Being of a philosophically speculative turn of mind I find it intensely frustrating that the Christian Creed apparently offers me no tidy explanation of the existence of evil in a world supposed to be governed by a good and all-powerful Being.  I am conscious that the most profound theologians throughout the ages have grappled with this problem only to resort finally to a defence in term of "It is all an unfathomable mystery." No doubt I shall have to do likewise but on the way I shall try to express some thoughts on this mystery!

Let us first note that philosophically evil is only a problem because we assert the existence of a benevolent designer.  If we turn the problem on its head, and postulate the universe as a product of a malevolent intelligence, we would have the same difficulty explaining the problem of good. For example, why should a state of health be a norm, from which disease is a departure? Alternatively if we attribute the existence of a highly-ordered, mathematically-regulated cosmos to the random collision of atomic particles subject to the logic of the survival of the fittest how can we explain the lives of St. Francis or Mother Theresa? Can we accept that the lives of Hitler or Stalin are equally admirable? Why do we in practice continually draw on moral absolutes, if the world has no purpose or meaning? And is it even possible that the world exists through random atomic collision? The atheist physicist Sir Fred Hoyle in his book "The Intelligent Universe" argues that the origin of the universe in this way is quite impossible. But it is not the purpose of this essay to deal with that particular debate.

Perhaps the most powerful and frequent objection to Christianity is "I cannot believe in God when there is so much suffering in the world." This statement needs careful analysis. Is it saying that the fact of suffering means there can be no intelligent being in charge of the universe? Surely it questions not the existence of a creator being, but his moral nature? It could be that we are products of a malevolent Creator for whom suffering is a norm. But even a deity corresponding to the ideas of the novelist Thomas Hardy - a cosmic sadist - presumably only amuses himself by witnessing the sufferings of humans as they nearly achieve happiness but for an ironic accident.  If happiness were not a norm such ironies would be insignificant.

I take it that the objection quoted above is saying "the God you say exists is not worth getting to know if he allows suffering to exist - in other words it is an objection to God's moral nature.  It appears self-evident that our most important task is to discover our maker, if there is one, and co-operate with his purposes.  If he is all-powerful then to do other then co-operate with him is a waste of our time and resources, dooming us to frustration and failure.  If he is malevolent, it is unfortunate for us, for we either have to co-operate with a being we find morally repugnant in order to succeed, or we have to fight him and go down in failure if he is more powerful than we are.

Against this possibility stands the assertion of Christianity - that the designer of the universe has a nature like Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

All the qualities exemplified in Jesus which we admire as “good" - love, truth, justice, peace - have their origin in the deity and are deeply engrained in human nature, because we all carry, as it were, the designer’s stamp, which enables us to recognise and admire these qualities.  Christianity further asserts that these qualities are the strongest force in the universe, and will triumph ultimately over their opposites - hatred, deception, injustice and violence.  Christians "back the scent of life against the stink" as it has been neatly expressed.

The solution to the riddle of the presence of evil in a world controlled by a God of love may lie in the definition of that control.  To summarise Christian doctrine: God the omnipotent Creator makes a universe, allowing it to produce beings with freewill, including both mankind and the non-corporeal beings known as angels.  Mankind rejects God's way of love, and chooses hatred with all its horrible consequences.  The natural world is linked with mankind's choice, and is therefore disrupted and flawed in its workings.  Note that the power of evil could never have been active in our world had mankind not rejected the God who is all goodness.

God now embarks on a rescue operation.  First of all he becomes one of his creatures in order to lead a "resistance movement" from within.  He is subjected to a cruel death at the hands of his creatures.  But he is not destroyed by death; he is able to triumph over it, thus demonstrating that he has the power to overcome evil.  He promises that at the end of human history his own omnipotence will be revealed, and evil will be completely and finally destroyed.  So we live at the moment in an age when we do not yet see God exercising his power, through his own self-imposed restraint.  Perhaps those who demand that God should do something about all the evil in the world, do not realise the implications of asking the all-powerful Creator to exercise that power. Remember the myth of Semele?  When she demanded that Jove should reveal himself not disguised as a man but in his full deity, she died at the sight.

The next question is: why did God give mankind freewill which could be abused and bring about so much suffering?  Perhaps we get a glimpse of the choices God had, when we consider whether to have a child ourselves. If we create a new being which can become a St. Francis, a Hitler, or more likely something in between, would it not be safer not to take the risk at all?  I can only think that God had no alternative if he wanted to create anything worthwhile.  Presumably he did not want to create a species without free choice, inescapably programmed to love him and do good.  Where is the joy in love which is compelled rather than voluntarily given?  How would our freewill be meaningful if God had created a world in which cause and effect were not linked, and thus a choice of evil did not lead to its inevitable consequence of suffering?

