Contents
Introduction
This is the first of a series of pages on the problem
of evil in the world. We hope you'll read them all through thoughtfully
and carefully, and come to see the reality of how things are, and why
you can be secure in God's love.
There
is a problem though - we all have history - and because of what has
happened to us personally, many people are hurt by life and find it
very difficult to cope with any alternative to the view they have adopted.
Our
only request is that as you read you have an open mind that is willing
to think through the issues here.
The
Fact of Evil
It would be a foolish person who would deny the fact
that things in our world are often very far from good.
Consider:
- a
mother miscarries
- a
small child dies of chickenpox
- a
child is run over in the street and killed
- a
gang beat up a teenager and he's maimed for life
- a
football stand collapses and many are killed
- a
serial killer murders fifteen people before being caught
- an
earthquake kills thousands
- a
dictator kills millions in genocide
- ethnic
cleansing kills hundreds of innocent families
- a
young mother is struck down by a fatal disease
- a
young father has heart attack and dies.
……
and so the list could go on and on and on. Things go wrong, people are
nasty, people are killed, maimed, hurt, distressed. Why?
Where
is God?
These things raise a variety of questions in any
thinking person:
- Why
does God allow such evil?
- Why
doesn't God do something about it?
- IS
there a God?
- If
there is, is he powerless to help?
- Does
God care?
We'll assume, to start with, that there IS a God, an all-powerful God.
What
IS Evil?
Some people speak about "evil" as if it
were some living entity for which we could blame God, but is that so?
The
Bible gives the fullest picture of what makes up what we call "Creation".
There
are living creatures, living organisms and inanimate
objects. We could categorise them as follows:
a) Living Creatures:
Spirit beings:
God and the angels (including the fallen angels that
we
call demons or evil spirits)
Material
living creatures:
Human beings, animals,
insects, birds and fish
b)
Living Organisms
Viruses, living cell structures and plants, trees etc.
c)
Inanimate Objects
Earth, rocks, water, gases etc.
If
you do not believe in the Bible it may be that you have a problem with
"Spirit beings".
We'll
simply note that an increasing number of people - e.g. New Age - believe
in a "spirit world", a dimension of existence more than simply
the material things we can touch and feel.
Now
please note in this classification, and this is important to note, there
is no amorphous substance called "evil"!
God
didn't make something called "evil". We can't blame God for
making this substance that causes us harm!
When
we assess something as evil, we usually mean something that causes us
harm.
We
generally have a belief that anything that harms us, is "evil",
so anything or anyone causing us wrong hurt, harm, pain, or death, we
classify as "evil". (NOT the doctor or dentist who causes
pain to rectify and heal!)
In
the above categories we'll now consider where harm seems to come from.
Where
does Harm Come From?
Demonic
Beings:
According to the Bible they seem to be
able to inflict harm
when they are given access by wrong human behaviour.
Human
Beings:
Frequently cause harm to
one another (this the Bible calls
Sin).
Other
Living Creatures: Cause harm because
they naturally kill, bite, sting etc. in
their natural habitat.
Living
Organisms:
Cause harm by attacking cells of the human body
producing sickness
Inanimate
Objects:
Cause harm by responding to heat, thus causing pressure
and movement etc. e.g. earthquakes, volcanoes, storms etc.
Now
the Bible appears to indicate that these last three groups did not
seem to cause harm when God first made the world. In fact the Bible
says that when God first made the world it was "very good".
If
we lived alone on most of the world today, with no other human being
in existence, we would still say that, creation is very good.
The
tremendous variety of provision for both food and general enjoyment
is amazing, sufficient to provide for the entire human population (i.e.
no need for famines).
In certain parts of the world, harm comes to us through earthquakes,
volcanoes, storms, floods etc., but for most of the time such things
are relatively few and far between, although when they do occur they
have the potential to cause great harm.
Sickness
occurs world wide, yet researchers have suggested that if the whole
human race lived according to the guidelines given by God to the nation
of Israel in the Old Testament of the Bible, most of the diseases we
know about would be avoided.
Again the Bible seems to indicate that when mankind rejected God, forces
were unleashed that caused upset to the natural world, which meant "natural
disasters" and the arrival of sickness.
Most human misery though, is caused by "man's inhumanity to man",
i.e. people doing harmful things to other people.
The
Spectrum of Wrong Behaviour
Our temptation is to focus only on people that we
consider as 'really evil', such as Hitler, Attila the Hun, or some of
the mass murderers we have heard of in our lifetime.
When
we think like this, we also tend to think that 'we' are not like that,
we are not evil.
Yet we said previously that evil is wrongly imposing harm on another
human being. Any form of violence does that.
At
the top end of the spectrum could be murder or rape, but even verbal
abuse, or even neglect (of an elderly person) can cause harm.
There
will not be one of us who can look back over our lives and say we have
never been guilty of causing harm in some form to another.
However
much we may try to make light of this and excuse it by saying, "Well
I was justified in acting like that," it is still 'wrong'.
I
am evil?
That is an almost unpalatable truth for most of us.
We separate ourselves off from child killers and the like and say, "I'm
not like that!"
Yet
the truth is that lurking within us is the potential to cause harm to
another whether by word or deed.
When
we can be honest with ourselves we can see that there are times, when
in anger, we abuse another. Every one of us without exception
is tainted with this potential we call evil (and we need help).
Not
me! 
If we deny this we fool ourselves and we do it because
we are insecure, and we fear what will happen if we accept the truth.
We
can see it in others but are afraid to face it in ourselves.
The
truth is that evil in the world starts in me!
This
is why the Christian message is the most realistic of the answers given
to the problems of the world, because it starts with the reality of
how we really are.
If
we can face this one first of all, we're ready to go on to consider
the next big question - why doesn't God do something - and for that
you'll have to read the next page in this series.
Can
we help?
This page is one of a series. The four in this series are:
1.
What is Evil?
2.
Why doesn't God do something?
3.
A Workable Solution
4.
On the Receiving End of Evil
Perhaps you would like to talk further about these things or even have
someone pray with you. If that is so then the leaders of Rochford Community
Church are available to help you.
Remember, if you want to e-mail Tony, it's tony.thomas@rochfordcc.co.uk
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