Why can’t God destroy the devil and evil in the world and make the world a better place for us? (And other questions about evil and suffering.)

“Why is there evil in the world?”

I think this is one of the most common and most difficult questions in apologetics. I had to take my time with this one! Get ready for a long answer. To answer this, we’ll look at the following points. Feel free to find the section that’s most relevant to you!

1. What is evil?
2. How is there evil in the world?
3. Why is evil such a difficult problem to answer?
4. What did Jesus do about it?
5. How do we deal with evil as Christians?

Part 1: What is Evil?

Early Christian theology (especially the writings of St. Augustine and some other Church Fathers) wrestled with finding an explanation for why evil exists in the world. But first, they had to explain what exactly evil is. You see, the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 tell us that God created everything as “good.” So if everything God created is good… Doesn’t that mean that either (1) God didn’t create everything, or (2) God created evil?

St. Augustine gives us a brilliant answer to this question. First of all, he affirms that everything that exists, insofar as it exists, is good. Evil is not something that exists independently of good. Rather, evil is what he calls a privation of the good. That is, evil is not a presence, but an absence. It’s not a thing, but a lack of something.

An example may help. In science, we don’t treat “cold” as a distinct entity, but rather as the absence of heat. Similarly, we don’t treat darkness as a thing that exists; rather, darkness is the absence of light. So then, evil is really the absence of good. Everything that exists comes from God and was originally created good; something is evil inasmuch as it has turned away from God.

That also explains the origins of the devil, originally created as an angel: the devil is a creature which turned away from God as completely as was possible. But even the devil’s existence still comes from God, and the devil has no power to “create” evil; he can only twist the good things God has made to evil ends. The devil and evil in general can’t compete with God.

Part 2: Two Kinds of Evil

So how did evil come into the world? Why is it here? When we talk about evil, we should also specify that there are two kinds of evil:

• Moral evil, which is evil action (sins).
• Natural evil, which is the “evils” we see that are beyond anyone’s control: natural disasters, violence in nature, and involuntary destruction.

Since all human beings are created with free will, it makes sense why moral evil exists in the world. We choose to commit sin, which brings evil into the world. And God doesn’t violate or take away our free will; if we choose to commit evil, even though God doesn’t in any way want it, he permits it–he will not go back on the gift he gave us in our free will.

But why does natural evil exist in the world? Augustine attempted to answer this question by looking at Original Sin. In Romans 5:12, St. Paul tells us that through the sin of Adam, death came into the world. Augustine reasons, then, that as a consequence of Original Sin, the order of the world was wounded, and nature itself was turned away (to some extent) from its inherent goodness. Evil was never part of God’s original plan. When Adam and Eve sinned, it wasn’t just humanity that fell, but the world itself. This is the kind of evil St. Paul talks about when he says that creation is “groaning in labor pains” (Romans 8:22). The world itself is awaiting its complete redemption–the “new heaven and new earth” (Revelation 21:1).

Part 3: The Problem of Evil

Let’s begin looking at why evil is such a difficult problem to respond to. God is all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful. He knows everything, he can do anything, and he is goodness itself. That makes explaining the presence of evil in the world very challenging. At least if God was only two of those three, things would be a little easier. Think about it:

• If God is only all-good and all-knowing, but not all-powerful, then he knows that evil exists and wants to stop it, but can’t.
• If God is only all-knowing and all-powerful, but not all-good, then he knows that evil exists and can stop it, but he doesn’t care.
• If God is only all-powerful and all-good, but not all-knowing, then he wants to stop evil and is able to do so, but he’s ignorant.

The problem, though, is that God knows all the evil in the world exists, he can stop it, and he doesn’t want evil.

If that makes the problem even harder and more confusing… good! That should give a picture of just how difficult this problem is. Philosophers tried to answer this question. Religious teachers tried. Even the Old Testament tried: the Book of Job is all about this question. But none of these were able to give an adequate answer.

Part 4: The Contradiction of the Cross

At this point, you might be expecting me to say that Jesus is the answer. Well, Jesus does answer the question–but he also kind of doesn’t answer the question.

By that I mean that Jesus doesn’t answer the problem of evil by giving an explanation. He also doesn’t answer the problem by taking evil away. Actually, Jesus’ response to evil is completely nonsensical by human standards: he dies on the Cross.

When God came into this world to save us from evil, he didn’t take the evil away. He didn’t “beat up” the evil. He entered into it. In other words, he took all the punishments of evil upon himself, for our sake. He charged headlong into suffering and death (the consequences of evil). Why would he do this?

To show us that the love of God is so great that no evil can defeat it. Jesus suffered, died, and “descended into hell.” He bore all the consequences of evil for us–for our sake, because he loved us. He showed that evil is powerless before the infinite love of God, a love that sacrifices itself for us even to the point of death on a Cross.

Part 5: Confronting Evil

So we’ve covered what evil is, where it comes from, and why it’s a problem. We’ve seen how Jesus responded to it–by showing its powerless before the supremacy of God’s self-giving love.

…But evil still exists in the world. So how do I deal with it? What do I say to a person who’s suffering with terminal cancer? I know God loves me and the Cross proves it, but doesn’t God care about my sufferings? Is he just watching me up there and testing me?

Like we said before, God doesn’t create evil. “God did not create death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living” (Wisdom 1:13). Sometimes people say that God “permits” or “allows” evil to happen–and to some extent that’s true… but I think there’s still a better answer.

I think the best answer is that God bears evil. Just like Jesus bore the Cross, the sign of all our sins and the evils of the world, so he continues to bear the sufferings of the world. And he bears it in each one of us. Suddenly, God is not a faraway figure, watching us struggle and suffer. Rather, he is intensely present in each and every suffering. When we face sin, when we face temptation from the devil, when we face the evils of the world… Jesus is there, facing it with us.

Whenever we suffer or face evil, our mission as Christians is to unite our sufferings with Jesus’ own sufferings–to let Jesus bear the sufferings within us. Then the words of St. Paul make sense that we make up in our own flesh what is “lacking” in the sufferings of Christ (Colossians 1:24). With the help of grace, we can even rejoice in our sufferings as places of encounter with God, places where we participate in Jesus’ own work of redemption. “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20).

Jesus did save us once for all upon the Cross, but evil remains behind as an opportunity for us to further extend the victory of the Cross.