#3: But you didn't answer the question!

Okay . . . so some of you felt like I answered the question about why God waits to punish evil btut never answered the question as to why it is there to begin with.


Good point.


I thought that perhaps most have already heard the whole "God created us having free will" or God wanted our love so much that he gave us the freedom to not show it." Essentially God wanted people who would want to choose Him.  The only way to chose that love is to have a choice between God and 'not-God' or what we might call evil.


That seems to be the most popular answer in this kind of category - but it doesn't answer the question either.  Does that mean that God set up evil in the universe for us to choose between it and Him?  It reminds me of the Far Side Cartoon where God is standing over a cookie sheet in an apron with a huge globe about to go into the oven.  Around Him are cans of "light skinned" and "dark skinned" as if they are ingredients.  He is shaking a can labeled "jerks" and the caption in his thoughts is " . . . just to make it more interesting . . ."  Makes me laugh.


      So what do we make of it all?  How can we believe in a God who either introduces evil into the world (knowing that it would bring about universal suffering) or a God that is powerless against its introduction (in which case He is a bit weak).
     I think the answer comes from how we view the question.  Do we view it from the perspective that God acts within a certain set of acceptable behaviors and attitudes?  If we view it from this perspective we have every right to put God on trial and find Him wanting.  From this perspective we set up certain parameters that a being like God should be confined to.  When the reality wanders outside those boundaries, then we can either do one of two things: revise our understanding (toss out our pre-conceived ideas) or toss out God.  From this perspective, it is easy to see that we have tossed out God.
     The problem, of course, is that we are judging God by human standards of what is the right way and the wrong way for a God to act.  We immediately rush to judgment saying that there is no way that a perfect God would let evil into the world if He was perfect.  Are we experts in this area?  Is it possible that our sense of right and wrong is (appropriately) finite? 
     What if the idea of God allows for a deity that acts in ways that are completely wild and beyond our sense of what a God should and should not do?  Why couldn't God have allowed a will that deviated from His own to take form and tempt us so that we could have the power of choosing God over our own wills?  Why does it necessarily follow that a God who allows evil for the purpose of giving us free will is not a perfect God?  It is one thing to say that you don't want to follow a God that allows suffering in the world.  That is our right.  It is another to say that such a God couldn't exist.  That is our arrogance.
     Perhaps a healthy amount of doubt is good all around.  It is good to doubt preachers, teachers and (ahem) blog writers and disagree with what they have to say.  It is equally good to have doubts about God.  But . . . perhaps the best doubt is the one that we don't often indulge in - our perspective.  Perhaps we are the ones who have a limited and narrow view of God that we need to walk away from.