I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them.” They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. John 16:2–4, “They will put you out of the synagogue in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. See how your enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads.” Psalm 83:1–2, “O God, do not remain silent do not turn a deaf ear, do not stand aloof, O God. Psalm 22:1–2, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.” Psalm 10:1, “Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.” And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.”Įcclesiastes 4:1–3, “Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed-and they have no comforter power was on the side of their oppressors-and they have no comforter. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. Habakkuk 1:2–4, “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me there is strife, and conflict abounds. In addition, Scripture offers many other notable passages that clearly reflect the problem of evil: The entire book of Job, for example, is a discussion of the reasons why mankind experiences suffering even when we don’t seem to deserve it. Many of the Bible’s 66 individual books openly express what we would now term the “problem of evil.” In some cases, these expressions are all but a direct accusation against God, in response to the suffering the writers had seen or experienced. Scripture acknowledges the “problem of evil” One day, God’s plan to defeat and destroy evil will be fully complete.
He also provided the one and only means to make all wrongs right. Even so, God has always acted to soften the blows that evil and suffering land on humanity. God’s willingness to grant us the freedom of making our own choices also allows for the possibility of moral evil. There are multiple ways of coming to possible solutions, and none is entirely complete all by itself.Īccording to the Bible, the experience of evil is something God understands and acknowledges. Of course, this question ties into theology and philosophy as well. By looking at the Bible’s honest questioning of evil, God’s response to evil, and the scriptural solution to evil, one can address this problem using almost nothing other than God’s Word. Scripture not only refers to the problem of evil, but it offers several solutions to it. Since “ bad things happen to good people,” critics say, God is either nonexistent or less good or less powerful than Scripture suggests.ĭespite what some critics think, the so-called “problem of evil” is not something the Bible leaves unaddressed. Critics claim that the existence of evil is proof that the omnipotent, omnibenevolent God of the Bible cannot exist. Broadly stated, the “problem of evil” is the seeming contradiction between an all-powerful, all-loving God and the human experience of suffering and evil in the world.
0 kommentar(er)
