Why Does Evil Exist?
Why Does Evil Exist?
If God is not able to prevent evil, then God is not all powerful
If God is not willing to prevent evil, then God is not all good
But if God is Both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?
Deuteronomy 29:29
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Evil Exists
Natural Evil
Romans 8:21-22
that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
Natural Evil
Moral Evil
Romans 3:10-12
10 as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
Natural Evil
Moral Evil
Supernatural Evil
Ephesians 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Evil Exists
God Exists
1 Chronicles 29:11
Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.
Psalm 115:3
Our God is in the heavens;
he does all that he pleases.
Daniel 4:35
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?”
Exodus 4:11
Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?
2 Kings 17:25
And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
Lamentations 3:37
Who has spoken and it came to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it?
Job 23:13
Who has spoken and it came to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it?
1 Samuel 2:6-7
The Lord kills and brings to life;
he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
7 The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
he brings low and he exalts.
Amos 3:6
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?
Evil Exists
God Exists
God Wills Evil To Exist
Isaiah 45:7
I form light and create darkness;
I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
Isaiah 45:9
“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him,
a pot among earthen pots!
Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
or ‘Your work has no handles’?
Psalm 51:5
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
The Westminster Confession of Faith
God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established… This their sin God ordained, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.
Evil Exists for GOD’s own GLORY
Romans 3:5-6
But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) 6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world?
Romans 9:22
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
Romans 11:32
For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
Acts 2:23
this Jesus,[a] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
Acts 4:27
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,
His SUFFERING Our SALVATION
Romans 11:32-36
For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.