Why Does Evil Exist?
- James Ward
- Oct 7, 2017
- 23 min read
On October 2nd 2017, a man opened fire on a crowd in Las Vegas and killed 58 people, wounded over 500, and then killed himself. At the time of this writing, the Las Vegas massacre is only the most recent event of this nature. Unfortunately this is not such an unusual thing in our society. Evil is everywhere. We experience school shootings, road rage incidents, war, and terrorism. But we also experience natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, as well as tragic outbreaks of disease and famine. People often ask Christians why we believe in a good God who allows bad things to happen. Where was God on October 2nd 2017 while those people were being murdered? God is all-knowing and all-powerful, so He could have stopped it from happening. Why did He let 58 people die in the Las Vegas massacre? Why does He allow all of this evil to exist?
This subject can be difficult because we all have ideas about who God is and what His motives are, and we naturally want to fight against any ideas that conflict with what we want to believe. Many Christians refuse to believe what the Bible says about this subject because they don't like how it makes them feel. Many well-intentioned Christians will quickly find themselves far away from scripture, using all sorts of philosophical tricks in order to defend something that they shouldn't be defending, for the sake of maintaining their traditions.
Only a few pages into the Bible, we see that God has created everything and that everything is good. He placed Adam and Eve in the garden and He placed a tree in the garden and told them not to eat the fruit. Then He allowed the serpent into the garden, He let the serpent deceive Eve, and God allowed her to eat the fruit. Then God allowed Eve to persuade Adam and he ate it too. God did not stop any of that from happening, even though it was evil. This is the same God who created everything, knows everything, sees everything, and is all-present. He knew exactly what was happening in that garden. It wasn't a surprise to Him, and He let it happen on purpose. He allowed Adam and Eve to eat the fruit and fall into sin. He let them disobey Him on purpose. Then God allowed them to make clothes out of fig leaves to hide their nakedness. He let them try to solve their own problem and fail. He stood by and let all of these things happen, and then He chose to interfere exactly when He wanted to. He allowed the fall of man to happen on purpose because He had a plan. He allowed evil things to happen because His plan includes evil.
After God cursed the creation, He killed an animal to provide a sufficient covering for Adam and Eve because the work of their own hands was not sufficient. Their own works, the fig leaves, were insufficient covering. They needed to be covered by a bloody sacrifice and God had to provide it for them. God established something very early. When sin occurs, death comes. (Genesis 2:17)
"The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23)
God instituted a system of covering sins with blood, blood that comes from something other than the sinner, taking the blood of something innocent and using that blood to symbolically cover human sins. The animal blood was symbolic of the true sacrifice that would come later, Jesus Christ. The Old Testament Jewish sacrificial system was looking forward to something greater. It was only an imperfect shadow of the perfection that would come in Christ's atonement on the cross.
"But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins". (Hebrews 10:3-4)
When God cursed creation, He told Adam and Eve the first gospel, that there would be a Savior to come (Genesis 3:15). This is the first hint of His plan for redemption. Nothing surprises God. This was His plan all along. The Old Testament is the record of God enacting His plan, and revealing a little bit more of Himself gradually as time went on. He began right away showing that He is in charge and He's the one who determines what is good and what is not. He chose Abel's sacrifice over Cain's, which made Cain so angry that he murdered Abel. God did not stop Cain from murdering Abel. Then God chose to allow humanity to become so evil that He wiped out the entire human race except for 8 people in the flood. He stands by and allows exactly what He wants to allow, and then He interferes when He sees fit, all according to His plan. He guides the lineage of every family, good or bad. He determines when a woman will have a child, what the child's name is, what kind of people they'll be, the things that will happen through their lives, and when they'll die. He forms nations, allows them to go completely evil, uses them for His purposes, and then uses another nation to wipe them out as punishment for how evil they are. The Bible is the written record of God creating history exactly how He wanted it to unfold, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the horrible, all according to His will.
