Keep Calm and Carry On

Why?

If God is all loving then why is there so much suffering and evil in the world? At first one would be inclined to say that if God created all things, then evil must have been created by God, however, evil is not a “thing” like a rock or electricity. You cannot have a jar of evil. It has no existence of its own. Evil is really the absence of good. For example, holes are real but they only exist in something else. We call the absence of dirt a hole but it cannot be separated from the dirt. Think about it this way…Does cold exist? Most of us would say, “Yes” but we would be incorrect. Cold does not exist. Cold is the absence of heat. Similarly, darkness does not exist. It is the absence of light. When you turn off a light switch the absence of light leaves darkness but you cannot create darkness on its own. You can walk into a dark room and create light with a flashlight but you cannot walk into a light room and create darkness with a flashdark. Likewise, evil is the absence of good, or better yet, evil is the absence of God. So, God did not create evil. When God created; all that He created was good. One of the good things God made, however, was creatures who had the freedom to choose. Without the freedom of choice we would be little more than robots and God didn’t want robots that simply did what He wanted them to do because of their “programming.” Without choice love itself is meaningless. You see, God is neither a cosmic rapist who forces His love on people nor a cosmic puppeteer who forces people to love Him. Rather, God, the personification of love, grants us the freedom of choice. But in order to have a real choice, God had to allow there to be something besides good to choose. So, God allowed both angels and humans to choose good or reject good (evil). Unfortunately, history bears out the fact that humans of their own free have sometimes chosen darkness and evil but if He had not allowed for that possibility both mankind and angels would be serving Him out of obligation not choice. God did not create evil but He did allow for the possibility of evil so that we could genuinely have a free will and choose whether or not we wanted to serve Him. Why is there so much suffering and evil in the world such as that which took place in Aurora, CO? Because not everyone chooses good. Not everyone has chooses God.