Thursday, January 8, 2015

The Problem of Evil--Why bad things happen to good people

The Problem of Evil

I have been told a time or two that the Gospel of Jesus Christ—and more specifically the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ—can solve all problems and dilemmas of mankind.  This is just one exercise that demonstrates this fact.

I hope to show here that this theological probem that has left religionists and philosophers in a quandry for millenia, makes what was and is a terrible and realistic part of life, seem much more palatable, and even divine.  It is only through the doctrines of the restored gospel that great light is interjected into a problem that is otherwise dark and depressing.   

The problem of evil is a real part of life and a fact that all people will face in many ways.  Extreme examples are perhaps that a family loses their father, leaving behind small children who in turn live in poverty all their days.  A tsunami decimates an entire countryside, causing millions of dollars in damage and killing thousands.  A maniac tortures and kills innocent shoppers in a crime rampage.  But the realities of the problem of evil come in many variations.  Maybe it is as simple as depression or bad luck.  

When I was younger I remember a sit-down talk on religion I had with one of my employers.  His atheist stance was based on real life.  He had a brother die a painful death from colon cancer.  He just could not believe if there was a God He would let that happen.

I, like anyone else, need only look at my own family to see it.  My grandfather, for example, watched his father die of rabies.  Shortly thereafter his mother died leaving him an orphan.  His future father-in-law, my grandmother’s father was shot and killed unjustly by a drunken neighbor who was never even brought to trial.  Her mother could not afford to keep her so sent her to an orphanage as well.  All of these incidents and an endless array of others are unfortunate, but are real “evils” of the world that surround us.   

The very existence of these evils cause people to give up their faith in a divine being or not ever accept him at all.  Peter Kreeft, professor of religion at Boston College and a Christian apologist has said, “More people have abandoned their faith because of the problem of evil than for any other reason.  It is certainly the greatest test of faith, the greatest temptation to unbelief.  And it's not just an intellectual objection. We feel it. We live it.”

Stated more completely, the problem of evil is a theological problem that arises for any philosophical or religious view that affirms the following three propositions: 

  1. God is almighty or omnipotent 
  2. God is perfectly good 
  3. Evil exists. 

If evil exists, it seems either that God wants to obliterate evil but is not able to—and thus his almightiness is denied—or that God is able to obliterate evil but does not want to—and thus his goodness is denied.

As stated, these propositions create a great amount of dissonance. Denying any one of these propositions can solve the problem, but doing so seems impossible to most all believers of God.  Christian Science and Stoicism do solve it in their minds by going as far as denying the existence of evil, claiming that it is mere appearance or imaginary.  Orthodox Christianity however, has generally chosen to live with the tension involved in living with all three propositions.  While some have answered this problem by suggesting that God’s power is actually manifested in suffering, this is not the kind of Christianity that builds mega churches (which prefer and preach success rather than suffering), and does nothing to alleviate the dissonance and confusion in coming to terms with them.

Some religious philosophers have attempted to solve the problem of evil by saying God is not completely omnipotent.  He has great but limited power but is otherwise perfectly good.  Instead of denying that God is almighty, they have redefined the proposition to mean that he can do anything that is logically possible.  (Though tangentially incomplete, I believe this is actually on the right track.)  It is suggested that the existence of evil is logical and necessary in this “best of all possible worlds.”  But to most, this type of reasoning is itself illogical and again is not accepting the problem at hand.

Still others bring up the principle of free will, claiming (correctly I believe) that this principle is necessary for God to accomplish his design for us.  On a side note, it is interesting that most Protestants will take the free will stance as well.  Interesting because to be "saved" it is often believed that one only needs to believe in Christ and nothing else.  In fact their belief is that God chooses for himself who gets saved far ahead of time.  Only a cursory sense of free agency is needed if at all in this case.  I suppose this is why Protestants generally choose to live with all the above propositions and focus on alternate aspects. 

The fifth century theologian Augustine of Hippo maintained that evil was only privatio boni (also known as the privation theory of evil), or an absence of good, much like darkness is an absence of light.  It is argued that evil is not created by God, but that God created mankind who has the choice to commit evil acts.  (He comes very close with this summation.)  If we move forward and assume that God did indeed create this evil creature called man, this takes us back to square one.  On its own, this is an extremely intangible thought that just does not work for experiential evil.  Darkness may be the absence of light (or nothing) but evil is certainly something--not merely the absence of something.

