Why Does God Allow Evil In The World?

I was only 19-years-old when a tsunami off the coast of Indonesia killed over 250,000 people. This was only a few years after the world watched Islamic terrorists take the lives of nearly 3,000 people in New York City. Two years before that, when I was in ninth grade, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered twelve students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado.

More recently, we lived through COVID, which took millions of lives worldwide and over a million in the United States alone. We have seen repeated attacks on churches and Christian gatherings. In Uvalde, Texas, a gunman murdered 19 children and 2 teachers in an elementary school. In Nashville, three young children and three adults were killed at a Christian school. We watched the riots following the death of George Floyd spread across the nation, leaving dozens dead, thousands injured, and entire neighborhoods destroyed. And beyond our borders, thousands of Christians in Nigeria have been murdered over the past two decades by Islamic extremist groups, often with little notice from the Western world.

The evidence is in, evil is all around us, and it’s not slowing down. But why? Why so much brokenness? But more importantly, as Christians, how can we explain why the God of the Bible continues to allow evil to permeate our world? That is, how can God, who is all-powerful, sovereign, righteous, loving, and good, permit His creation to be overwhelmed by war and divorce and murder and tragedy and death? In other words, how can these two realities co-exist? Because if God is so good, then why is there so much evil—and if God is in control, then why is there so much chaos? But more importantly, if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, then why does He not intervene and eliminate evil altogether?

These questions plague the minds of not only atheists, agnostics, and religious skeptics, but also Christians. The complexity of these questions revolving around the origin and presence of evil has been called the “Achilles’ Heel” of Christianity. Namely, that these issues are somehow the central location of vulnerability for the Christian theological system.

Now, I agree, these questions are not easy to answer. St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, and many others have put enormous intellectual and spiritual effort into these questions and still have not reached conclusive answers. That said, this does not mean we do not have sophisticated, biblically supported explanations—we do. It simply means that there is still a mystery behind the elements of this discussion. For example, in speaking to the origin of evil, Theologians call it the “Mystery of Iniquity.” The attempts we have made to understand the origin and existence of evil without compromising the righteousness of God are called “theodicy.” This is an English word made of two Greek words: Theos (meaning God) and dikios (meaning righteous). Therefore, a theodicy is a defense of God’s righteousness. This essay is a micro-theodicy and a brief Christian explanation for the righteous presence of evil, pain, and suffering within the biblical worldview.

When God first created the world, there was no present evil, pain, or suffering because there was no sin. Sin, which is the cause of evil, is also the cause of death. Death, by definition, is separation. In the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3), moral sin caused humanity to be separated from God. That is, we died spiritually. This is why Ephesians 2:1 tells Christians that “we were dead in our trespasses and sins.” It is also the reason why the Bible repeatedly states that Christians have been “born-again” or been “made alive” in Christ. That is, God spiritually resurrects His children through regeneration, repentance, and faith in Jesus Christ. In death, we were separated from him; in regeneration, we are united with Him by Christ.

But moral sin is also the cause of physical death, which separates our soul from our body. Ecclesiastes 12:7 describes physical death, saying, “and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” Without repentance and faith in Christ, the Bible tells us we will experience a second death (Rev. 2:18), where we will be eternally separated from God. But the effects of sin and evil go much further than death. They also include metaphysical evil, such as natural disasters, physical evil such as disease and decay, and demonic evil such as possession and temptation. The reality is, because of God’s curse upon creation (Gen. 3:17; Rom. 8:22), we live in a sin-ridden universe filled with evil.

But what is evil? First, we need to realize that evil is not an independent being or force. No, evil is more like a parasite; it only finds expression when it’s connected to a host. R.C. Sproul once said, “Evil does not exist as an autonomous entity, but it is an action of something that does exist.” However, even though evil does not exist in and of itself, the effects of evil do exist in and of themselves.

Let me give you an example. Darkness is not a thing you can create on its own—you don’t add darkness to a room. Darkness only appears when you remove the light. In the same way, evil is not something God created as its own thing. Evil shows up when something good—like truth, love, or justice—is twisted, rejected, or taken away. A lie is the absence of truth. Cruelty is the absence of love. Injustice is the absence of righteousness. The effects are very real and often devastating, but they only exist because something good has been damaged or corrupted. That is how evil works—it feeds on the good, like a parasite, but it cannot exist without it.

There is one more essential truth to add. Evil does not merely attach itself to something that exists—it also depends on the existence of good in order to be recognized at all. Without good, the word evil would have no meaning. An act can only be called evil because there is a moral standard it violates. Murder, for example, requires both a person willing to take innocent life and a moral law that declares innocent life sacred. Without that law, murder would be nothing more than an event; it is the presence of moral goodness that makes it a crime.

