Comfort in the Accurate Knowledge of God

FOR some people, what the Bible says about God's love and mercy raises troubling questions. They ask:  "If God wants to eliminate evil, knows how to do it, and has the power to do it, why does evil continue to abound?  For them the problem  is to reconcile three propositions.  (1) God is all-powerful; (2) God is loving and good; and  (3) calamitous events continue to take place.  They reason that since the last proposition is undeniably true, then at least one of the other two cannot be true. To them, either God is unable to stop evil or he is unconcerned. 

Several days after the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, a prominent religious leader in the United States said:  "I have been asked . . . hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering.  I have  to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction." 

In reaction to this comment, a professor of theology wrote that it was touched by "the good theology" that this religious leader preached. He also endorsed the view of a scholar who wrote:  "The incomprehensibility  of suffering is part of the incomprehensibility of God."  But is it really impossible to understand why God allows evil? 

Next time: Comfort in the Accurate Knowledge of God -The Origin of Evil

From the Watchtower magazine, 2002