Evil and the Cross

The problem of evil is often called the most powerful objection to theism. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, why does evil exist? Why do children suffer? Why do natural disasters destroy innocent lives? These questions demand more than philosophical answers—they demand a response that speaks to the anguished human heart. Christianity offers such a response, not by explaining evil away but by pointing to the cross, where God Himself entered into human suffering and conquered it from within.

The Problem Stated

The problem of evil takes several forms. Understanding these helps us respond appropriately.

The Logical Problem

The logical problem of evil claims that God and evil are logically incompatible—that the existence of evil proves God cannot exist. The argument runs:

1. If God exists, He is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good.

2. A wholly good being would want to eliminate evil.

3. An omniscient being would know how to eliminate evil.

4. An omnipotent being would be able to eliminate evil.

5. Evil exists.

6. Therefore, God does not exist.

This version of the argument has been largely abandoned by philosophers, even atheists. Alvin Plantinga's "free will defense" showed that God and evil are logically compatible: God could have morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil—such as creating beings with genuine free will who can choose love over hate, good over evil. The logical problem of evil is generally considered solved.

The Evidential Problem

The evidential problem is more modest: it claims that the amount and distribution of evil in the world make God's existence improbable (not impossible). We might accept that some evil is necessary for free will, but surely not this much? Surely not child cancer, not the Holocaust, not tsunamis that kill hundreds of thousands?

This is a harder problem. We cannot demonstrate that every instance of suffering has a specific divine purpose. But we can show that we're not in a position to judge that there is no purpose. Our cognitive limitations mean we cannot see all the ways God might bring good from evil. The absence of a known reason is not evidence that there is no reason.

The Emotional Problem

Most people who struggle with evil aren't doing philosophy—they're in pain. They've lost a child, been diagnosed with cancer, or witnessed atrocity. They don't want logical arguments; they want to know whether God cares, whether their suffering matters, whether there's any hope.

This is where Christianity shines. We offer not just arguments but a story—a story in which God Himself enters suffering, takes it upon Himself, and transforms it through the cross and resurrection.

The Christian Response: Not Explanation but Participation

Christianity does not offer a complete explanation for every instance of evil. Job never learns why he suffered. But Christianity offers something more profound: a God who participates in suffering rather than merely observing it from heaven.

God Enters the Darkness

The incarnation means that God entered the human condition—not in comfort and power but in vulnerability and weakness. Jesus was born in poverty, lived as a refugee, worked as a manual laborer, and was rejected by His own people. He knew hunger, fatigue, grief, and betrayal. He was not immune to human suffering; He experienced it from the inside.

This matters enormously. The objector asks, "How can God allow suffering He doesn't experience?" The answer is: He does experience it. The cross is God's answer—not in words but in wounds. The one who permits suffering is not distant from it; He has entered into the deepest depths of it.

The Cross: God Suffers Evil

At the cross, Jesus experienced the worst that evil can do. He suffered physical torture—scourging, crucifixion, slow asphyxiation. He suffered social shame—public humiliation, mockery, naked exposure. He suffered relational abandonment—betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, forsaken by the disciples. And He suffered spiritual anguish—"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).

The cross is not a detached deity observing human pain from a safe distance. It is God Himself, in the person of the Son, entering into the horror of evil, absorbing its full fury, dying under its weight. Whatever else we say about evil, we cannot say that God doesn't understand or doesn't care. The cross proves otherwise.

The Resurrection: Evil Defeated

The cross is not the end of the story. On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead. Death, the final consequence of evil, was conquered. The resurrection demonstrates that evil does not have the last word—that God's power to redeem exceeds evil's power to destroy.

This is crucial. Christianity doesn't just acknowledge evil; it promises victory over it. The resurrection is the firstfruits of a new creation in which "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain" (Revelation 21:4). Evil is real, but it is defeated. Its days are numbered. The end of the story is not suffering but glory.

This doesn't make present suffering easy, but it places it in context. Paul writes, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). This isn't dismissing suffering; it's putting it in eschatological perspective. Evil is a temporary intruder in God's good creation, not its final state.

The Greater Good

While we cannot explain every instance of evil, Christianity affirms that God can bring greater good from evil—that redemption can outweigh the suffering that preceded it.

The Cross as Paradigm

The cross itself is the paradigm of good coming from evil. The worst event in history—the murder of the innocent Son of God—became the means of salvation for the world. What humans intended for evil, God used for the greatest good imaginable: the redemption of humanity, the defeat of sin and death, the reconciliation of the world to its Creator.

If God can bring such good from such evil, He can bring good from any evil. This doesn't mean we will see the good in this life. Job never learned why he suffered. But we can trust that God, who brought salvation from the cross, can bring redemption from our sufferings too.

Character Formation

Scripture affirms that suffering can produce good in those who suffer. "We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope" (Romans 5:3-4). Virtues like patience, courage, compassion, and faith are often forged in the furnace of adversity. A world without suffering might be a world without the deepest human virtues.

This doesn't mean suffering is good in itself or that we should seek it. But it means God can use even suffering for our good—conforming us to the image of Christ, who Himself learned obedience through what He suffered (Hebrews 5:8).

