There seems to be a general consensus in contemporary academia that there is no bigger problem for the Christian apologist than the problem of evil.
It is a problem often presented, unlike most questions in which an objective answer is important, in extremely emotional terms. This is indeed unusual. Contemporary psychology indicates that negative emotions in particular cloud our judgment, activating primal circuits in our brains rather than those necessary for higher order thinking. For this reason, emotions are often purposefully left out of objective discussion.
I will not go so far as to say that an answer to the problem of evil can be satisfying even without providing some degree of emotional comfort, so long as it is logically consistent. But in light of this psychological principle, I will encourage the questioner to consider, and seek to diminish, any inhibiting effect his emotions might have on his ability to reason as we go forward.
The common version of the problem of evil (or suffering) goes like this:
“If God were real, He would not allow this kind of evil and suffering to exist in the world. Therefore, there is no God.”
This argument may be emotionally moving, but it is objectively speaking, an unsophisticated argument.
The cynic here is clearly appealing to a universally accessible standard of morality by which to judge good and evil. If allowing innocent people to suffer is not objectively wrong, then the entire argument is a mere opinion. If allowing innocent people to suffer is objectively wrong, then the questioner must explain where he gets his objective standard from, a task that is impossible without an appeal to the existence of the supernatural, the very thing he was trying to disprove.
The fact of the matter is that our unshakeable internal sense of morality betrays God’s existence to us. Without even realizing this, the cynic appeals to that internal belief in an objective morality even in his very arguments against the God who gave it to him.
There is however, a more sophisticated way of stating the question:
“A belief system which states that God is all knowing, all powerful, and all loving, and which also acknowledges that innocent people do suffer according to an objective moral standard, is logically inconsistent and therefore erroneous.”
In the previous argument, the cynic betrays himself by revealing his own hidden belief in the objective supernatural. In this argument, however, the cynic merely points out an understood inconsistency in the believer’s worldview without making any contradictions of his own.
After all, believer’s are the ones who insist on a universal morality. If they want to keep both their morality and their God, they need to explain this apparent contradiction.
The obvious hidden assumption in this latter argument is that God’s failure to intervene in situations of the earthly suffering of innocent people violates the morality that He himself establishes. It is obvious that God is indeed remaining inactive in the prevention of the suffering of innocent people. But is it possible that this does not violate the morality that He has established?
Remember that in order to refute this argument, we need only to demonstrate that there are no contradictions in our faith.
And there certainly are not. Christianity clearly ensures that in the end, all will be made right. Justice will be served, and the wicked will suffer for their heinous crimes against the innocent (Romans 12:19). And indeed, the righteous will be rewarded to such a degree that the suffering we experienced on earth will not even compare with the glory that is then revealed to those who deserve it (Romans 8:18, 1 Peter 5:10).
Only if we look at death as the end, as atheists are accustomed to doing, is there an apparent contradiction in the believer’s worldview. But since death is not the end for the believer, and ultimate justice is guaranteed in his belief system, there is no contradiction present in the argument that we are addressing. The cynic may dismiss such a belief system as silly, but he cannot rightfully claim that it is logically inconsistent and therefore erroneous. His argument is in shambles.
Christianity actually offers a response to what we see around us. It has an answer for the rage and despair that we feel in the face of evil.
Atheism does not. The only answer we have is that all of this suffering is meaningless, happening for no reason, never to be avenged or made right unless some human manages to take his own personal vengeance, or somehow erase the past before he lays down and dies forever.
It is an inescapable conclusion that if our existence is the product of mere chance, then senseless crimes are as reasonable as any other outcome. English journalist Steve Turner put it so powerfully:
If chance be the Father of all flesh, disaster is his rainbow in the sky, and when you hear “State of Emergency! Sniper Kills Ten! Troops on Rampage! Whites go Looting! Bomb Blasts School!” it is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.
We can choose to believe God when He tells us that all will be made right in the end, or we can choose to believe “science” that our suffering is senseless, never to be made right. But we cannot appeal to an objective moral law in our insistence that the moral lawgiver does not exist, nor can someone who properly understands the Christian worldview claim that it is inconsistent.
Lampstand 