Problem of Evil

To say there is ‘senseless’ evil presumes you have a basis to say it is senseless. However, saying something is ‘senseless’ just means you can’t make sense of it. That is, it means that you can’t figure out why God would allow it. However, calling some evil ‘senseless’ doesn’t prove there is no reason (just that you don’t know it). Essentially, it is saying “If I can’t think of a reason, there can’t be one.” If we have a God big enough to be mad at God for allowing suffering, then surely we also have a God big enough to have reasons we can’t think of.

Here Ravi Zacharias suggests that even asking about the problem of evil presupposes the existence of God.

Regardless of the possible explanations for evil, they are not always that helpful when we are actually going through suffering, because we generally don’t know which explanation actually applies in our own circumstance. Shortly after the tsunami (Dec 2006- Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia) Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury) wrote, “If some religious genius did come up with an explanation of exactly why all these deaths made sense, would we feel happier, or safer or more confident in God?”

As far as a pastoral response to evil, I appreciate the words of Tim Keller (poor quality video!).

2 Corinthians 1:3-4~ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, (4) who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.