I think one of the most important questions raised by
atheists or any other non-believers of God is the existence of evil. At points in time, it seems that there is
more evil in the world than good. You
watch the news, and maybe 10% is about the good stuff going on in the
world. If God really exists, why does he
allow all this evil to exist? Why does
he let bad things happen to good people?
If God really existed and loved us, then wouldn’t he make this world
perfect for us? Why can’t he just make everyone
good?
These are all plausible questions to
the existence of God; however I believe that they can be answered. I don’t think that he puts evil on the earth
because he doesn’t love us. I think he
does it because he does love us. Some
may say that doesn’t make sense. If he
loved us, he would want to make us happy, and you can’t be happy with all of
this evil in the world. However, I do
believe that he wants to make us happy, but he isn’t as concerned about
temporal happiness as he is with our eternal happiness. Don’t’ get me wrong, I do think he wants us
to be happy during our lives, but I also believe that He puts these trials
(evil) in front of us so that we can grow and become better; moving us towards
eternal happiness. I believe that everything
happens for a reason. God wouldn’t give
us more than we could handle. I think
that by giving us hardship, he is giving us an opportunity to come to Him, and
rely on Him for help and guidance, which is what he wants. He wants to help us, because he wants us to
succeed. Without hardship, how many
people would forget about Him, even if they were believers to begin with?
Others may question why he lets natural disasters happen and
devastate innumerable amounts of people.
Again, I believe that it serves to make us stronger. It also brings people together, and helps
them love each other more. It also
brings people to action. When certain
events like those happen, people rise to the occasion, and become better people
because of it. Although such events are
devastating, I believe that there is always a higher purpose; one that we may
not understand at this time.
Again, people might say, “well, if
he wants us to be happy, why doesn’t he just make us all good? Then we will all be happy, all of the time”. I think that this idea under minds his whole
plan for us here on the Earth. I believe
that we were put here to learn and to grow.
Life is like a big test. Some
questions (or trials) are going to be harder than others. It’s all a matter of agency or what the book
refers to as our “freedom”. In order to
completely abolish all evil from the earth, he would have to take away our
agency. Without that, our life is
pointless. Without our agency, there is
no growth, no improvement in our lives.
That, to me, would show that he doesn’t love us. It is my belief that God is not only
merciful, but also just. Those who do
wrong will face their due consequences and those who do good will be rewarded
in time. Furthermore, how would we know
the joys of happiness, if we lived without pain? We wouldn’t know joy, if we didn’t also know
sorrow. One cannot exist without the
other.
