Why Does a Good God Allow Bad Things To Happen?
- Jerrold Reams
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
"Why does a good God allow bad things to happen?" is of course an age-old question that volumes have been written on; some good some bad. Nonetheless, here is a brief synopsis that sums up most of the main ideas.
God is love. God wants to be loved. We are created in the image of God. God wants to be chosen, just as we, His image bearers, want to be chosen. There is no true ability to love without the true ability to choose. The angelic beings were given a choice; some made a good one, some a bad one. Humans also had a choice; our original parents chose poorly. A world without choice is not a world where love is possible. A world where choice is possible must mean that bad choices are possible. Where bad choices are possible, bad things are also possible (guaranteed, if bad choices are made). Bad things lead to more bad things. Bad things naturally have consequences. These consequences have been accumulating and compounding since the fall of mankind. All of us are bound to cross paths with many of them. Each one of us makes bad decisions, often ones that hurt not only ourselves but others as well. The bad decisions that you and I have made, including the ones that have hurt ourselves and others, are our own fault, not God’s fault. Neither are anyone else’s bad choices that result in hurting themselves and others, including those that hurt you, God’s fault. All of our bad decisions contribute collectively to the bad that is in this world and to its consequences. These bad things and their consequences are a result of the collective fault of the human race, not the fault of God; God has no faults; it is by sheer definition of His character not possible for Him to have faults.
All that said, the fact remains that no one can honestly claim to even come remotely close to fully understanding God. It would be profoundly foolish and arrogant of someone to think that he or she could, especially when considering the obviously engineered order and the vastness of even the observable universe, as well as all of the intricacies of life (considering the fact that even all of human knowledge cannot produce a single cell from scratch), not to mention the mind-boggling intricacies of quantum mechanics that are the raw “materials” of all of this magnificent creation (even in its current fallen state), that He simply spoke into existence. Again, it would be profoundly foolish to think that we could understand all of His ways. He sees it all; everything, while we cannot even know what is 10 seconds in front of us with any real degree of certainty. The idea of the whole of the infinite and Almighty God fitting into our finite brain is obviously ludicrous. In the same token, the virtually incomprehensible intricacies of the human brain (even being as limited as it is in comparison to God, who designed it) coming about and functioning without a designer is also ludicrous.
The bad we currently see that is is being permitted is only temporary; it will one day be removed. God, who again is faultless, uses bad for good; very often even an ardent unbeliever will attest to this to at some degree.
The fact that anyone can or would even pose such a question as the one that we are addressing in this brief writing (or even possess the ability to do such an abstract thing) as this is evidence of the God of the Bible. The laws that allow us to make determinations regarding right and wrong are written upon our hearts (Romans 2:15); they are ingrained in us. If these laws and principles were simply arbitrary, then there would be no legitimate basis for us to make any of these observations or judgments; anything would go, any sort of imposed morality would be irrelevant, there would be no basis for any sort of moral laws… and yes, one can legislate morality, we do it all the time. If one could not legislate any sort of morality, stealing and murder, etc., would have to be permissible. [We all inherently KNOW that these things are wrong.] There must first exist a fixed and absolute standard of what is good in order for there to be any legitimate standard of what is bad. Bad is the absence of good, just as dark is the absence of light, cold is the absence of heat. All of the aforementioned examples in the previous sentence are subsets of the truth of chaos being the absence of order. Any sort of order requires an orderly source to establish it. Chaos is the result of the absence or moving away from that orderly source, being intentional or otherwise. When people choose to abandon the source of what is orderly and good, that which is disorderly and bad will inevitably replace it, by default.
So why do bad things happen? Feeling sad, frustrated, overwhelmed, even being angry, even with God, is not abnormal, nor does it render you unsaved if you are a believer (if this were the case, I can think of more than one Psalmist who would be in hell right now), or necessarily even mean that you are sinning; feelings are not sins; sins are a function of the choices that we make regarding how we react to said feelings. Let’s also not forget our perfectly sinless Jesus Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane crying out to the Father, being so stressed that He is sweating drops of blood, and begging Him for a way out of the crucifixion. [Let us be mindful of what the Father was asking Jesus to do here; this bad thing that He was asking Jesus to endure is the ultimate remedy for all that is bad.] It was indeed the only way. He, of course, accepted the Father’s will and fully submitted to it. A very, very, very bad thing happened to Jesus. To say that He did not deserve it would be one of the most profound understatements ever. It was certainly not His fault. The Crucifixion of Jesus was the most unjust thing that ever happened to anyone. Nonetheless, He endured it, even forgiving the very people who mocked, tortured, and killed Him. Did anything good come of Jesus’ unspeakable suffering? As already stated, the answer is a resounding yes; my salvation, and potentially yours, if you don’t already have it! If you don’t have it, it is yours right now if you want it! I stood condemned for what was my own fault; nonetheless, the faultless Jesus took my condemnation; my just punishment; a very bad thing happened to Him, so something very good could happen to me. Those closest to Him at the time; those who followed and believed in Him, did not realize it at the time, but this, the very worst ever of injustices and wickedness ever to happen, was going to be used by God for making the best gift ever able to be given; a gift that they, and every other member of the human race desperately needed. The same God who used this injustice is still on the throne today using other injustices for the ultimate good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). He’s not going anywhere. He hasn’t changed; He can’t, because He is truly perfect in the greatest sense of the word, and there is absolutely no room whatsoever for improvement!
With that said, you had no choice about many of the bad things that you have experienced, or that you are currently experiencing, and perhaps have no choice over many of the bad things that you will experience. You do, however, have a choice regarding how you will experience those things. You can choose to experience them without trusting in God; not allowing Him to lead you through them and teach you through them, resulting in you being made bitter. You can also choose to experience them as you trust God, allowing Him to lead you through them and teach you through them, ultimately making you better. Consider the words of the Apostle Paul:
The sufferings of this world are not purposeless, but they are indeed temporary. The glory promised to the believer is profoundly more good than the sufferings are bad, and it is eternal.
God bless.
Aspects of Salvation also available on kindle and paperback.
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