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Spirit of the Word - Covenant Eschatology - Introductory Note - New Stuff
This was a major part of an article on a former skeptic siteA Take On the Problem of Evil
For years I used to wonder why all the evil, darkness, brutality and overall adversity is in the world and which we all individually have to go through at times. Eventually came across the book The Problem of Evil and the Judgments of God (linked below), which helped begin to answer some of these questions. What I'm going to say here is just my own take on this, be it right or wrong, and certainly could not prove a lot of this, except for possibly some in the Bible.
God first created everybody and everything in complete Spiritual perfection, all people and animals who ever lived or will live in this world and even inanimate objects in one form or another, in all of which some call pre-existence. Eventually began to lower some in this earth, the first wave of humans and animals without going through the natural birth process, then afterwards others through the birth process.
O.K., so what about evil? This is where the rub is, most will teach and preach that God gave the first man and woman a choice to either obey Him or disobey, and that they disobeyed and brought about all this sin and misery.
That is a crock!
Much of the christian religion has produced a "God" that is weak, vulnerable, and subjected to the whims of humans instead of One that is sovereign and capable of dealing with them on His terms. Stay with me here on this, but it was God Himself who deliberately brought about sin, evil, etc., but for good reason. If He left us all in perfection and complete bliss, like I would have wanted, we would have been incomplete and never been able to completely appreciate it throughout our eternal existence. This way when the time comes for each of us individually, we all will totally understand and even be grateful for our difficult experience(s) in this life, hard as that is to believe now.How can we appreciate complete bliss, joy, happiness, glory, etc. without experiencing pain, suffering, humiliation, etc.? Maybe a better way to put this is over the years I've heard and read several interviews with well known celebrities and others who have been or become very successful in whatever venture they were involved with, and most all of them said they had to go through a lot of struggle and pay their dues to get where they are. From what I can tell God's plan for each of us is a lot like that as we all have to struggle and pay our dues one way or the other, which may include whatever necessary 'attitude adjusting' for some in the next realm, before He brings each of us completely into His rest and glory. One major difference between these two examples is often when one "makes it to the top" in this life and world they quickly become very disillusioned and dissatisfied and will look back on the struggle with fondness, sometimes wishing they were even back there. But when God takes us individually to HIS higher levels, whenever that will be, there will be no disillusionment whatsoever!
The book of Job is very symbolic of all this. He starts out very peaceful and prosperous, then is put through the ringer as much as anybody could be for awhile, and in the end he has even more than in the beginning, including being a lot Spiritually stronger and closer to God.
Just a little sidelight to Job, I hear it's the oldest book in the Bible and some have said in the world, which it may be one or the other because toward the end of it is mentioned something very similar to dinosaurs (Job 40:15-41:34).
One possibility that occurred to me awhile back is just as this earth is a small speck in the universe, the "universe" itself, as big as it seems, is just a small speck in all of God's creation. This might give us some idea as to what God has in mind for what the Bible calls the crown of His Creation, MANKIND.
As mentioned earlier this was just my take on this, be I right or wrong, and could not prove a lot of it, except maybe some from the Bible.
But then we are all learning.A couple of things I do know, and have heard it said many times, is God loves us unconditionally, which is what everybody is looking for, and He is the ONLY Source of that. It's a tough love where He will sometimes allow us to go through strenuous difficulty, but when it's over we will be that much better for it.
There are some within the christian religion who say those in the Faith should have a lot of money and no trouble or diseases at all. Hardly true. We all at times have some kind of trouble or another, and there are many Believers in Christ who have very little or no money but are quite wealthy in other more important areas.
For much more on the purpose and problem of evil go to