The whole point of Christianity is that it is in itself the answer to the problem of evil and suffering - not a written treatise on the problem, but the demonstration of God dealing with evil.  Faced with a world in the grip of suffering, God does not remain silent, nor does he deliver a lecture on the reasons for this state of affairs; he arrives himself to deal with it.  The cosmic conflict between good and evil focuses in human history at Calvary in Christ's crucifixion, where God himself battles it out with the powers of evil.  He is apparently overcome by evil as he is subject to death, but he is able to live again; death cannot hold him for he has never been subject to sin, of which death is the consequence.  In our present life we do not possess an exact understanding of how this victory took place, but a full understanding is not necessary to receive the benefits of it.  The explanation given by Aslan in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” of how he overcame death is perhaps helpful:  "...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead,...Death itself would start working backwards."

Ultimately the question of a good God permitting evil in his universe can be reduced to the challenge of Dr. Rieux in Camus' novel "La Peste" - that God should not have created at all if the price was to be the suffering of even one child.  It is a valid question, and one which I feel I should like to ask God when I meet him.  But I think it may appear unanswerable or irrelevant then - rather like the child who asks "Who would I be if I wasn't me?"  Even if we did know the answer to this mystery, would such knowledge be much help to us other than satisfying our intellectual curiosity? Christianity offers hope for the elimination of evil rather than an explanation of it.  Jesus Christ declared war on the suffering which he encountered, and asserts that God is like this.  So the person who seeks to follow Christ is aligning himself in God's fight against suffering, in the knowledge that ultimately the goodness of God will emerge triumphant as the strongest force in the universe.

The Christian interpretation of life's journey can be likened to the experience of going on a long trek beset with difficulties, at the end of which a warm comfortable hostel awaits the traveller.  There is all the difference between suffering hardships not knowing where one is going or whether the trek will lead to a hostel at the end, and enduring the difficulties in the knowledge that one will eventually arrive at the hostel.  To extend the analogy, if we refuse to take seriously what God has revealed about himself, on the grounds that he has not yet revealed everything, are we not making ourselves rather like travellers who refuse to head for the hostel on the grounds that not all the vagaries of the route were explained beforehand?

In considering the question of evil, we must not be deterred by that which we do not yet understand, from acting upon that which we do understand.  Christianity asserts that God has made it clear through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that he has dealt decisively with the problem of suffering and that ultimately this victory will be clear for all to see. At the end of the Bible in Revelation Chapter 21 the Apostle John says:
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. …and I heard a loud voice... saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them, They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
 
 

No discussion of Christian doctrine about the origin of evil could be complete without reference to the scriptural teaching about Satan. Scripture asserts that the natural evil we see in the world is brought about by the activity of an evil spiritual being, who sets himself up as a counterfeit "god", known as Lucifer, Satan, or the devil.  He was created as a glorious archangel, but he abused his freewill and rebelled against God. The significance of the Fall is that mankind turned away from voluntary obedience to the true God, and snatched a knowledge of both good and evil that we were not designed to possess; presumably only God could possess the awareness of evil yet not be adversely affected by it, as we are.  Thus mankind invited in the false "god", the devil, to rule the world, causing the disruption of the original created order through disease, disaster and death.  When Jesus encountered Satan in the wilderness, the words of Satan in the second temptation are significant: If you will fall down and worship me I will give you all the kingdoms of the world for they have all been given over to me.

However, God did not abandon the planet to its state of rebellion and disruption.  He set up a resistance group led by Jesus, who never allowed Satan to control him in his life, and who finally defeated Satan completely by overcoming death.  This resistance group comprising the followers of Jesus may seem small and insignificant, but is assured that ultimately it will win the war against evil and suffering.  Although we now see evil in all its numerous forms apparently in control, Scripture assures us that God will intervene at the end of tine, bringing about the final overthrow of Satan, and the establishment of Jesus as the rightful ruler of our planet (and indeed the whole universe) with everything and every person subject to his law of love and justice.

The Bible remains silent on why an evil spiritual being should have been allowed to exist in the first place.  In Jesus's parable of the wheat and the tares, when the owner of the field is informed that his wheat has been spoiled by the tares (a sort of counterfeit wheat which was useless and inedible) he comments "an enemy has done this" but we are not told where the enemy had come from or how he managed to get access to the field of wheat.   We have to face the same question in relation to the devil as we had to face in relation to mankind: namely why would an omnipotent God of perfect goodness allow malevolent beings to exist in a universe he created?  I can only conclude that the answer is the same as it was in the case of mankind: that nothing meaningful could be created without endowing the creatures, whether material or spiritual beings, with that freewill which is not compelled to love because it is pre-programmed like a robot, but can truly choose the good and can respond to love voluntarily.  Apparently God thought it worth taking all the attendant risks of creation in order to preserve the freedom of both the angelic and the human creation, and to establish voluntary love as the ruling principle of his universe.