But while clarity on the presence, forms, and definitions of evil is helpful, the next critical question to be answered is regarding the origin of evil. Since evil is the result of sin, where did sin come from? Romans 5:12 states that “Sin entered in by one man”—Adam. That is, sin was not invented by Adam, but it entered the world through his disobedience. This means that, prior to Adam’s fall, sin was already present in some capacity. We know this because Adam (and the fallen angels before him) had the inclination to sin, and you cannot be inclined toward something that does not exist. C.S. Lewis understood this concept when he wrote in his book Mere Christianity:

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”[2]

So, in our case, Adam had the desire for sin because the possibility of sin already existed. This destroys the weak Arminian arguments of creature-initiated sin by either Satan’s or Adam’s “free will” to disobey (Gen. 3; Ezek. 28:13-15). But this doesn’t answer the question about the origin of evil. It only answers who was the first being to sin. Now, I do believe, however, that both Satan and Adam chose to disobey God, but I believe their choice, though made without compulsion, was foreordained (or even designed to occur) by God. We know this because the Scriptures of Acts 2:23, 4:28, and 1 Peter 1:20 explicitly teach that the cross of Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world. Therefore, Adam’s fall, which occurred after the world was created, was necessary not only for God’s plan of redemption, but also for our theology to remain consistent with the rest of Scripture. In addition, the Bible is saturated with Scriptures like Lamentations 3:37, Psalm 33:9-11, Isaiah 46:10, Proverbs 16:9, Ephesians 1:11, and Romans 8:28, which demonstrate God’s orchestration and design of all things that come to pass—including sin and evil.

For example, the greatest evil ever committed—the crucifixion of Jesus Christ—was at the same time the greatest good God has ever brought about. Wicked men freely chose to betray, condemn, and murder the Son of God, and yet Scripture says they did only what God’s hand and plan had predestined to take place. Their actions were truly sinful, and they were morally responsible for them, yet God sovereignly ordained those very acts to accomplish redemption. This shows us that God’s foreordination of evil does not excuse sin, nor does it make God the author of it; rather, it demonstrates that even the darkest acts of human rebellion are governed, limited, and ultimately used by God to fulfill His holy and good purposes.

What Christians must stop doing is attempting to free God from the usage and permitting of sin and evil. The Lord, in the Scriptures, is fully content to state His use of sin and evil to accomplish His purpose. John MacArthur once said, “We cannot divest God of the existence of evil. He has taken responsibility for permitting its existence.”[3] This is not simply an opinion, either. The Bible is filled with Scriptures in support of this claim. Here are just a few (italics for emphasis):

• Isaiah 45:7 God says, “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.”
• Amos 3:6 God says, “Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?”
• Acts 2:22-23 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
• Acts 4:24, 28 “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
• Genesis 50:20 (In speaking to the story of Joseph) “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
• Psalm 119:71 “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”
• Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
• Ephesians 1:11 “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,”

We must remember that God is the God of Noah’s Flood, the Plagues of Egypt, the commander of bloody wars, the inauguration of evil kings, the striking down of sinners, the sender of serpents, the power behind all-natural disasters, and, as we have seem, even the architect of Jesus’ crucifixion. If you attempt to strip God of His use of sin and evil, you strip God of His sovereignty.

So, we then arrive back at our original question. Does the presence of evil defeat Christianity?

Is this issue truly the “Achilles’ Heel” of our Christian faith? No. In fact, I would argue that the presence of sin and evil does not defeat Christianity; it conceives it and explains it.

Rather than being a struggle to the Christian worldview, the reality of sin is one of its deepest explanatory strengths. Christianity does not deny the darkness of the world or attempt to explain it away; it names it, accounts for it, and shows how God sovereignly uses it to reveal His glory. In this way, sin and evil are not loose ends in our theology but necessary threads in the larger tapestry of redemption.

Furthermore, to admit that evil even exists is already to assume a Christian framework. We may all acknowledge pain or suffering as experiences, but moral evil requires something more—it requires an objective moral standard by which actions can be judged as truly wrong. To call something evil is to assume a real distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, which only makes sense if there is a transcendent moral lawgiver. Without God, we may describe what hurts us, but we cannot explain why certain acts are morally evil rather than merely unpleasant or socially unacceptable.

In other words, evil enters the world through sin, and sin becomes the necessary backdrop for God’s plan of redemption. Without sin, there would be no evil to confront, no guilt to atone for, and therefore no need for the cross. And without the cross, we would never fully see the depth of God’s righteousness, mercy, and love. For the sake of revealing His holiness and justice, God has permitted sin—and with it, evil—to exist in the world. Paul recognizes this in Romans 3:5 when he asks, “But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say?” Our sin, by contrast, makes God’s holiness shine more clearly. When I explain this to my children, I often say, “How can we bring the most glory to the art of a white crayon?” They answer, “By coloring on black paper.” It is a simple illustration, but the principle holds true.

