This is an important topic for Christians to understand, and be able to give answers to those who ask about the hope that we have in Jesus. The Biblical worldview has answers for the question: “Why Evil?” but some people do not accept the answers. How then, does a world that does not believe in God answer the problem of evil? They really cannot, so this is why I wanted to present what I have learned from studying the Bible, doing some research and being honest about human nature in general.

(Class note: I’m skipping ahead to session four this week as it is a stand alone session that flows from our Genesis 1 and 2 exploration last week. We will do session three, part 3 on “The Problem of Evolution” next week.)

Here is the video for the session four class presentation, and the overview notes are below:

The Problem of Evil – An Overview

Concerning the October 1st Las Vegas shooting tragedy, ABC news reported:

“Las Vegas native Jimmy Kimmel was both visibly shaken and determined to send a message during an emotional monologue Monday night about the shooting, a “terrible, inexplicable, shocking and painful tragedy. We wonder why,” he said, holding back tears, “even though there’s probably no way to ever know why a human being would do something like this to other human beings who are at a concert having fun and listening to music. It feels like someone has opened a window into hell.””

Evil, what is it, and why does it exist?

According to Webster’s dictionary evil is defined as:

“The fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing; something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity.”

In Christian thought:

• Evil is the absence of good, or the privation of good, just as dark is defined in regards to the absence of light
• Evil is a corruption of the good, and evil arises from the misuse of the will
• Evil is not a thing, even though we often attribute it to a person, or an object, or an act of nature, evil is a condition of the heart against God

There are four primary factors at play:

1. There is a “principle of evil” in the world because of the curse at the “Fall” (this includes natural disasters, famines, floods, wars etc.).
2. Satan and his forces know that their time is short, wanting to take as many with them as possible, they twist Scripture and they are focused on deception.
3. We bring much of the hardship we experience on ourselves through bad choices (human nature is bent toward evil because of the “Fall”).
4. The ‘Job’ factor: God allowed Satan to test Job—sometimes God is refining us, teaching us or testing us for a greater purpose – but God will never temp us.

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

-James 1:13-15

“We need to know God’s plan so that we can make sense of tsunamis, fires, cancers, strokes, rapes, tortures, and the fact that, except for the Lord’s return, the only thing that will prevent us from watching everyone we know die will be our own death. If we don’t understand that our good God can have a good purpose in allowing evil, we’ll live confused Christian lives.”

-Dr. Clay Jones, Professor of Christian Apologetics, Biola University

Nine reasons people struggle with the concept of evil:

1. Many people are spiritually unreflective—they do not spend time meditating on Scripture so they do not understand the Biblical worldview.
2. Most people fail to understand the depth of human depravity—even Christians fall into the, “I’m a good person” mentality, but this is the opposite of Biblical teaching.
3. Some people are simply arrogant—they hold their own opinions higher than Scripture.
4. Many people are ignorant of Christian doctrine—they don’t understand that the problem of evil encompasses most of Christianity’s history and teachings.
5. Many people misunderstand Job (the Biblical book and character)—there are many clues and answers in that book to the problem of evil.
6. Some people really don’t want the problem of evil answered—they hold a grudge against God, and this is especially true in the atheist’s worldview.
7. Some people hold to “determinism”—that God has determined every creature’s every thought and deed so that they could never do otherwise, but that would nullify God’s gift of freewill.
8. Most people fail to understand the nature and value of freewill—without freewill real love, relationship, and intimacy is not possible, yet it leaves open the possibility of making wrong choices that can result in pain and suffering.
9. Most people fail to understand the glory that awaits Christians forever in Heaven—we tend to live life shortsighted, but for those with a healthy excitement about the afterlife, the problem of evil is not so much of a problem.

GENESIS CHAPTERS 3-5:

“THE FALL AND ITS EFFECTS”

2nd Major Historical Event: The Fall (the 1st was Creation)

Genesis Chapter 3

• In the beginning God made everything perfect and “good” (Genesis 1-2) including the spiritual world. However, God gave freewill to His creation.
• Freewill is the only way real love can be expressed, but along with that comes the chance of choosing evil as our original parents did.
• When Satan tempted Eve, she along with Adam, chose to disobey God’s only rule knowing the consequence God had put into place.

Who is Satan?