Compassion and Service

Those who have suffered often become agents of healing for others. "The God of all comfort... comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God" (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). Suffering can expand our capacity for empathy and motivate service. Many of the world's greatest ministries of compassion were born from personal pain.

Free Will and Love

Much evil results from human free will—the capacity to choose wrongly that is inseparable from the capacity to choose rightly. Why would God create beings who can do evil? Because genuine love requires genuine freedom.

The Logic of Freedom

Love that is coerced is not love. A robot programmed to say "I love you" does not love. For creatures to truly love God and one another, they must be capable of choosing love—which means being capable of choosing not to love, of choosing hate, cruelty, and selfishness.

God could have created a world of automatons, incapable of evil because incapable of choice. But such a world would also be incapable of love, courage, sacrifice, and all the virtues that give life its deepest meaning. The possibility of evil is the cost of the possibility of good.

The Misuse of Freedom

Humans have systematically misused their freedom. The doctrine of the fall teaches that humanity has turned from God, and this turning corrupts every aspect of human existence. War, injustice, cruelty, oppression—these flow from human hearts that have chosen self over God, power over love, violence over peace.

It's remarkable how much evil traces back to human choices. The Holocaust, the Gulag, slavery, genocide—these are not natural disasters but human atrocities, the fruit of free will turned to evil. This doesn't excuse God, but it locates responsibility where it belongs: with the creatures who have misused the gift of freedom.

Natural Evil

But what about natural evil—earthquakes, diseases, tsunamis—that doesn't result from human choices? This is harder to explain, but several considerations are relevant.

A Fallen World

Christian theology teaches that the fall affected not just humanity but creation itself. "The creation was subjected to frustration... in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay" (Romans 8:20-21). The natural world, designed to be our good home, is now disordered by the effects of sin. This doesn't explain every natural disaster, but it suggests that the world is not as God originally made it or as He intends it to be.

A World of Regular Laws

For free will to be meaningful, the world must operate by regular, predictable laws. If God intervened to prevent every harmful event, the world would be chaotic and our actions would have no real consequences. Fire must burn (whether it warms a home or destroys one); gravity must pull (whether it keeps us grounded or causes falls). A world with genuine freedom requires a world with regular natural laws—and such laws, while mostly beneficial, can sometimes cause harm.

The Limits of Our Knowledge

We must honestly acknowledge that we don't fully understand why God permits specific natural evils. But this is exactly what we should expect if God exists. An infinite God would have reasons we finite creatures cannot fathom. The absence of a known reason is not evidence of no reason. To insist we must understand God's purposes before trusting Him is to demand that we be God ourselves.

The Unique Christian Answer

Other worldviews have their own responses to evil. Buddhism teaches that suffering results from attachment and can be escaped through enlightenment. Hinduism teaches that suffering results from karma and will be balanced in future lives. Islam teaches that all things happen by Allah's will and must be accepted.

Christianity offers something distinctive: a God who suffers with us, dies for us, and conquers evil for us. We don't merely explain evil or accept it; we worship a God who has defeated it. The cross is God's answer—not an abstract theodicy but a wounded Savior who bears our griefs and carries our sorrows.

Solidarity in Suffering

When we suffer, we are not alone. Christ walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. "He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain" (Isaiah 53:3). Whatever we endure, He has endured. Our suffering, joined to His, becomes participation in His redemptive work.

Hope Beyond Suffering

Christianity promises that suffering will end. The resurrection is the guarantee of a new creation where every tear will be wiped away. This isn't wishful thinking; it's grounded in the historical event of Jesus's rising from the dead. Because He lives, we too will live—and our present sufferings, though real and painful, are "light and momentary" compared to the "eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Pastoral Considerations

When addressing the problem of evil, we must remember that we're often speaking to people in pain, not just intellectual curiosity.

Listen Before Speaking

The suffering person needs to be heard before they need to be taught. Job's friends were helpful when they sat with him in silence (Job 2:13); they became unhelpful when they started explaining. Sometimes presence matters more than propositions.

Avoid Glib Answers

Never suggest that someone's suffering has an easy explanation or that they should "just trust God." This dismisses their pain. Acknowledge the mystery; acknowledge the hurt; don't pretend the cross makes everything make sense. It doesn't. It's not an explanation; it's a presence.

Point to Christ

Ultimately, our answer to suffering is not an argument but a Person. Point people to the crucified and risen Lord—not as the answer to every question but as the One who walks with us through the questions. In Him, we find not explanations but hope, not understanding but love.

Conclusion: The Cross Stands

The problem of evil is not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Christianity does not offer a complete explanation for every instance of suffering. But it offers something more profound: a God who suffers with us, redeems our suffering, and promises to end it forever.

The cross stands at the center of human history—the place where evil did its worst and God brought His best. It is not an answer to the problem of evil in the sense of a neat philosophical solution. It is the answer in the sense of God's definitive response: not words but wounds, not arguments but atonement, not explanation but salvation.

When we face evil—our own or the world's—we look to the cross. There we see a God who understands, who cares, who has borne what we bear. And beyond the cross, we see the empty tomb—the promise that evil is defeated, death is conquered, and a new creation is coming. This is the Christian answer to evil: not a theodicy but a Savior.