Then came Jesus Christ, the One who fulfills the plan of redemption, the ultimate sacrifice which was powerful enough to eternally save sinners, the ultimate spotless Lamb who was prophesied to come. He came exactly when it was time for Him to come. The eternal Son of God entered flesh, did everything according to prophecy, volunteered His own life to save His people, and accomplished His mission on earth perfectly, all according to God's sovereign will. God cannot fail at anything. Christ couldn't possibly fail to do exactly what He was here to do. Everything that happened in the Bible was so that Christ would come and be our Savior. Christ is the reason for absolutely everything that has ever happened. Paul, speaking of Christ, had this to say:
"He is the image of the invisible God, the Heir of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven." (Colossians 1:15-20)
We're all sinners, but God's children are sinners who have been saved by grace, which means it's an unearned gift. We're saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, even though we don't deserve it. He does it to show His goodness and love. Evil exists so that God can show His goodness. He chooses to save sinners because He is loving and kind, and since God does not change and cannot learn, He has always known who His children are. He has always known everything.
God wrote down the names of His children in a heavenly "book" which the Bible calls "the book of life" and "the Lamb's book of life" (Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5, Revelation 17:8, Revelation 20:15). The names in the book were written "before the foundation of the world" (Revelation 17:8, Ephesians 1:4). That means before God created any humans, He wrote the names of His children in a book. I'm trying to tell you that God has a plan. The names were written in the book before He created the world. He knew ahead of time who would be saved and who would be damned.
"The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come." (Revelation 17:8)
"And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20:15)
Paul knew the natural human reaction to God's supreme sovereignty would be an appeal to fairness, that the reader would think God is unfair. In Romans 9, Paul describes the way God used the pharaoh of Egypt like a piece on a gameboard to accomplish exactly what God wanted to accomplish. So if no one can resist God's will, then how is it fair of Him to judge people for what they do? How is it fair of God to harden pharaoh's heart and then punish pharaoh for hardening his heart? How is it fair of God to make two different kinds of people? How can God make one person a vessel of mercy and make another person a vessel of wrath, knowing ahead of time that one will go to heaven and the other will go to hell? God knew this question was going to be asked, so the answer is in Romans 9.
"You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles." (Romans 9:19-24)
When we say that God is sovereign and that He is all-powerful, we really do mean that He literally has ALL of the power and that He really is 100% sovereign over every last detail. He does whatever He wants to do and He will not be questioned by anyone. It's your job to trust Him and do what He says to do. It's not your job to try and cover for Him. He does not need anyone to protect Him. In the end, the entire universe will see what He has done, and every knee will bend to Him. Every tongue will confess His Lordship. You can either bend the knee to Him now while you're still alive, or you can do it right before He puts you in hell, but every knee will bend and every tongue will confess. (Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:10)
God has a plan and His plan includes evil. Before He created anything, God knew exactly how evil Adolf Hitler was going to be, and He created him anyway. God decides how much evil He will restrain and how much He will allow. As evil as Hitler was, he could have been even worse if God had allowed it. This is incredibly difficult for many Christians to understand, so of course the unbeliever cannot possibly understand it. But Romans 9 clearly teaches that some people are vessels of wrath and some people are vessels of mercy. He will use one kind of person to demonstrate His wrath by sending them to hell forever, and He'll use the other to demonstrate His mercy by allowing them to live forever in His presence. He creates all of us, knowing ahead of time what each of us will do with our lives, all of the details including whether we are saved or damned. But Hitler was not forced to be evil. He did exactly what his wicked heart desired, freely of his own choice. That's the story of everyone who goes to hell. These people will not be able to blame God for anything. And every last one of us would suffer the exact same fate if God had not chosen to demonstrate His mercy, love, and grace.
Paul says this about Christians:
"He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will". (Ephesians 1:4-11)
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." (Ephesians 2:8-10)
"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified." (Romans 8:28-30)
He knows every act of evil before it happens, and He allows it to happen for a good purpose. He causes everything that happens to work toward our good, to the good of His children. He allows only what He wants to allow, only that which will do the most good ultimately. God allows these things to happen and He remains all good because He is not required to share His goodness with anyone or anything, but He is kind, gracious, loving, and merciful, so He does share His goodness with all of creation, all of the time. He cannot be charged with evil because it is impossible for God to do evil because He is God.