Concepts such as yin and yang argue that evil and good are complementary opposites within a greater whole. If one disappears, the other must disappear as well, leaving emptiness.  Compassion, a valuable virtue, can only exist if there is suffering.  Bravery only exists if we sometimes face danger.  Self-sacrifice is another great good, but can only exist if there is inter-dependence, if some people find themselves in situations where they need help from others.  I believe this concept to be true and is another good start at solving the problem.

While I can agree with most of these arguments, what appeals to me the most, and happens to be congruent with LDS thought, is the need for opposition to achieve complete happiness.  Only by experiencing pain can we fully appreciate pleasure.  “It must be that there is an opposition in all things.  If not so righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.” (2 Ne 2: 11)  Thus, as related by many people of faith, a “greater good“ is accomplished in that we have achieved a higher state of happiness than we would have otherwise.

As mentioned above, the answer the average believer turns to almost exclusively is that of free will.  The free will argument is as follows: God's creation of persons with morally significant free will is something of tremendous value.  God could not eliminate evil and suffering without thereby eliminating the greater good of having created persons with free will and who can make moral choices.  If a greater good is the result of any evil, it can certainly be good reason for the need of a corresponding evil. 

We should here recognize that this greater good that God has in mind may be beyond our cognitive grasp.  For example, we take our dog to the vet for vaccination.  Our dog only sees the pain we inflict on him, not the greater good of preventing disease.  Our dog cannot begin to understand immunology.  Likewise, we should not assume we know God's mind and knowledge.

Christian apologist Gregory A. Boyd claims that God's all-powerful nature does not mean that God exercises all power.  He instead allows free agents to act against his own wishes.  He argues that since love must be chosen, love cannot exist without true free will.  He also maintains that God does not plan or will evil in people's lives, but that evil is a result of a combination of free choices and the interconnectedness and complexity of life in a sinful and fallen world. Again, I believe these to be very important concepts in our quest for understanding here.

I would agree that this free agency (though it leaves us with an incomplete answer) is indeed a necessary ingredient of God’s plan that allows us to “prove” ourselves.  This free will or agency is a necessary part of our existence and God cannot take it away without compromising his grand design for us.  Renowned LDS philosopher, David L. Paulsen has stated, “Man is that he might have joy, but even God cannot bring about joy without moral righteousness, moral righteousness without moral freedom, or moral freedom without an opposition in all things.  With moral freedom as an essential variable in the divine equation for man, two consequences stand out saliently: (i) the inevitability of moral evil; and (ii) our need for a Redeemer.”
God wanted our love to be genuine and not coerced, and so He gave us free will, even knowing that it would one day cost Him the life of His only begotten son.  This is a form of what is called Open Theism.  In spite of the apparent evil that arose in the killing of Jesus, I hope it is obvious a greater good came of it.  "He spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all." (Romans 8:32)
Parenthetically, knowing the value of this free will, we may be more able to comprehend the value of it when it is freely given back to God--to do His will, not our own.  As in Jesus' example, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt."
The first self-acknowledged problem with the free will response is that it doesn't seem to explain natural disasters and diseases.  (A possible reason given for natural disasters using the free will argument is that the world is corrupted due to the sin of mankind, and hence is imperfect, causing natural disasters and diseases, thus the disaster serves a purpose in wiping out sin that agency allowed.)  Secondly, if He cannot take our agency away, it puts His omnipotence into question. This leads us to ask a very important question; why couldn't an omnipotent God simply create an earth and beings to inhabit it, that were not evil in the first place (necessary for proposition 2 above to be true--that God is perfectly good), but were already inherantly in full understanding of all these concepts without a need to “prove” or advance.

This takes us to the first very unique LDS doctrine that completely answers this question, which in actuality is simply light that was once had in the world, but had been lost until a living prophet restored it—despite the fact that it can be abundantly found in the Bible.  Consider the following scriptures:  Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth…when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38: 4, 7)  Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee (Jeremiah 1: 5).  The Lord formeth the spirit of man within him (Zech 12: 1).  Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? (Acts 17: 28)  He has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world (Eph 1: 4).  And, of course, in uniquely LDS scripture:  He bringeth mankind back into the presence of the Lord (Hel 14: 17).  Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many noble and great ones (Abr 3: 22).  Man was also in the beginning with God.  Intelligence, or light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be (D&C 93: 29).  