Satan is…

• The “Serpent” in Genesis (term means “shining one”)
• Arrogant and full of pride; wants to sit on a throne above that of God (Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28)
• The ruler of this world; prince of the power of the air (John 12:31, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2)
• An accuser (Revelation 12:10)
• A tempter (Matthew 4:3, 1 Thessalonians 3:5)
• A deceiver (Genesis 3, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Revelation 20:3)
• His very name (Satan) means “adversary” or “one who opposes,” and devil means “slanderer”

Satan will attempt to bring out in us, the three greatest evil characteristics he possesses:

Reason for the fall and all other evil…

1. Lust of the flesh
2. Lust of the eyes
3. Pride of life

First time we find these three things affecting human choice:  (Genesis 3:6-7)

• Lust of the flesh: The fruit was tempting to the appetite
• Lust of the eyes: The fruit looked good and was attractive
• Pride of Life: Satan wanted God’s job and he presented the fruit of the tree as something God was holding back from them, as something they were owed, and as something they deserved…

Jesus overcame these in the wilderness:

(See Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13)

• Lust of the flesh: Jesus was hungry after 40 days of fasting—Satan tempted him to turn the stones into bread
• Lust of the eyes: Satan took him to the top of the pinnacle and showed him the world
• Pride of Life: Satan told Jesus he would give him the world if He would worship him

How did Jesus avoid these temptations and respond to Satan? HE USED THE SCRIPTURES—GOD’S WORD and Satan fled!

(Warning: never engage with Satan or his demons, only use God’s Word, let Jesus do the battle for you and pray always for spiritual protection)

The Apostle John warns the early Church of these same three things…

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and it desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

–1 John 2:15-17

Do we still need to heed this warning today? YES

How did Satan deceive Adam and Eve at the Fall, and how does he deceive us today?

The first attack of Satan is always on God’s Word:

Step 1: Twisting God’s Word, causing doubt

“He said to the woman, Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’” (Genesis 3:1)

• Today Satan causes us to doubt God’s Word by getting us to think it is outdated, written by uninspired men, and not interpreted correctly; and he causes us to doubt the Bible’s historicity, reliability, and inspiration. (All of this is untrue upon careful investigation)

Step 2: Contradicting God and substituting another idea

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. (Genesis 3:4)

• We know that was a lie because Adam and Eve died both physically (later) and spiritually (they were immediately separated from God). Today we find Satan’s deception through changing cultural norms that contradict Biblical values, philosophies that deny the need for the God of the Bible and scientific theories that substitute as the means for our origin instead of God as the Creator.

Step 3: Challenging God’s Motives

“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5)

• This is what Satan wanted, to be like God and to take His place. In essence Satan was implying that God was holding something important back from them. In today’s culture we have this mind-set that things are owed to us and that God is not giving us what we deserve. But what do we really deserve?

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned— For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ

–Romans 5:12, 17

The Fall not only infected humankind with sin, it also contaminated the earth itself. Dr. Clay Jones summarizes it like this:

“Adam and Eve rebelled against God and so God then cursed the ground, enabling every possible pestilence. Then He kicked them out of the Garden of Eden, which removed them from the rejuvenating power of the Tree of Life. When Adam and Eve were on their own, life became very hard, and we’ve been attending funerals ever since.”

The Effect of the Fall

The fall caused these immediate reactions:

1. The opening of the eyes (Genesis 3:7): They became body conscious, before they were only spiritually conscious and were surrounded by God’s Glory.

2. The cover up/guilt (Genesis 3:7): Adam and Eve tried to hide their sin by covering up with fig leaves. This was human’s first attempt at religion (work at covering guilt), but that could not cover the sin that God said would result in death (both physical and spiritual).

3. Hiding from God (Genesis 3:8): Adam and Eve knew they had sinned against God and tried to hide (or run away) from God’s presence.

The human nature of disobeying and rejecting God has been passed down through [our original parents] through…

• The increasing corruption of our DNA, leading to disease, resulting in physical death
• The increasing loss of our connection to God resulting in spiritual death—thus the importance of being ‘born again’ as spoken of by Jesus (John 3:1-21)

Jesus’ response to a question of evil gives us some insight into human sin and the “just be a good person” secular answer. Jesus shows us everyone’s need for repentance and forgiveness:

“Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” 

–Luke 13:1-5

“Death is a result of rejecting the giver of life.”

-Nabeel Qureshi

1^st Major Theological Event:
The Promise

(God speaking to Satan after the fall…)

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Genesis 3:15 (NIV)

Let’s make it a little easier to understand…

So the LORD God said to the snake, “You did this very bad thing, so bad things will happen to you…I will make you and the woman enemies to each other.  Your children and her children will be enemies. You will bite her child’s foot, but he will crush your head.”

