How Do You Think and Feel About the Problem of Evil?

so proud of my niece, Ariadne Lewis

Here we go! I’ve been putting off the question, “If God is just and loving, why does he allow evil in his world?” This question has plagued our race endowed with free will for millennia. My niece, Ariadne Lewis, a Phd candidate at Baylor University, is deep into the weeds of 19th century Literature this semester. While teaching in Indonesia for the past few years, she began to write letters to family and friends, and now that she is at Baylor University, she has continued to do so. (My private thoughts = “OK, someone has to take on 19th century Lit.) Recently she distributed a letter titled, “Tea, Confetti, Vampires, and the Problem of Evil.” I’m so proud of her language skills and her thoughtfulness.

Instead of asking the question, “Why?” she asks the question, “How?” How do you think and feel about the problem of evil? While two-year olds love the question, “Why?” most of the rest of us find it daunting. It is the business of Philosophy to grapple with the “Why?” Most of us can engage in a discussion of “How?”

I’ve garnered Ariadne’s permission to quote excerpts of her private letter in this post, allowing me to interact with her thoughtful ideas. I am tempted to include her observations of Tea and Confetti (the plastic confetti littering the commencement ceremonies at Baylor troubling her as it eventually converts into micro-plastics lodging in our gut and brains,) but I need to focus upon her observations concerning the problem of evil and how we respond to it.

Here we go! Ariadane writes: “I’ve been thinking a lot about the problem of evil. Not because anything particularly tragic has happened to me (I'm doing very well!), but I’ve been studying it this semester, and it’s perpetually relevant. I think about a militantly atheistic English professor I studied under at a community college and how desperately bitter he was about the problem of evil. I think about my students, who have parents who are chronically ill and relatives who die young, who struggle with guilt in a variety of flavors. I think about colleagues and friends who daily battle mental health issues. One example a little closer to home for me: because the Welcome Corps program was recently terminated, the Borouns, the Iranian refugee family I have been asking you to pray for, will not be able to come to Waco. This is devastating for the Borouns. Please continue to pray for them: there are not many refugee sponsorship programs open right now, worldwide, so it’s unclear what their future holds.”

When any of us bump up against the problem of evil, we most often jump to the philosophical question, “Why?” Ariadne chooses to interact with the “How?” How do I respond to the problem of evil?

She writes, “These things make me sad, and it’s hard to know what to do with that sorrow. I see why traditional theodicies (answers to the problem of evil) are not always satisfactory. What do you mean, I’m being punished for something? What do you mean, God allows evil so that we can have free will? What do you mean, all pain brings some greater good we can’t yet see? These answers don’t always bring comfort in the midst of real suffering; they feel like Job’s friends, who should have sat in silence a little bit longer.”

If you are unfamiliar with the Book of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures, let me summarize for you: Job is suffering to a degree few of us do. His fast friends visit him in the midst of his suffering. After sitting with him for seven days of silence, they begin to speak, their speeches recorded in the book. Their views on suffering are all theologically or philosophically correct and viable, but they fall flat. (Have you ever been grieving and well-meaning friends say the most inappropriate things? They might be true, but they do not match your situation or offer the comfort you need in your grief.) The Book of Job concludes with a dialogue between God and Job, in which God convinces Job that he does not know everything and that the problem of evil is beyond his knowledge. In a surprising manner, this dialogue is most comforting. It sweeps the “Why?” question off the table and focuses upon the “How?” How do I think and feel about the problem of evil?

Ariadne writes: “Seeing suffering in the world also has ethical implications. Did Job’s friends find him a better potsherd to scrape himself with? Did they bring him a meal? (I certainly hope so, but the text doesn’t say.) Seeing evil can therefore be overwhelming on at least two fronts. We both wonder where God is, and we feel overwhelmed by the many needs clamoring for attention. It feels a little bit like Baylor’s campus right now: the grass is strewn with glittering plastic confetti that the undergrads use in their senior photo shoots. I want to stop and pick them up before they get into the waterways or a bird’s gullet, but the task is overwhelming. It’s good to pick up plastic and throw it away, so perhaps I should spend a few hours doing that. But what about the other needs? How do I prioritize the confetti over the homeless in Waco, or children in foster care, or refugee ministries, or single mothers?”

The brilliance of Ariadne’s insight in this paragraph is her presentation of the depth of the problem of evil, inviting her generation to consider which battles to fight. Perhaps with micro-plastics in our brain we can still take up the cause of children, refugees, single mothers, victims of abuse and genocide. Sadly, as we think and feel in response to the problem of evil, we must strategically decide which causes we will undertake as free-will agents.

Ariadne writes: “…perhaps ‘solving,’ which makes it sound as if evil were a crossword puzzle or a geometric proof, isn’t the ultimate goal. My projects this semester focused on nineteenth-century authors who, instead of giving logical arguments about why evil exists, focus on the character of a mysterious but loving God. The best of these authors (including George MacDonald) paint a vision of the presence of God in the midst of suffering, a God who suffers with us. The God who sees my students’ needs and the needs of refugees. The God who suffered for them. At the end of the book of Job, Job does not have a theorem answering his questions–but he has heard the voice of God. He knows the presence of God, in part because of the superfluous, excessive, unnecessarily generous blessings he receives at the end of the book.”

As far as I can see, Ariadne gets it. The “Why?” = mystery. The “How?” = God suffers alongside of us and for us… the God, who speaks with us! -Not to us.

Of course, the naysayers will say that side-stepping the “Why?” is the Ostrich burying its head in the sand. Thanks to Natural Science, we know that Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand - only human beings do so figuratively. But if the scope of the “Why?” is beyond our ability, then at least we can engage the “How do I think and feel about the problem of evil?” All of us can participate in this discussion. We might say, “I don’t think about the problem of evil much at all and so, I don’t feel much about it.” Or we might say, “I am doing my part, little as it is, to defray, if not defeat the evil in this world.” We can say, “My gut turns and my heart aches for those wrongfully expelled from legal residencies, or those victims of genocide at the hands of unchecked tyrants…” We can say, “I support peace between nations warring for land as teenage soldiers lose their lives in battle for it.” We can contribute to the conversation, “This is how I think and feel about the problem of evil.”

As to the “Why?” Perhaps some obscure Philosopher in an obscure academic community may offer a helpful answer in our lifetime. Don’t hold your breath.