"God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5)
"Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." (James 1:13-17)
Only God is good of Himself. He would be just as good if nothing else existed. But nothing else can be good unless He makes it good. And He is not required to make anything at all, let alone anything good. It is only a glaring example of His goodness that anything good exists other than Him. He is so good that He allows other good things to exist. We all enjoy His goodness every day.
Think of good and evil as light and darkness. Light requires energy. There has to be a source of light. Something has to be emitting the light in order for there to be light. But darkness isn't like that. Darkness is the absence of light. It doesn't take energy or effort to make darkness, it's the natural state. Something has to happen in order for light to occur, but nothing has to happen for darkness to exist. Darkness isn't really a thing, it's the absence of something. You can turn a light completely off, or you can block certain areas and create shadows however big or small you want, or you can dim the light to whatever degree you desire. God can do this with His goodness. He can allow as much or as little as He desires. All goodness comes from Him. Evil is only different degrees of not having goodness, like shadows on a sunny day. Some shadows are darker and some lighter, some are bigger and some smaller. God allows however much of His goodness to be blocked as will bring Him the most glory in the end.
In order to know the brightness of light, you first have to know darkness. We all know what it's like to go from complete darkness into full sunshine. It's all the more stunning because we are coming out of darkness. If darkness didn't exist, we would have no concept of the brightness of light. God is the source of all goodness, but He is not the source of evil. Evil is only the absence of God, the absence of His goodness. If anything other than God exists, it will by definition be less good than He is. Everything that exists is less good than He is, to differing degrees, because only God is truly good. We should all be in a constant state of thanksgiving to God because of His constant protection. We don't understand how bad the world could be if He just backed His goodness away and allowed us to act out all of our darkest desires. If He chooses to judge a nation by removing Himself from them, that is His right as God, and He remains holy and good. He is not required to bless anyone. So when we see an evil man do something more evil than usual, we wonder why God allowed it to happen because we don't understand how evil our own hearts are. When was the last time you wondered why God allows you to sin over and over again without zapping you and sending you to hell for it?
Humans tend to use other humans as the standard. I'm not as bad as Hitler so that means I'm a good person. But you, me, and Hitler are all sinners who deserve hell. We are all born into the same state of spiritual death, and we would all be a bunch of Hitlers and Stalins if God hadn't decided to have mercy and not let many people be that evil. We are all evil, and we all deserve hell, just some of us do more heinous things, and some less. But there is only One who is good, and He is constantly restraining the evil of humanity exactly to the degree that He desires, so that His will is done perfectly. This is impossible to understand unless you believe in the God of the Bible. God allows evil to exist so that He can demonstrate the fullness of His character to all of creation.
"so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:7).
Without sin, we would not need a Savior, we would not need grace. Without evil we wouldn't know God's goodness. If mankind had never fallen into sin, we couldn't know God as fully as He wants us to know Him. Evil must exist for this brief moment in time, so for the rest of eternity all of creation will know how good God truly is, and how loving He is, and how holy He is.
The Son of God stepped down from heaven, into a body made of flesh and blood, and humiliated Himself and put Himself through agony. He went from heavenly glory, down to this cursed world, so that He could be beaten, mocked, spit on, have His beard ripped out of His face, have His flesh torn open by whips, and to die in a grotesque and humiliating way. Jesus allowed that humiliation to happen to Himself on purpose. On the cross He bore the sins of everyone who would believe in Him (John 3:16). Jesus took our punishment so that we wouldn't have to take it. He allowed this to happen as a demonstration of His goodness. The torture of Jesus Christ is the very reason God created this universe. This was His plan from the beginning. The reason Adam ate the fruit was so that Jesus would be crucified. He is the reason for everything.