In Romans 9:22-23, Paul continues to explain God’s purpose of sin and evil further by saying, “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make His power known, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order that He make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory…” In other words, what if God permitted sin so that we might know the fullness of His glory? For without sin and suffering, we would never know God’s forgiveness, grace, mercy, holiness, righteousness, compassion, and love. It is by the presence of sin and evil that we see the glory of God shine most brightly.

Now, does this mean that God has no desire or will to reduce sin and evil in the world? Does the presence of sin and evil mean that He approves of sin and evil? Certainly not! Scripture tells us, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). And again, “This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

It simply means that God has a redemptive purpose in permitting sin to enter the world, and in His perfect wisdom He determined that a world in which sin exists would display His greatest glory and lead His people to their highest worship.

In other words, like everything else in this universe, even sin and evil will bring glory to God. Ultimately, His wrath and His judgment, and even our sin, will all serve to magnify God’s glory. In 2010 at the National Ligonier Conference, R.C. Sproul said, “Evil is not good, but it’s good that there is evil.”[4] A few years earlier, John MacArthur made a similar statement at the same national conference. He said, “Is God made more glorious because evil exists, or is He made less glorious because evil exists? The answer is unequivocally more glorious! That is, our highest praises of Him are because of what He has done to overcome evil!”

Now, this does not mean that we sin more in order to give God more glory. Rather, it means that God is so sovereign, holy, and powerful that even our sinful rebellion cannot frustrate His purposes. Instead, He overrules sin and evil through judgment, redemption, and mercy, turning what was meant for destruction into a display of His justice, grace, and triumph over darkness.

God does not have attributes without functions—His attributes are revealed through His actions. Because God is just and holy, there must be a real display of His justice and holiness; and because He has wrath, there must be something upon which that wrath is rightly expressed—namely, sin. Without sin, we would never fully know the depth of God’s justice, mercy, patience, or grace. In this way, sin becomes the dark backdrop against which the fullness of God’s character is revealed.

And here is the great reversal of the gospel: though we who have sinned deserve justice and wrath, the one Man in history who was without sin experienced justice and wrath for us. On the darkest day in human history—the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the innocent and blameless Son of God—God gave what was most costly to Him so that sinners might be redeemed. And for that reason, the most evil day the world has ever known is now remembered as Good Friday, because through Christ’s sacrifice, sin and evil were overcome to the praise of God’s glorious grace.

So while we may not have all the answers for why and how sin and evil are present in our world, we do know that we have a God who determined to permit sin so that He may demonstrate the fullness of His glory, righteousness, and love toward us who believe in Christ. We also know that He has come to triumph over sin and evil and has promised to return to restore the earth and remove all forms of sin and its effects for all time (Rev. 21:4). So we must believe what Paul says in Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to compare with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” This world is broken. Sin and evil are painful. But the Lord will use all of it for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

The great Puritan writer, Richard Baxter, once said:

“Is it a small thing in your eyes to be loved by God – to be the son, the daughter, the spouse, the love, the delight of the King of glory? Christian, believe this, and think about it: because of Christ you will be eternally embraced in the arms of the love which was from everlasting, and will extend to everlasting – of the love which brought the Son of God’s love from heaven to earth, from earth to the cross, from the cross to the grave, from the grave to glory – that love that conquered sin — that love which was weary, hungry, tempted, scorned, scourged, buffeted, spat upon, crucified, pierced – which fasted, prayed, taught, healed, wept, sweated, bled, died. That love will eternally embrace you.[5]

[1] R.C. Sproul, What is Evil and Where Did it Come From? Lecture delivered at the 2010 Ligonier National Conference, Orlando, Florida, March 2010. Accessed October 19, 2021. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/tough-questions-christians-face-2010-national/what-is-evil-where-did-it-come-from. [2] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 87. [3] John MacArthur, Why Does God Allow So Much Suffering and Evil? Lecture delivered at the Ligonier National Conference in Orlando, Florida, 2008. Accessed October 19, 2021. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/tough-questions-christians-face-08-west-coast/why-does-god-allow-so-much-suffering-and-evil. [4] R.C. Sproul. What is Evil and Where Did it Come From? [5] Richard Baxter. The Saints Everlasting Rest: A Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory, (New York, American Tract Society, 1851), 27.

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Dale Partridge is the President of Relearn.org and holds a Graduate Certificate from Western Seminary. He is the author of several Christian books, including “The Manliness of Christ” and the bestselling children’s book “Jesus and My Gender.” He is also the host of the Real Christianity podcast and the lead pastor at King's Way Bible Church in Prescott, Arizona.

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