SERMON - Why is there evil?
Without anything to overcome, we could have no achievement.
Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners,
Crying: “Under Heaven, here is neither lead nor lee!
Must we sing for evermore
On the windless, glassy floor?
Take back your golden fiddles and we’ll beat to open sea!”
-Rudyard Kipling, The Last Chantey
One of the most common objections to the existence of God is the problem of Evil.
As Epicurus said in the 4th century B.C.:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
The Problem of Evil presents a serious challenge to believers because it’s undeniable that there is great suffering in the world.
One popular response is the free will defense. God gave people free will, and the freedom to choose includes the freedom to choose evil. The suffering caused by serial killers and warlords can be explained as a consequence of our freedom.
But in addition to the moral evil of serial killers and warlords, there’s the natural evil of hurricanes and diseases. A hurricane is not caused by anyone’s freely willed choice. How can it be that these disasters befall us and cause enormous suffering when there is a good God who could prevent them with a snap of his fingers?
First, we should note that the distinction between moral evil and natural evil is actually blurry. People have the ability to build things and take precautions that will protect them from almost any disaster. In the Middle Ages, epidemics were frequent and terrible because public sanitation was poor. Catastrophic wildfires can be prevented by carrying out controlled burns of parts of a forest. You don’t have the ability to simply will a disease to stop, but you can wash your hands, build sewers, encourage public cleanliness, and create an environment in which disease is unlikely to spread. Natural evils like hurricanes and disasters cause suffering because we did not do the things necessary to prevent that suffering - i.e. because of our freely willed actions.
The essential solution to the Problem of Evil is that struggle and adventure are inherently good. The Problem of Evil seems to posit that there could be a world without any hardship. But what would that even mean? What precisely would a world without natural evil look like? I once heard about a professor who said that his idea of paradise was lying on his back on a mattress, with a pralines and cream ice cream machine above his head, feeding him ice cream 24/7. I think we’ll agree that that vision of paradise is ridiculous. It’s not good to lie down all the time. It’s not good to eat nothing but ice cream. Eventually, you would want more substantial food and more varied flavors, even if those flavors were less instantly gratifying than the sweetness of the ice cream.
A world that was really entirely without hardship sounds like a world of infants who float from one pleasurable experience to the next, a world of instant gratification, without even the need to exert oneself in order to ensure that the perpetual feast will continue. A world without hardship would be a world with nothing to struggle for, nothing to accomplish, nothing to fear, nothing to anticipate. A good God would not make us perpetual children inside a safe walled garden. Without anything to overcome, we could have no achievement.
OK, so we’ve concluded that lying on your back, being force-fed ice cream is not the best possible world.
How about a version of paradise where you’re walking around normally, eating normal food, and you can do whatever you want. Would you want to climb a mountain even though it requires exertion? It would seem that exertion is actually part of the point of climbing a mountain. If you could reach the peak with a leisurely stroll, what’s the point?
If it’s impossible to fail at anything, it’s impossible to succeed at anything. In a world without the chance of failure, you could never have the delight of attempting a project, doing it well and succeeding. Without danger there could be no courage. Without hardship, there could be no fortitude.
Now in our world there are many horrible forms of suffering. Newborn babies suffer only to die and many people suffer from incurable diseases that I have never experienced. I absolutely acknowledge that there is a lot of pointless suffering. But even in the face of an incurable and painful disease, one can accept the challenge of living with fortitude and grace amidst their suffering. Grace even in the face of pain is holy and good.
And furthermore, most of the suffering of people born with disease is actually the result of moral evil, not natural evil. In the short run, there are many diseases which are incurable. But in the long run, many diseases which were once incurable have now been cured. The work of civilization: building sewers, dredging swamps, building safe homes, preparing for disasters and all the rest, dramatically reduces the damage caused by natural conditions. The reason why so many newborn babies suffer and die in some parts of the world is not because of some unavoidable stroke of bad luck, it is because the people in those parts of the world did not choose to do the work which prevents bad things from happening. I’m not saying that those people are at fault for their situation. I am saying that God created a world in which we can end most forms of natural evil by our own action. God created a world which was imperfect, but he gave us the ability to make it better. And maybe the fact that we have the ability to make it better, through our own work, and struggle and achievement, means that the world God gave us is actually perfect, in a deeper sense.
The reason why God made a world that contains suffering and hardship is because it is only with hardship that struggle, challenge, adventure, and fortitude become possible, and those things are inherently good.