The Problem of Evil

 

Many years ago, I was slogging through a mosquito-infested meadow with a gaggle of kids when one of them asked me, “Why does God put up with mosquitoes?”

 

I was stumped.

 

The question these days would be, “Why does God put up with Covid-19?

 

I’m still stumped.

 

Both questions go to the problem of evil: If God is both good and all-powerful why does he permit evil to exist? 

The final answer to that question awaits Heaven, but I have it on good authority that “all things work together for good,” a good Paul spells out in the rest of the chapter as the salvation, sanctification and glorification of human souls (Romans 8:28-30).  

 

As theologians put it, everything God does or allows is salvific, i.e., it leads to salvation. He, in jujitsu-fashion, takes the worst that evil can do and turns it into eternal good, though that good is not always revealed, or realized at the time. 

 

The Cross is the best example.

 

David Roper,

4.5.20