Acts 2:23 says that Jesus was "delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God". God ordained ahead of time everything that happened to Jesus. Every punch in the face, every snap of the whip, all of the anger and hatred against Jesus, all of the violence, all of the evil, it was all predetermined according to God's will. The murder of holy Jesus was the most evil thing that has ever happened. The only sinless Human who ever lived, the Son of God in flesh, was hated, and abused, and tortured to death, and took the undue wrath of God even though He was perfect and truly innocent in a way that no other human has ever been. It was the worst thing that has ever happened, but it was also the best thing that ever happened. God allows the evil deeds of man, so that good may be demonstrated from it. Look how much good came from the murder of Christ. Our perspective has to be a heavenly perspective in order to see the good in an evil event.
Toward the end of Genesis, we read about Joseph the son of Jacob. Joseph's brothers hated him and were jealous of him, so they decided to sell him into slavery and tell their father that Joseph had been mauled to death. Later on, through a series of providential events, Joseph is reunited with his brothers. He tells his brothers that what they did was evil, but God meant it for good. God allowed it to happen because He had a plan.
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive" (Genesis 50:20).
God let the brothers do exactly what they wanted to do, because He was going to turn it into a demonstration of His power and His goodness. Because they did their evil act, Joseph ended up in Egypt when the drought came and God saved thousands of people from dying through the actions of Joseph. God used the evil to produce a good outcome. He used Joseph's brothers to accomplish His will, just like every other person in the Bible. Every wicked choice we make will be used for something good, so that God can demonstrate the supremacy of His goodness in some way. God will be glorified by all of history, by all of creation. Humans do wicked things because they are wicked and that's what they want to do, but He's merciful to everyone because He doesn't allow us to be as wicked as we could potentially be. He only allows what He wants to allow. He shows mercy to whom He wishes, and to the degree that He wishes.
According to Ephesians 2:1, we're all born into a state of death, "dead in your trespasses and sins". 2 Corinthians 4:4 says that in our natural state of unbelief we've been blinded so that we can't see the light of the gospel. Psalm 58 says babies come out of the womb speaking lies. You don't have to teach kids to lie, you have to teach them to tell the truth. It's our nature to be selfish and deceptive. We're all born sinners and we have to be taught to go against our sinful nature to be "good people". But even what we call a good person is still a sinner who deserves hell. Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 both say "There is no one who does good." Paul says it again in Romans 3 "Both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin; as it is written, 'There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who looks for God...'" The Bible is crystal clear about humans being evil. It is also absolutely clear that God is good.
Many people have difficulty with this because they think humans are good, not evil. But we don't understand how holy and good God really is. Our warped sense of morality thinks it's unfair of God to be so harsh. We put our sinful sense of right and wrong above God's all-knowing eternal wisdom.
Humans choose to do evil because it's what we desire, it's our nature. We are all guilty of willingly disobeying God. It would not be good of Him to let sin go unpunished. It would be wrong to not punish sin. Sin has to be dealt with in order for God's holy righteous justice to be demonstrated, for His good nature to remain intact. Every last sin will be paid for by someone. It was either paid for by Christ on the cross, or it will be paid for in hell by those who reject Christ and choose themselves instead.
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:16-21)
Every beat of the heart, every breath we take, is God showing us His incredible mercy and patience. We all deserve to die and be punished for our sins. He can take us to eternity any time He wants, but He lets us live long lives. Every day of life is a demonstration of God's mercy, patience, grace, and love. But how many people in the world wake up in the morning every day, go about their business all day long, and go to sleep at night, without ever thinking about God's constant care, without once acknowledging Him, without ever thanking Him for His provision, without bowing the knee to His Lordship?
So then, where was God on October 2nd 2017, when a man decided to open fire into a crowd of people in Las Vegas? He was exactly where He always is. He was on His throne seeing that things are done exactly according to His plans. God was on His throne when Jesus was beaten and tortured to death, and He will be on His throne when you breathe your last breath, just like He will be when the next hurricane comes, and when the next school shooting happens, and when the next war starts, and when you celebrate a wedding, or when you mourn at a funeral, when a baby is born, when a parent dies, when you are in the hospital having surgery, when things are going great in your life, and even when things seem like they couldn't get any worse.
"Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked I shall return there.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21)
"Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" (Job 2:10)
That man in Las Vegas did an absolutely evil thing, and he's going to pay for it in hell forever. But every person he killed was also a sinner who God had allowed to live and sin against Him countless times over their lives. He was merciful and kind and patient to them. He provided them with everything they had needed up to that point, and then He took them to eternity, just like everyone else who has ever lived. We all have our own appointed time to die, and it's rarely pleasant, but we all have to die. For 58 people, that was their time to die.
But how many people did God protect in that crowd? How many bullets did not hit anyone at all? How many people didn't die that day? How many people had a huge reason to be thankful that day? How many living people are now examining their beliefs because they realize how close they came to death? How many thanked God that day because He kept them safe, when on a normal day they would not have even thought about God. That day as news of the incident started to spread, how many of their loved ones prayed to God for the first time in years, asking Him to protect someone, and He did protect them. How many people will have their lives changed in a good way because of this?
When things are good, we don't care about God. But as soon as something bad happens, that's when we pray. That's when we realize, oh yeah I'm not in control, I'd better go to the One who is in control and ask Him to help me. Human nature is self-centered, not God-centered. He has to make us look to Him because we won't do it on our own.
"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." (Exodus 33:19)
"So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." (Romans 9:15)
"Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him." (Psalm 115:3)
"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)
What if someone in that Las Vegas crowd turned to Jesus because of what happened? What if a young man in that crowd would have gone to hell if he'd died that day, but God saved him and now he believes in Jesus? What if he will become a preacher now and through his messages thousands of people turn to Christ? What if someone in the crowd died, and they were an organ donor, and their heart went to another person who had been laying in a hospital bed for weeks, praying to God and asking God for a new heart, and she got a new heart because an evil man shot and killed the organ donor, and now she will live another 40 years because of it. What if a man had gotten in a huge fight with his brother earlier that day and said some really hurtful things, but because he had a brush with death he apologized to his brother and it restored their relationship. What if a man in the crowd was planning to kill his wife, but he got shot and died that night instead. What if a parent died in the crowd because their child needs to grow up with this experience in order to shape them into the person God wants them to be, for reasons that are beyond our understanding? What if millions of people will benefit in some good way because of the Las Vegas massacre? None of us have a wide enough view to be able to comprehend the magnitude of each event that occurs in history, but God sees everything all at once. He declares the end from the beginning.
"I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure; Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it." (Isaiah 46:9-11)
"The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.
The Lord makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.
He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap To make them sit with nobles, And inherit a seat of honor; For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, And He set the world on them." (1 Samuel 2:6-8)
"If a calamity occurs in a city has not the Lord done it?" (Amos 3:6)
“I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these."
(Isaiah 45:5-7)
The massacre in Las Vegas was not outside of God's plan. He wasn't looking the other way when it happened. He didn't attempt and fail to stop it. He allowed it to happen for His good pleasure, so that His plan would play out the way He wants it to go. The evil man meant it for evil, but our good God meant it for good, just like Adam eating the fruit, just like Joseph's brothers selling Joseph into slavery, just like Christ's crucifixion, just like everything that has ever happened. God's goodness continues to outshine man's evil. God is demonstrating His goodness to everyone, against the black background of evil, like a diamond against black velvet. He will continue to make good come from evil until He decides it's over, and then He will get rid of it forever.
But as for His children, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)
So the answer to the question "Why does evil exist" is actually pretty easy. Evil exists because God wants it to exist. The real question is why God wants evil to exist. Hopefully I have answered that for you. As a wise man once said, evil is not good but it's good that evil exists.
Our good God has a good plan, and He's in complete control of absolutely everything that happens. Christians can take great comfort in this fact. You are always in His holy hands, so there is never any reason to worry about anything.
Along with this subject I also suggest reading God's Holy Hatred.
Thanks for reading. God bless.
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