This is not an exhaustive list, but will suffice to prove the point.  What all of these scriptures have in common is that they all suggest a pre-mortal existence of man—a doctrine that is vital to understanding this and many other concepts relating us to our God.  This simple truth completely changes the entire course of this subject.  For an interesting video on this topic go here.

To expand this more fully and state it plainly, we have always existed in one form or another—our “intelligences” as well as our disposition to do good or evil, was not created by God.  This expands the doctrine where Augustine left off.  Thus, to use the free will response to answer the problem more completely--God did not create beings that were not evil, because this predisposition (to be good or evil) was already there.  Without this understanding, the rest of Christiandom must also live with the belief that if God truly created all things, He also created Satan, only compounding the problem.

With the doctrine of a pre-mortal existence firmly in place, we can move to understand more clearly the necessity of this free agency.  Why does not God stop us from doing evil to each other?  It is the only way to achieve a greater good that we could not achieve any other way.  More often that not, He allows our good or bad predispositions to play out, preserving our valuable free agency.  This concept goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.  “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)  And in Moses 3:17 we are given more and see that God reminded Adam that he had this all-important free agency, "nevertheless thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee."  God did not stop them from partaking of the fruit, but let them learn from their own actions about exactly what the name of the tree was—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  “It must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.  Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.” (2 Ne 15, 16)  They were only given two commandments; do not eat from this tree and multiply and replenish the earth.  Since they could not multiply in the innocent state they were in (and were unable to fulfill this commandment) they eventually came to the realization that they must break one commandment to fulfill the other—even if by the promptings of Satan.  

Jesus was pronounced the Savior "before the foundations of the world".  He was not plan B.  Adam and Eve did not mess up God's plan.  Thus the purposes of God were complete and all was in motion as he had planned all along.  Man chose for himself to fall spiritually (meaning separation from God) rather than God forcing him into a fallen condition in which all this learning could take place.  In any future difficult (or evil) situation, man could not rightfully blame God for it. Adam learned for himself what it was to sin and the heartache it caused, and began the human race all in the process.

Classical Christian theologians do not understand the purpose of the fall.  They therefore miss the full understanding of the purpose of the atonement of Jesus Christ along with the necessity of free agency and the possibility of evil.  Without knowledge of good and evil providing the opposition, it is impossible to have free will.

The fall had to occur according to principles of free will and agency. This is why Satan was allowed in the Garden. It was given to Adam and Eve to choose according to their own free will to undergo certain consequences (death and sin) and not to have them forced upon them. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Through the fall the earth was "cursed for our sake".

Although suggested earlier, the concept coalesces more completely here—that in order to achieve the good that arises of man’s nature, changing to one of goodness, and even godlike, evil must exist.  In a very real sense, good cannot arise without evil being a possibility.

Some good answers are now coming together, and I hope the reader can agree we have successfully added enlightening propositions to the above problem, but there are still some situations not completely covered.  What about the innocent?  Maybe these lessons need to be learned, but must they be at the expense of others that suffer at the hands of evil people?  What about the Holocaust or thousands of other cases?  Several things need to be considered to get a grasp on this end of the problem of evil.  First of all, if and when there is divine intervention to prevent these things, we probably never know it.  Secondly, the free agency that was discussed earlier may be at risk if there were intervention in every case.  Clearly this free agency must be in tact. 

A perfect example that may shed some light on evil being passed to the innocent is given in Alma 14 as evil was done to women and children simply for believing in God.  The evildoers purposefully held their captives, forcing them to watch while they, “brought their wives and children together, and whosoever believed or had been taught to believe in the word of God they caused that they should be cast into the fire… and when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene?  Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.  But Alma said unto him:  The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.”   

Several excellent lessons are learned from this passage.  Notice that a just judgment seems to be an important attribute of a just God.  If he passes a horrible judgment on someone, it will be for more than just an evil mind.  There will be actual history of the action(s), there will be a memory in both the perpetrator and the victim(s), and there may even be actual witnesses to show and tell that the judgment is indeed just.  Notice also that there is mention of some kind of balancing out on the other side as the innocent get some kind of fair repayment as, “the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory.”  Again, our finite minds can ponder about the fairness to those that seem to be at the short end of this deal. (The issue of contract below addresses this).  Their life comes to an end, and they suffer all the way there to boot.  In the end, faith is still necessary, but the idea that all get what is coming to them in the end is at least somewhat satisfying and fair.

