect being by facing trials and tribulations on earth. That is not to say, however, that God plans each and every instance of evil, but that He has set up a system where evil can occur. "It is not possible to show positively that each item of human pain serves God's purpose of good; on the other hand, it does seem possible to show that the divine purpose, as it is understood in the Irenaean Theodicy, could not be forwarded in a world that was designed as a permanent hedonistic paradise." (Hick, p.45).

To support the Irenaean Theodicy specifically, and the "God's Plan" view generally, one can turn to the Beatitudes given by Jesus in the New Testament:

These blessings by Jesus can be seen as a tacit acknowledgment by God that there will be pain and suffering in this world, and that it all serves a purpose.

The final explanation for evil falls into a category that is made up of philosophers and theologians who have come to the conclusion that God is not all-powerful. This group believes that God, either by His own design or by cosmic laws that bind Him, is unable, or unwilling, to prevent evil.

A key component of this theology is known as the "free-will defense" (Hick, p.40). The free-will defense holds that any free being, able to freely select right from wrong, may sometime choose evil over good. If the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is to be believed, then God created Adam and Eve to be good, and to serve Him. They, however, give into temptation and eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which God had ordered them to stay clear of. This, of course, is known as the original sin, which led to the fall of Man from paradise.

This could also be seen as the first act of human free will. "Then, it was if their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves." (Genesis 3:7). This short line symbolizes the awakening of Man -- from a simple, albeit cherished, creation of God to a thinking, reasoning being capable of moral judgment, and an understanding of our own vanity, weakness, and mortality.

Adam and Eve are then cast out of Eden, and are forced to face the world with a new understanding of right and wrong, joy and happiness, pain and suffering, good and evil. Unique from all other forms of life on earth, however, is Man's ability to choose one path or the other. No longer constrained by raw instinct, Man can freely choose to do destructive things to himself, his world, and the people around him. "Today I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses. I am offering you life or death, blessings or curses. Now, choose life!" (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Why would God permit this? Indeed, why did God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden to become such a tempting target? Is it because, on some level, God wants evil to be a part of His creation? The answer from the free-will defense theology is that God wants us to choose good over evil, but the choice must be ours. "But if Man is truly free to choose, if he can show himself as being virtuous by freely choosing the good when the bad is equally possible, then he has to be free to choose the bad also." (Kushner, p.79).

This defense of free will is a valid explanation for when trying to understand how monsters such as Adolf Hitler could not only survive, but thrive and rise to power under the watchful eye of a loving God. Could God have destroyed Hitler? Certainly, He has the power. But God has constrained Himself not to do it, by his own design. Hitler freely chose evil, as did those around him, as well as those who stood by and let it all happen. If God had struck him down, or others like him, every time they attempted evil, it would send a message to humanity that it was no longer okay with God to do evil things. Man would now be forced, under threat of death, to only choose good -- and that would mean no choice at all.

The free-will defense, then, suggests that God is not all-powerful by His choice. He has decided to subjugate His power to prevent evil to that of the free will of Man. A second theology, the Process Theology, as defined originally by A. N. Whitehead and described in the Philosophy of Religion, describes a God that is limited in power by forces beyond even His control. Whitehead, as interpreted by John H. Hick, suggests that "God is subject to the limitations imposed by the basic laws of the universe, for God has not created the universe ex nihilo, thereby establishing its structure, but rather the universe is an uncreated process which includes the deity." (Hick, 49). The Process Theodicy basically suggests that God, as part of the universe, and subject to its laws, risks creation from the primordial chaos, and creates a "process", a chain of events, which He has no control over, but can influence.

The Process Theodicy's main idea holds that each actual moment is created by the actual moments that proceeded it, and in turn creates another. At each moment of a new creation, another step in the process, any number of possible new moments may be created, and although God can't control the outcome, He "continually offers the best possibility to each occasion as it creates itself, but the successive occasions are free not to conform to the divine plan." (Hick, p.50). Evil, then, is when the outcome of each successive occasion is contrary to what God wanted.

It is important to point out, I feel, that each "evil" outcome from this theology does not necessarily have to occur from reckless decisions or immoral choices. With limitless new moments that can be created from each actual moment, the number of possibilities of what can occur next are staggering, and can be affected just as easily by cosmic randomness as anything said or done by humans. "Randomness is another name for chaos, in those corners of the universe where God's creative light has not yet penetrated. And chaos is evil; not wrong; not malevolent, but evil nonetheless..." (Kushner, p.53). This concept is important to understanding the evil that is not man-made, and can become unexpected tragedies, such as floods, tornadoes, airplane collisions, and of course, disease.

The question of evil in our existence can't be easily explained, or even defined. We can easily define an evil experience in our lives by the effect it has on us. But the concept of evil becomes more hazy when it happens to someone else. If we feel the pain and suffering by someone else is justified, we feel morally superior. Some would call this another form of evil. The purpose of evil can never be totally explained to a factual argument in our lifetime, but the theories presented expose the wide range of speculation.

Of these theories, the one I find least compelling is the "God's Plan" defense. Dr. Dobson is a devout Christian, and his book is written for others of faith that accept the Bible as the word of God. For those with differing views, however, quoting Scriptures, which Dr. Dobson repeatedly, is not an answer to tough questions. The Bible is a great book, no doubt, but people with a more naturalistic view of the world, as myself, see the Bible as a book written 2000 years ago, and should not be taken literally.

The Atheist world view appeals to the logical, naturalistic side of my personality. However, perhaps because of wishful thinking or a trace of faith, I don't agree with Atheists that there is not a Supreme Being. For human life to be what it is, where it is, there just seems to be too many unexplained coincidences that I don't believe science will ever be able to answer fully. Also, I believe the fact that so many have faith, in what can't be explained or understood, to just dismiss as mass superstition.

I definitely lean towards the view that God withholds power over evil to give us the freedom to choose good over evil. I find comfort in the natural laws that God has created. If I jump off a cliff, regardless of my worth to God, I know I will fall. If I choose to do wrong, I know that the responsibility is mine. If I catch a disease, I would not blame God, or ask why he chose me to suffer. If I am to accept all the possible good aspects of being a thinking, reasoning human being with freedom of will, I have to accept the fact that I live in an existence where evil can happen.

By Matthew R. King

Works Cited

Dobson, James C. (1993). When God Doesn't Make Sense. Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Green, Joel B., & Longman, Tremper (Eds.). (1996). Holy Bible -- The Everday Study Edition. Dallas: Word Publishing.

Hick, John H. (1990). Philosophy of Religion. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Kushner, Harold S. (1981). When Bad Things Happen To Good People. New York: Avon books.

McFague, Sallie. (1987). Models of God. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.