Genesis 3:14-15 (Easy-to-Read Version)

What are the key points God is showing us in the Genesis Promise? (3:14-19)

• An immediate Promise (God’s hesed) for future rescue from this fall through the seed of a women (the Virgin Birth), although Satan will attempt to stop it (crush his heel v. 15)
• A curse on Satan/the serpent (seed will crush his head v. 15)
• A curse on women (pain in child-bearing v. 16)
• A curse on man (toil and labor v. 17-19)
• A curse on the land (the land will bear thorns and thistles vs. 17-18)

Adam’s faith statement right after God’s Promise:

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

-Genesis 3:20

Adam understood that God had made a promise of a “rescue plan” that would come through the seed of the woman.

The first sacrifice and foreshadowing of what would come:

To atone for sin the blood (the life source) of an innocent animal brings a temporary covering…

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

-Genesis 3:21

And so it began, sin entered the world and evil escalated over time, beginning in Genesis 4:

• Cain was angry and jealous of Abel’s offering to God and, because of pride and unrepentance, he killed his brother (Genesis 4:8)
• Even though God gave him an opportunity to correct his mistake, Cain chose murder (Genesis 4:3-10)
• Lamech, in just a few generations, is boasting of murder and revenge (Genesis 4:23-24)
• By chapter six “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5)

The Genealogies

God spoke truth, Satan lied:

“you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (2:17)

but they did die, as evidenced by…

Genesis chapters 5:

‘A walk through the graveyard’

• The life records of the descendants of Adam and Eve end with “and then he died” (with the exception of Enoch who “walked with God”)
• The importance of the Biblical genealogies is to give us a record to follow the ‘Scarlet Thread’ from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to David and eventually to the Promised Messiah, Jesus! (See Luke chapter 3)
• The genealogies we find in Genesis chapters 4 and 5 gives us a picture of two family lines from Adam—2 people groups—one God-fearing, the other not:

1. Cain’s line, the ungodly line that ends at the flood:

• The names of the people in Cain’s family line reflect life without God
• This line leads to the evil found in the world just before the flood
  • Worship of man-made things
  • Wickedness and evil behaviors
  • The increase of murder
  • The beginning of warriors
• The first practice of Bigamy: Lamech, from the line of Cain, married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. (4:19)
  • Cain’s descendants disobeyed God’s command and had more than one wife (2:24; 4:19)
  • This practice continued throughout early human history and eventually became acceptable even within God’s people
  • This practice always results in hardship and suffering as evidenced in every record found in the Bible (for example, see the lives of Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and others)

2^nd Major Historical Player: Seth

2. Seth’s line, the Godly line that leads to the Messiah, Jesus. Main characters in the antediluvian period from Seth’s line…

• Enoch: “Enoch walked with God, and he was no more.” He began walking with God after prophesying in the naming of his son Methuselah. He did not die a natural death.
• Methuselah = His name means, “in the year of his death, it will come” or “When he dies, judgment will come” and that was the year of the flood as prophesied by his father.
• Lamech: Noah’s father, He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” (Gen. 5:29)
• Noah: Carried his family through the great flood and into the new world.

But the sin nature followed and soon we have another escalation of evil…

The Problem of Evil
Summary

• All humans have the innate feeling that things are not the way they ought to be, yet no other worldview has adequate answers for the problem.
• What we experience is what is because of the Fall, it is evidenced throughout the creation itself (environmentally, geographically, physically and biologically).
• The Biblical worldview is the only one that can give reasonable answers to the problem of evil.
• The Biblical worldview is the only one that provides a solution to the problem.

Points to consider when debating the problem of evil:

1. Refine the objection—ask them to specifically identify the evil they are citing—often there is a personal experience that needs to be expressed and blaming God is a reaction to that experience.
2. Define evil—give them the definition of evil from both the secular and Christian perspective—everyone has to deal with this problem, no matter what their worldview is (Christian, atheist, agnostic, other).
3. Ask for their solution—most people cannot offer one, and the secular worldview can only complain about the problem because a utopian society is not possible in a world with evil.
4. Give a Christian defense—the Christian worldview is the only view that has a solution to the problem of evil—introduce them to Jesus and what he offers us (John 3 and 14).
5. Leave room to revisit the conversation—don’t let it get personal; be a good listener and always ask if you can come back with more answers to their questions. 

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

–C.S. Lewis

Going Deeper

“Why Does God Allow Evil,” (book and various YouTube presentations on this subject) by Dr. Clay Jones, Biola University Professor

“The Problem of Pain,” by C.S. Lewis

Search YouTube presentations on this topic by Christian Apologists: Ravi Zacharias, J. Warner Wallace, Frank Turek and William Lane Craig