| The answer to Evil in the World |
Date: 2026-09-13
Whenever you talk about only true living God who is holy and loving with non-believers, most of them determine that God does not exist because of all the evil there is in the world. Because if He would exists, He would intervene. Most even forget how evil they are themselves in the Eyes of God, but non-believers mostly don't see that because they consider themselves to be good. Me and my wife were once on holiday in France in the beautiful beach town of Noir Moutier and we met an older couple, and the lady of this couple has once been an army nurse, while the husband was a retired commander of a British aircraft carrier.
Exactly the same response came from her on the account that God cannot exist because there is so much evil in the world, and that she had seen of a lot of suffering as a nurse because of it.
Nevertheless, the God of the Bible is viewed by non-believers as such or as a God to be portrayed as evil, which is actually to the God of the Bible blasphemy. Seculars, liberals, non-believers do not expect an answer back to the question of "God and evil in the world" because it is also a challenge to most Christians who do not know what to say about this subject. But reading the Bible you already should come up with some answers.
I could also narrow it down with this video of John MacArthur at 2007 Ligonier Conference pastoring the sermon: The Problem of Evil. It is a little more than an hour. John does a very good job here in explaining why there is evil. I think rather there is not "The Problem of Evil" - but as there is a good answer to it, how we going to explain this in short? This might be the real problem as most walk away from lengthy explanations. As Christians we are in the prime directive of saving people who actually want to hear, so I will make an effort, at the end to write the answer in short.
What I will not do is going through John's different theodicies that are also in the video, I'll keep it as general as I can without digging too deep. Otherwise if you are interested, follow the video link above.
The central question will be: How can God be loving and allow massive evil to dominate the world?
John MacArthur used what he called a flow to what is known to the Christian and what is reality:
- Evil exists.
- God Exists.
- God allowed evil to exist.
1. Evil exists
Evil exists, this is a mere fact. But there are few things to understand first about God and the origin of evil:
- The Bible, in which God reveals Himself for His Glory, is not the author of evil neither the approver of evil. God is Holy and Good. He is the only Sovereign, He is in full of control of everything and God is omnipresent and righteous among other of His Holy character properties.
- Evil originated from heaven, as God created the Angels, and some of them began to rebel against God. Pride was the first sin of Lucifer because he was proud of all his accomplishments and self-pride does not give God glory, but yourself. And God created Lucifer, back then also nicknamed the morning star, so God should get the Glory for everything. And self-pride also invoked jealousy, Lucifer became jealous of God and God's glory. Lucifer wanted the glory for himself.
See how much pride there is in society today. The fallen are even parade pride of their shame. The beginning of self-pride was the root evil. And see what you get from it. All of which show's no pride to God. And God is the only One to be proud of because God is good. Understand that God made you and everything around you what you can see, and what you cannot see. Nothing, but nothing you have is earned. All what you see, feel, have eat, hear etc... all of it was given by God, the Word and the Holy Spirit - all of Whom are God. So God is the only One is to be praised for everything, for nothing is or exists without Him. And God owns all that exists and is Sovereign over all that exists.
So, proud of yourself? Really!
John MacArthur gave a list of several kinds of evil:
- Natural evil
- Moral evil
- Supernatural evil
- Eternal evil
Natural evil is all the evil that comes with the fall, every thing is breaking down, there are dangerous bacteria and viruses, really bad weather, droughts, famines etc. The increasing frequency of natural disasters we experience nowadays was already predicted in Matthew 24 on the big sermon of the mount. Lots of earthquakes, disasters etc in the end-time. According to what we know and of the passing of years the signs the end-time is now in full progress. Important of this sermon is that everything bad will increase in frequency - and will get worse and worse.
Moral evil is something the devil does not need to exploit because that is sin of the flesh, man is quite capable to sin morally which involves transgressions, wickedness of all sorts and sin. And God has seen that not one human is good, not one, see Romans 3:12.
Supernatural evil is the devil's work and his demons. This works in a way of we cannot see but only notice. The devil can put ideas in your head and then you have to choose. If you choose the devil idea's you will be sinning. Then there are events that are described in the book of Job. Here you see that God allowed Satan to go after Job's family to show that Job will not turn his back on God when misfortune hits him. God ordained it, but Satan was not allowed to decide what to do for himself. In the end Job never knew why it all happened (, see Job 38-42,) and he did not question the Creator.
Blame
- God was surprised when evil came into play
- God has no power over evil or He choose not to interfere with evil
- God has limited power
- God has limited knowledge
- God is a learning God, He does not know what happens next, He learns more as time progresses...
All of this is mumbo-jumbo. If these so-called evangelicals would care to read the Bible - then they'd know they all of these are countered by the Word.
God saw the beginning and the end of creation, read Isaiah 46:8-11. What does that mean exactly? That means in my humble interpretation that He Who Is and always was and Who is forever, all powerful and timeless, could see the beginning and the end of creation before creation itself. The Bible says that God knew you before you were (Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13-16, Ephesians 1:1-6). That should give you a big hint. So, God has already been through everything seen everything, knows every outcome, knows what we are going to do and knows before hand what He is going to do. But we are still experiencing everything in this thing He created for us: space-time. Strange huh? And in the Ephesians reference above you'll see a doctrine that is because of this reason not well understood: the Doctrine of Election. If God says Himself that He know you before you were, and saw the end of the beginning, that means to me that He knows everything before it happens. That is why God knows before hand who He will accept to His Kingdom and who will not be accepted. So, can He say He elected people from the foundation of the world before they were? Yes of course! It is that simple, but yet hard to grasp for us that God is way ahead while we are in the middle of it.
Make no mistake, just because God has seen every outcome and does His will in the mean time, does not mean that you are not responsible for your actions. Because those are the choices you made, or about to make. God just has seen it already, but your actions, your thoughts, the choices are still yours.
So what shall we say about evil? God is not the author of evil. The human heart is. And before creation, Satan was (then Lucifer). Through Lucifer and Adam and Eve death came into existence knowing good and evil. But death was not the end of creation. It was the merely curse of sin. Because the wages of sin is death. And God foresaw all of this. But God saw also the beginning and the end knowing not all will perish, and therefore God setup a redemption plan where He Himself will bring salvation to the world for whomever believes in Him. And He came as the Messiah, as Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, the Word, He Who has spoken everything into existence. Without the Word, Jesus Christ, nothing is made.
The highest gift of all for all is free will. And, boy, do we mostly choose for other things then for God. And that why there is so much evil in the world. Because people are evil by birth and we are of the devil - as the Bible says. Only when you repent, when you choose God to be your Father, only then you will see how evil you were yourself and how evil the world is. For real Christians it is a struggle every day as we are confronted by the Father and Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
2 God Exists
3 God willed evil to exist
1 Cronicles 29:10-14 David's Prayer:
10 David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.
11 Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.
12 Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.
13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.