some very good questions need to be answered…

GOD is not the creator of evil and suffering. this fact answers the question you hear so often of why didn’t GOD create a world where there was no evil and suffering in the first place? and the answer to that is, HE did.

genesis 1.31 (niv) says, GOD saw all that HE made and it was very good. so if GOD is not the author of evil and suffering and if what HE created is good, then where did it come from in the first place?

the answer to that has to do with the fact that GOD decided to give human beings free will. why did HE do this? because the highest value in the universe is love -to love GOD and to love other people. and the only way that highest value can really be attained is if we have free will. then we can make the choice to love or not to love. true love must involve a choice.

it’s like if you go to the toy store where you buy one of those dolls with a string on it and it says, “i love you.” does that doll really love you? no, of course not. it’s programmed to say it. it has no choice. it must say it. so it’s not love.

so for you to really express love you must be able to make the choice not to love in order for your expression of love to be true. so GOD, knowing this, gave human beings that free will but we’ve abused it and we’ve rejected GOD. and the result has been the introduction of evil into the world.

one type is moral evil. moral evil is the immorality and the pain and the suffering that results when we make the choice to be selfish and arrogant and uncaring and abusive.

romans 3.23 (niv) makes it clear. all of us have sinned. all of us have fallen short of the glory of GOD. therefore we’ve all done things out of our free will that have resulted in hurt to ourselves and to other people. in fact, some one has estimated that 95% of the suffering in this world is the result of sin of ourselves or other people.

for example, people look at the famines that take place in africa and say, “where’s GOD in all this?” people are dying of starvation. how does HE allow this famine to take place?

listen, we produce enough food on this planet to give every man, woman and child three thousand calories a day. but it’s because of our own selfishness, our own irresponsibility and misplaced nationalism that people are starving.

look at your hand. you can say, “i can either take this hand and pick up a gun and shoot and kill someone or i can take this very same hand and feed someone who’s starving to death.” it’s my choice. but it isn’t really fair if i pick up a gun and shoot someone and then say, “why does GOD allow evil and suffering?” you’ve made the choice to pick up the gun and pull the trigger. it’s like the old cartoon: “we’ve seen the enemy and he is us.”

just a thought from the front porch…