The Problem of Evil

SCRIPTURE

The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.”

QUOTE

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

~Augustine

COMMENTARY

Some say the “Problem of Evil” is the rock of atheism. There logic is, “God is either not good because He allows evil or He is impotent because He does not eradicate evil.” We do not deny evils existence but we do believe that God is greater, just as light is greater than darkness.

Speaking of evil, I came across these interesting statistics the other day.  In the United States there is…

• A murder every 32.4 minutes.
• A rape every 5.5 minutes.
• An aggravated assault every 35.3 seconds.
• A burglary every 14.7 seconds

To put that in perspective, in the next 30 minutes there will be 1 murder, 6 rapes, 51 aggravated assaults, 71 car thefts and 123 burglaries.

Irenaeus believed that God permits evil in order to achieve a greater good, a good not possible if free-will and evil did not exist. Think of the virtues that could not exist without free-will and evils existence: Courage, mercy, forgiveness, patience, heroism, perseverance, self-control and obedience to mention a few.

Job was a sage, a man of great intelligence and he wrestled with the problem of evil and the suffering it brings. He questioned God but God never gave him an explanation, not even for his personal suffering. In the end Job realizes that the finite cannot comprehend the reasoning of the infinite. Job was right, so what it boils down to is faith. God ways are beyond our understanding and this is a good thing. If you could put God in your little box of brains, He wouldn’t be a God big enough to worship. Think about it, those who believe there is no God due to evils existence have no hope because they don’t see anything greater than evil. They have no one to deliver them from evil, we do!

EXTRA

• Another good day, thank YOU Jesus. Got to baptize a grandson, Ryder Ace, a huge Auburn fan. I blame his Dad and his Aunt Beth for misleading the child.
• Preston Grammer [Ruth’s grandson] is having heart surgery today at Princeton’s in B’town.
• David Orr has knee surgery Wednesday at DGH.
• We did not have good holidays in terms of football. June’s Georgia Bulldogs bit the dust but at least they played well enough to win, just dropped a couple of critical passes. Alabama, on the other hand, stunk it up. Utah all over again. I think we’ve been going down hill since the big win over LSU. After Bama, I am a Stanford fan and they didn’t play up to par and Michigan State beat them. I’m through with college football. There is no need for me to watch tonight because I know what’s going to happen. I am going to lower my point spread. I’ve been saying Auburn by two touchdowns: I am going to change that to just a win and it will be similar to the prayer at Jordan Hare. They will win but not by the margin I first predicted.
• Pray for upcoming Revivals.

Ryder Ace Reeves