In the sermon on the mount, the Lord tells us, "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven." (Matthew 5: 11, 12).

Although the above reasoning can give some insight into yet another aspect of the problem of evil—natural disasters—tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., we could still use some help here as well.  But really, is free agency at stake, are lessons learned, is judgment vindicated, or does any greater good come from these horrific disasters at all?  Although we can and will speculate concerning the answers, without prophetic utterance, we simply cannot with assurance put any specific answer on any specific occurrence.  Therefore, to be safe we will begin where we have both a disaster and a prophetic utterance concerning that disaster.  Of course for the most agreed upon source we must again turn to the scriptures.  

The first natural disaster we are told about is Noah’s ark and the flood.  In this case we are told of a wicked people that are wiped out due to their own agency (there’s that word again) in which God “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5)

Abraham asked God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if he could only find ten righteous people.  He was apparently unsuccessful and only then God, “rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the inhabitants of the cities.” (Genesis 19: 24, 25)               

When Christ came to the Americas many cities and people were killed in a number of ways.  The reason we are told is, “that their wickedness and abominations might be hid from before my face.”  To those left alive we are told that they were spared because they were “more righteous.” (3 Ne 9: 11, 13)

Although we should not assume all those killed were evil, what we are told in these instances is that these disasters occurred because of wickedness.  It may, however be difficult to accept that all natural disasters happen for this reason.  It is much easier to blame natural evils on sin when we are not living in that era and we have no ties to those who are affected.  Still we must ask the question, are God’s purposes done?  Perhaps it was a merciful God who prevented people from condemning themselves even further with more and greater sins.  Perhaps it was to spare that person from greater evil later in life.  We could even assume that perhaps these people agreed to leave the earth at this time and in this manner to further the works of God in some way—even if that way was to try the faith of those that remain (and we will expound on this last thought).

The nature of man (or his predispostion he brought with him) can also play into the reason for these disasters.  We are told that the natural man is an enemy to God and that we are to put off the natural man.  History tells us that this natural man, that we are to put off, too easily turns to sin and away from God.  Unfortunately it often seems the only thing that turns man back from this path is the real threat of suffering.  As Mormon expounds in Helaman 12: 3, “And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember Him.”

As was suggested earlier, the fall of man came by his own choice.  Likewise, in the pre-mortal existence of man we can easily presume what I will call the issue of contract.  That is, each of us came to this earth knowing all the possibilities that lie ahead of us.  It was our own choice to expose ourselves to the evils of the world.  We may have even known much about how our lives would play out.  Knowing these things we still agreed to come.  Is there anything in LDS doctrine that confirms this?  Yes, but again we can find these without using exclusive LDS sources.  We have a council in heaven in the Bible when, “all of the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:7), which suggests agreement of all parties.  We have Adam who made the choice of sin himself with all the “evil” consequences in mind.  The ultimate and perfect example is of our elder brother, Jesus Christ, whom we are to follow, that volunteered to complete the atonement—to suffer and die innocently.  Man should be very careful about cursing God for what happens in their life—they may have agreed or even volunteered for it themselves.

From here it is not hard to imagine that some of the more noble of us gladly were willing to lay down our lives in innocence, to further the work of the God that we so loved.  Again, the ultimate example of this principle is Christ.  Jesus suffered more evil than any other person ever has or ever will.  Why would God allow the death of his only begotten if there was any way he could avoid it?  If He made the law He could change it, but He didn't and He can't.  Not that He can't in the sense of denying His omnipotence.  He can go against eternal law, but if He did He would, "cease to be God".

God abides by the truth. Truth is comprised of all eternal laws, principles and facts. These laws are dictated by inexorable or immutable sources of perfect justice that govern the heavens and are the framework of eternal truth. He does not create truth or eternal laws. Just as He has always existed so too have they.  He is therefore a God of truth.  His law of justice, fully understood, is not merely something that comes down hard on the guilty, but should give hope to those that have come up short in this life--justice will repay them what it owed.


