On Wednesday, February 14th, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz took an Uber to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where he used an AR-15 to murder 17 people and injure many more. If you have been watching the news or reading Facebook posts, most of the people in this country are debating the issue of gun laws for American citizens, but I would like to discuss something other than the political side of things, though that is important. I want to discuss the issue of God, not guns, and whether or not events like this prove, or at least show evidence, that God does not exist, or that if he does exist, why does he not stop tragedies like these.
The Philosophical Problem of Evil
Of all objections to Christianity, the most exhausted and celebrated objection is the problem of evil and suffering. Many people, believers and nonbelievers alike, become uncomfortable with evil and suffering, which is why understanding the problem and formulating responses are vital to Christian life.
The problem of evil is correctly divided into two sections: moral evil & natural evil. Moral evils are evils done by the choice of free, morally responsible beings. Natural evils are evils committed by non-morally responsible beings, such as natural disasters or deadly diseases. More times than not, people lump all evils into the category evil without classifying into which side the evil falls. The evil committed last week in Parkland, Florida falls into the moral evil category.
For both sides to the problem of evil, the objection normally follows as this:
- If an omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnibenevolent (all-loving) god exists, then evil does not exist.
- Evil exists.
- Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god does not exist.
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus had this to say in light of evil and God:
“If God is willing to prevent evil, but not able, then he is not omnipotent. If he is able, but not willing, then he is malevolent. If he is both able and willing, then from where does evil come? If he is neither able nor willing, then why call him God?”
From these basic arguments, we can understand why millions of people have a problem with Christianity, since it claims that its God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving yet allows evil to continue. But Christianity is not defeated just yet, even considering these great arguments. Norman Geisler put it best when he said, “Unbelievers have good questions; Christianity has good answers.” My goal here is to help you understand from a philosophical viewpoint that evil and God are not incompatible.
What defines evil?
In the above arguments, the skeptics usually define the word evil as an act of immorality. But from where do they determine this definition? Most unbelievers argue that morality is defined by the culture in which someone lives or that morality is define by human nature for the survival of our fellow humans. Let’s address both of these claims independently.
If morality is defined by the culture and is not subjected to the definition of other cultures, then the United States of America had no right to stop Adolf Hitler from murdering millions of people during the Holocaust, since Hitler’s culture deemed that his acts were moral. Most nonbelievers who are reading this would agree that what Hitler committed was worse than the tragic murder of 17 Americans last week by the hands of Nikolas Cruz, yet they insist that we define morality. If we define morality, then we have no right to say that what Hitler, Stalin, or any other murderer in history did was immoral, because our cultures have evolved over time and are separated by our geographical locations. One cannot claim that there is not an absolute standard by which we are to judge the actions of other people, while at the same time claiming that Cruz’s actions and Hitler’s actions were both evil.
If morality is defined by human nature, then it must be understood that morality then transcends all cultures and people. However, for the nonbeliever, he or she must assume that we are the products of evolution and natural selection. How can a nonbeliever believe on one hand that we are the products of evolution and natural selection while on the other hand believe that the idea of children dying or people committing terrible murders is not natural? We must understand that the evolutionary model requires the death of the weak and the survival of the fittest. If you think about it, Adolf Hitler and Nikolas Cruz, under this nontheistic worldview, were two of the most natural humans to ever live; they killed the weak (the unarmed and unsuspecting) and allowed the strong (the armed and determined) to survive. I would like for you to understand that someone who does not believe in a god yet confirms that evil exists, must now make a choice as to whether murder is immoral, confirming that there is a higher standard which determines morality, or that murder is moral, confirming that what Nikolas Cruz did last week was not wrong and that he should not be punished.
C.S. Lewis, an Oxford-trained atheist turned Christian philosopher, had this to say concerning his time as an atheist:
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of “just” and “unjust”? . . . What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? . . . Of course I could have given up my idea of just by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too – for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. . . . Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.”[1]
Lewis compared this world to a crooked line drawn on a sheet of paper. He then realized that to know that the line was crooked, a perfectly straight line must exist to which he can compare his line. He carries that over into our universe. Our universe is his crooked line; therefore, there must exist a perfect line – a universe where neither evil nor suffering exists. He then reconciled this to understand that God’s universe (heaven) exists outside of ours, and only by comparing our current world to it can we accurately label our world “unjust.”
For those who side with the idea that the acts committed last week by Nikolas Cruz were immoral and wrong, I must ask that you continue with me as I continue to defend the idea that God and evil and mutually compatible without compromising his power, knowledge, and loving character.
The Purpose of Evil
On September 11, 2001, a terrorist organization highjacked four American airplanes and killed thousands of innocent American citizens; in 2004, a tsunami killed more than 250,000 people around the coast of the Indian Ocean; from 2014-present, a Muslim jihadist group has been kidnapping and beheading hundreds of people all in the name of Allah; in February 2018, Nikolas Cruz gunned down 17 innocent people in a Parkland, Florida high school. Going back to our original objection to Christianity in light of evil, we find an indirect premise in the argument.
Let’s take a look again at our argument in a simpler form:
- If God exists, he would prevent evil.
- Evils exists.
- Therefore, God cannot exist.
Hidden with this argument is the premise that if evil appears pointless, then it must be pointless. But why should we accept this premise?
What is pointless evil? Simply put, pointless evil is evil that exists that neither prevents a greater evil nor brings about a greater good. But the tougher question is, how do we determine if a particular evil is pointless? In reality, there is no way to determine if an evil is pointless because there exists no method of which to test it. Like evolution, the prevention of a greater evil or the production of a greater good may or may not happen within a year, a decade, a millennium, or even 10 mortal lifetimes. We simply cannot test every evil and determine whether or not a greater evil was prevented or a greater good was produced. Why then must we insist that unnecessary evil exists if we are unable to test it? We simply label it as “unnecessary” because we cannot instantly see a reason behind it.
Let us examine what is known as the greater good principle. The greater good principle occurs when an evil either prevents the existence of a greater evil or brings about a greater good. A trivial example would be a soldier falling on a live grenade to save his squadron. The soldier will die or be severely injured by shielding the others with his body, which is considered an “evil.” However, this evil prevents a worse evil from happening – the death of his entire squadron.
There is no way for us to prove that God allowed the evil in Parkland, Florida to happen just because he did not care, and there is no way to prove what the lesser evil was that he prevented or the greater good that he will bring about through the tragedy. We cannot say that God cannot exist simply because evil exists, for that would imply that evil is unnecessary, and we cannot prove that evil in unnecessary, meaning that the argument against God is not any more powerful for the argument for God, and vice versa.
Conclusion
So why does God allow tragedies like school shootings? No one yet knows why God allowed these evils to happen last week, and no one may ever know, but this does not prove that a reason behind them does not exist, or that someone will one day be given an understanding of why they had to happen. Look outside with me if you would. Take a glance across the grass and tell me if there are any fleas standing on any blades of grass at this moment. From your current position, you do not possess the ability to survey the grass and know for sure if there are ticks in the yard, but you also do not possess the ability to survey the grass and know for sure that there are not ticks in the yard. This is the same for God. We do not have the ability from our current positions to determine if there are or if there are not reasons behind the evils happening around us in our world. The best we can do is to trust God, our all-power, all-knowing, and all-loving creator that everything that happens in this world has a purpose, that they do not prove that he is not powerful, knowing, and loving, and that their purpose is to conform us into the image and likeness of Jesus, the one who hated suffering, who mourned when his friends died, who defeated death, and who will resurrect us at the end of time to live a life of peace, love, and tranquility for which we have always longed.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
– The Apostle Paul; Romans 8:28.
[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
