The Problem Of Evil: A Pastoral Approach Part One: The Bad News -- By: W. Gary Phillips

Journal: Michigan Theological Journal
Volume: MTJ 02:1 (Spring 1991)
Article: The Problem Of Evil: A Pastoral Approach Part One: The Bad News
Author: W. Gary Phillips


The Problem Of Evil: A Pastoral Approach
Part One: The Bad News

W. Gary Phillips

How should the believer deal with suffering and tragedy that occurs in life.? This article evaluates the theories, issues, and problems concerning this perplexing, volatile subject from a practical, scriptural viewpoint. Although the believer will not always know why he suffers, this article will show that there is sufficient truth to deal with the pain.

We were praying with the family in the emergency waiting room, desperately beseeching God that their lovely 18 year old daughter would live through the night. The wreck had left all the other teenagers unharmed. The vigil was over when the doctor announced that their daughter would survive. After a few moments, Joy slowly dissolved as the parents grimly wondered what life would now be like as they cared for their lovely daughter, who was now severely brain-damaged. The father asked, Why, Lord, did this happen to my daughter?

It was Sunday morning in Lisbon, Portugal. The devout were dutifully worshipping in their churches when the earthquake struck, Thousands were killed. The European world of the Enlightenment was in a theological quandary over this tragedy, because observers noted that the pious who were about were more likely to be killed than the atheists who were still in their beds, many sleeping off their drunkenness. Why would God allow a tragedy that punished the pious, but spared the guilty?1

Elie Wiesel catalogs the horrors of the holocaust in his book Night. Wiesel observed small children and women humiliated and babies pitchforked, as well as the other horrors of Auschwitz. A child was hanged for taking bread, and Wiesel overheard someone groan, “‘Where is God? Where is He?

Where can He be now?”2

The problem of evil is the shadow that falls across the biblical teaching about God’s character. Why does an all-good and all-powerful God allow evil in His creation? How do we reconcile the pain in the world, and the pain in our own lives, with the character of the God we see in the Bible? The question simply will not be reduced by the admission that we are dealing with incomplete evidence. We are also dealing with God’s goodness and His love — qualities foundational to Christian theology. Philosopher Ronald Nash summarizes the impact of the dilemma in this way:

Objections to theism come and go. Arguments many philosophers thought cogent twenty-five years ago have disappeared from view. A few other problems continue to get a sympathetic hearing from one const...

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