The Problem With Evil

When the question of if God exists arises, philosophers and skeptics 
very often will raise one question above all others. The problem of evil: 
that is, how a God that claims to be all-good can allow evil to exist.
   
They will bring up the holocaust in World War 2  and the killing fields of 
Cambodia, or any instance of the plethora of evil that has shown its face 
in our world and ask "how can your God, who claims to be both 
omnipotent (all-powerful)  and omniscient (all-knowing) allow this to 
occur if he is also all-good?" That is the question: how can He? If one 
were all-good and all-powerful, certainly he would end evil- he would 
have to.  To us, in our day and age, this is a no-brainer.  

One need look no further than the recent uproar at Penn State, where an 
iconic football-coach was fired because a former staffer was arrested 
for sexually assaulting boys in the locker room over a period of years. 
Joe Paterno was not involved, and he informed his bosses when he 
found out -as the law required- but he did not call the police, and was 
therefore guilty of breaking a “moral law” by allowing this to continue to 
happen.

How much more, then, would an all-knowing and all-powerful God be 
guilty of such crimes? Certainly, if he were omnipotent and omniscent he 
could not be all-good and let this evil happen.

“In the beginning…” these are the first words of the Bible. They establish 
not a book of science, noting facts and figures as some would have us 
believe, nor a book of philosophy- although it certainly contains some of 
that as well. However, the Bible is primarily a narrative, a story. From 
this starting point, the Bible takes us on a journey through the ages, 
ending at some point in the future in the book of Revelation.   

To understand why God allows evil, one must put down the philosopher’s 
pipe and clear their throat and tell a story. Not any old story, mind you, 
but an epic story, for that is what the Bible is- the ultimate battle between 
good and evil.

Before man had math and science, he had stories.  We are created with 
this love of the narrative, an innate love which no evolutionary 
advancement has weaned us from. Only our technologies have 
changed, moving from an oral tradition, to the printing press and now to 
television, movies and the internet. No matter its venue, the art of story is 
what makes us who we are and is passed on from generation to 
generation.   

What kind of book(s) would The Lord of the Rings be without the “black 
lord of Mordor” or Harry Potter without “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”? 
Any story worth its salt has a character of overwhelming evil who 
contributes to an utterly hopeless situation; that is where the story is 
born; it is a key element of good storytelling. J.R.R. Tolkien created the 
world of Middle Earth, a beautiful and tragic land where millions of 
readers get lost for days on end each time they read it. Does it make 
him evil because he allowed evil to flourish in this land for most of the 
book? Or, in reality, does it make him a master storyteller? If we are but 
characters in God’s story, some of us may perish, like those in the 
attack of Isengard, victims who fall before the great evil sweeping over 
the land, but a few of us may play a larger role in furthering the story that 
the Author has set before us.

If God does exist, as the Bible insists, then there is ample evidence that 
he uses storytelling as his way of communicating to us (the Bible). There 
is also ample evidence that man is universally predisposed to narrative 
as a means of communication, since it exists in all known cultures 
throughout history. Therefore, it stands as completely logical that God 
can remain all-good and be both omnipotent and omniscient while 
allowing evil to exist in this world because it furthers his eternal 
narrative.