Just the other week in Ravenna, a pregnant woman was brutally murdered and her baby was taken from her womb in a crude c-section.In the face of such things, the question of “where was God,” pops up immediately. It’s a question that we all ask from time to time, and the way it gnaws on our hearts can be severe.While I don’t pretend to exhaust this mystery in this tiny space, I do think that a number of things can be said that will put things in perspective.Some cease to believe in God in the face of evil. Atheist Bertrand Russell once commented that no one can sit by the bedside of a dying child and believe in God. However, as William Lane Craig pointed out, what the heck would Russell say to that dying child? Maybe he would say, “That’s the way it goes,” or “tough luck,” or possibly even, “bum deal?”You see, when asked about events such as the murder in Ravenna and Columbine, the words, “tragic,” “wicked,” and “horrendously evil,” are on everyone’s mind. However, if God doesn’t exist, we can’t describe those events as grossly wicked; they are just “stuff” in the end.But still, why does God permit such things to happen?I know this question haunts each of us, but in the end, this question is not aimed at the central issue but instead, we want God to get rid of evil, but not all of it.People are quick to ask, “Why doesn’t God get rid of all the evil in the world?” But what about the evil you and I do?What about all the affairs consummated on April 20, 1999? What about the emotionally scarred children and the pain of being rejected that those affairs caused? What about all the crud we do on an almost daily basis? I don’t hear any outcry about that!We don’t ask, “Where is God,” when another’s hurt makes us feel good instead of bad. We fight God snooping around in our own lives and intervening. You see, the problem of evil is much bigger than the tragedies and catastrophes that happen. It includes everything, like the countless common vices we endorse everyday.Like one philosopher remarked, it includes what offends God, not just what offends us.One reason he doesn’t wipe out all evil is because the alternative would really suck. For instance, say God got rid of all the evil tonight at midnight. If that happened, where would most of us be at 12:01?When God wipes out evil (and he will, one day), he will do a total job and we are part of the problem. Until then, God has chosen a better approach, one that deals with evil ultimately, but allows for mercy.He is patiently waiting for us to turn to him. That, not lack of goodness or lack of ability, holds God’s hand from getting rid of all the evil in the world.Evil is God’s megaphone to a dying world. Like the pain of a heart attack, the pain of this world tells us that something is wrong. If he took away the pain, we’d never deal with the problem in our own hearts, and eventually that would kill us.God is not the author of evil and he isn’t incapable or disinclined to act either. But he is not rash. He doesn’t smash us, the offenders, with one furious wallop.Our dilemma should not be why God allows evil. Instead, our wonder should be why he would insist on rescuing us at all when we have rebelled so entirely against him.The point is that evil deeds can’t be separated from the evil doer. The solution to the problem of evil, as Ravi Zacharias points out, doesn’t begin by pointing at all the evil “out there,” but begins by addressing the evil in our own hearts.
Rich Bordner is a senior English major and philosophy minor. He can be reached at [email protected].