'God allows evil only so as to make something better result from it' - St Thomas Aquinas
One question that I occasionally get during a school ministry day is 'How can you believe in God when so many bad things happen in the world?'. Now, even though I never have a definitive answer to this question, it never phases me when I get asked it.
However, I can still remember the first time I was asked the question. It was last year, during a school ministry day at which I was helping out the Sydney YMT. We were at an all girls school, and during small groups, we were going around the circle and each describing our relationships with God. One of the first few girls said that she had been brought up a Catholic, but currently didn't believe in a god, nor did she want to believe in God. When she was asked why, she told us that it was because when she was a few years younger, her newly-born baby brother had passed away a few seconds after birth. She asked us 'How can any of you believe in a good God when shit like that happens?'
Now, this was the first time I had heard something like this. I immediately felt an overwhelming emotion of sadness for the girl and her family. I was also in shock at the openness and honesty of the girl. How do you reply to something like that?
It has been almost a year since I met that girl. I haven't seen her since, and I don't expect to see her in the future. However, I periodically pray for her and her family, that they may one day experience the true and full love of Christ.
Anyway, fast-forwarding to this week. One of the follow-up ministries that we run on team is a youth group which
we like to call
iSTAND Nights. Now, during our small group discussions at iSTAND this week, the topic were discussing was
Justice. We started a hot topic about what justice is and its relation to sin. About 5 minutes into the talk, we each agreed on a common understanding of sin:
an evil act that is blatantly rejecting God and refusing to accept his love.
One of the guys in the small group also made a distinction between
physical evil and
moral evil. He also made it clear that God, being awesome and good, could never be the originator of something evil. God created the world to be good, but it is not yet complete. Through suffering, it is being shaped and moved towards its final perfection. This may be a better way to classify
physical evil (eg natural disasters, birth defects, etc).
Moral evil, however, comes through the abuse of the privilege of freedom in the world (eg murders, rape etc).
In reflecting on what we discussed in our small groups, I've come to a conclusion that the question shouldn't be '
How can anyone believe in a good God when there is so much evil in the world?', but more so '
How is it possible for a human being with human emotions to endure life in such a morally evil world if God did not exist?'
Christ's death and Resurrection shows us that evil will not have a final say in this world. God works with a bad result to produce good results. And during
The Final Judgment, he will put an end to all injustice.
In the life of the world to come, evil has no place, and all suffering and enduring ends.
Just before I peace out, I just wanna share with you an analogy about sin that someone awesome recently shared with me.
Sin is like missing the mark. Every decision you make is like shooting a bow-and-arrow towards a dart board. Sometimes we miss, and go completely off. Sometimes we hit dead center. Wherever we hit, we always must strive to hit the center. And to us, God is like our personal coach. As we go along our individual paths, we often miss the mark we aim for. All we have to do is ask, and our coach will tell us what we're doing wrong, and what to do right in order to reach our target.