Truth cannot change or it would cease to be truth.  If He held the power to change truth, then the concept of allowing any person to suffer, or to use death or sacrifice in order to have mercy would be unnecessary and extreme, if not whimsical.  Under the justice of eternal laws, mercy can only be brought about by fulfillment of the penalties associated with the broken laws.  If this were not the case, God would not be perfectly just.  With the amount of suffering inflicted by evil and the injustice that is present here, God can only be doing one of two things.  Either he gets some satisfaction from mortal suffering or He is compelled by some reasoning or law. 

(see Why did Jesus have to die? here.)


We are taught that the reason we shouted for joy in the above scripture in Job, was that the plan of salvation was explained to us in a great council in heaven.  The great blessings and happiness that involved coming to this earth far outweighed staying in our current condition forever.  Again, a more specific knowledge beyond the council in heaven could have easily been given to us individually on a much more personal basis concerning how each of our lives would play out.  There can be many speculations in this area.  Perhaps, for example, we knew our parents-to-be beforehand and loved them so much we would come to them even in very poor, even painful and fatal conditions.  In a very real way, this is following the example of our Savior.

In my mind, the restored church’s doctrines of the plan of salvation, pre-mortal existence and council in heaven resolve this and many aspects of the problem of evil as well as many other difficult questions.  Temple work for the salvation of the dead also plays a key role in God’s overall plan as it teaches us that all are given a fair and equal chance to return to Him.  As it turns out, this final morsel of truth is enormously vital.  This actually solves an aspect of the problem of evil that flows into soteriology (how one is saved).  This is a self-inflicted wound that the Christian apostasy is guilty of, but is again resolved through the restoration.

Stated in philosophical terms:  
1. God is perfectly loving and just and desires that all of His children be saved.
2. Salvation comes only in and through one’s acceptance of Christ.
3. Billions of God’s children have lived and died without ever hearing of Christ or having a chance to receive salvation through Him.

With no other propositions here, this problem is glaring.  Would a just God really create what is the majority of mankind only to send them to hell simply because they have not obeyed the rules they never knew?  

The best argument I have heard from orthodox Christianity is referenced to Acts 17: 26, 27;  That He determined beforehand the times and places men would go so that men would seek Him.  In other words, yes they all go to hell since they would not have accepted Jesus anyway.  

Let’s quickly put out the fire here and restore what was lost by adding a final proposition:

4. Those who live and die without having a chance to respond positively to the gospel of Jesus Christ will have that chance to do so.  How else can Christians reasonably explain Biblical scriptures such as 1 Cor 15: 29, 1 Peter 3: 19, 20, and 1 Peter 4: 6. The Biblical practice of baptism for the dead was banished at the Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. and other valuable morsels of truth that directly help solve this problem were reasoned away or voted out.

Thank God for Joseph Smith, the prophet of the restoration, who was the means of bringing back all these valuable truths.

Finally we should understand on what can be known as the great equalizer—the atonement of Christ.  We touched on a balancing out that takes place in the hereafter, and it is the atonement that makes this possible.  We may understand judgment, justification, the need for opposition and growth, free agency, moral consequences, and the issue of contract, but when the evils of this world hit home, sometimes knowledge just isn’t enough.  But if we only understand and have faith in the atonement, it is enough.  We know that the atonement covers our sins, but in Alma we read that He will also take upon Him our, “pains, sicknesses, and infirmities.”  Isaiah 25: 8 tells us that, “the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.”  We are told Jesus Christ, is the Great Physician, the One sent of the Father to heal wounds, to settle souls.

1 Pet 4:12-13, "Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad, also with exceeding joy." Hebrews 12:6, "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Revelations 7:14 John sees the multitudes saved at the throne of God and tells us, "These are they which came out of great tribulation." Then in 17 he ends with, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."  

We live in a fallen world, a world of pain, trauma and tragedy, a world where bad things happen to good people.  In all of this the purposes of God are fulfilled.  What are those purposes?  There are many, but the ultimate purpose is given in Moses 1:39, “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”  How grateful I am that I have access, not just to the Bible, but to all the doctrines of the restoration.  Restored doctrine that, when understood, can heal a broken soul.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/david-l-paulsen/joseph-smith-problem-evil/  or YouTube here.


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