Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Sheol—what can you know? (Job 11:7–8)
When I traveled to Frankfurt for the 2006 World Cup, I was hosted by an unlikely figure: a pastor with the build of a rugby player. He was a blonde man whose kind eyes belied a passionate spirit. As he shared his testimony, I began to understand him better. As a young man, he had not been a follower of Jesus. But after a powerful conversion experience, he and his wife became devoted believers. He eventually became a pastor, and his wife became a nurse. For a while, their life together was a picture of happiness. But over time, the suffering his wife witnessed at the hospital day by day began to overwhelm her. The question “Why does God allow so many people to get sick?” became an obsession, and she eventually abandoned her faith. Her decision put an enormous strain on their marriage. She felt she could not stay married to a pastor, and ultimately asked for a divorce. He said he fasted and prayed until his tongue turned blue, but she would not change her mind. In the end, they went their separate ways.
The question that made her lose faith is so common that it has a name: the problem of evil. It was a pagan philosopher, Epicurus, who first raised this question. David Hume summarized it like this:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?
There are many variations of the same question, such as “If there is a God, why is there so much evil in the world?” or “Why do bad things happen to good people?” All of them ask why the world contains evil if a good God created it.
Privatio Boni
Of course, Christians never lack an answer. The most popular among theologians is the answer of Augustine, who formulated it like this:
For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health… for the wound or disease is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance, the flesh itself being a substance, and therefore something good, of which those evils—that is, privations of the good which we call health—are accidents. Just in the same way, what are called vices in the soul are nothing but privations of natural good.
Theologians like this answer because it is logical and fits the logical mind. It says evil is an absence, and absence means non-existence. Therefore, evil does not exist. So when you ask why evil exists, I do not need to answer you, because I know evil does not exist. The problem is that this answer satisfies only those who are logical, and most people find it too dry. When people ask this question, they are not looking for a logical answer. Rather, they are struggling with a concrete problem in life, and what they need is an answer that can comfort them. If someone says to a suffering person, “Evil doesn’t exist,” that does not comfort them. Perhaps you can dispute skepticism in a logical way (“So you are skeptical about everything but skepticism? That doesn’t sound right…”). But when a mother who lost a child asks, “Why, God?” you cannot say, “Well, actually, evil doesn’t exist because it is always an absence of something.”
According to the psychological types of Carl Jung, some people are thinkers and others are feelers. We see how thinkers and feelers behave differently in the example of Peter and Paul in Antioch:
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Galatians 2:11–14)
For a thinker, being right is important, while for a feeler, not being upset or upsetting others is important. So when there was a controversy about Jewish Christians eating with the Gentiles, Paul, a thinker, wanted to be right, while Peter, a feeler, wanted to avoid conflict. Paul could not accept that. Even though Peter was simply trying to avoid conflict, his behavior could convey a wrong message to the Christians. So, not afraid of conflict, Paul “opposed him to his face.” That is why we need thinkers like Paul in the church. Without them, we will make many compromises, and the gospel will be contaminated with wrong ideas.
Yet while thinkers play an important role, they can turn Christianity into a dead formula. They preserve truth in a proposition (like “We are saved by God’s grace”), but eventually, people focus on those propositions without thinking about their relationship with God or the attitude of their hearts.
The Greater Purpose
Another way to address the problem of evil is to understand that God brings greater good through evil. Even though what we experience is painful, something good comes out of it. In the Bible, Joseph could be the best example. He was betrayed by his brothers, sold as a slave, wrongfully accused, imprisoned, and betrayed by another prisoner. But through all that, he became the Prime Minister of Egypt and saved Egypt and many other nations from famine. So when he met his brothers again, he could say, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20).
We all experience this sometimes. We have all heard thousands of stories of evil producing good, like someone missing a flight only for the airplane to crash, or going to the hospital because of a broken bone, only to discover cancer in time. I also have stories like that. In my last year of college, I found out that I could not graduate as planned because of an administrative glitch. But when I was studying for an extra semester, I discovered that our university had an agreement with the American embassy that allowed us to get a US visa very easily. So I got a ten-year visa, which was very useful at a time when many Koreans could not get a US visa.
Arthur Custance, a Christian scientist and linguist, has many examples like that in his Doorway Papers. For example, typhoons bring a lot of destruction. But typhoons are useful in that they transfer energy from the tropical area to the rest of the globe. Without typhoons, the tropics would become too hot. Squirrels bury thousands of nuts for food storage, but they forget many of them, and from those forgotten nuts, trees grow. In fact, something good coming out of evil is so common that there is an expression in Korean: “Evil becomes good later.” Paul said, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Even the unpleasant and painful things eventually work together for good. This is an amazing promise.
However, the explanation based on the greater purpose is only appropriate when the suffering is not too great, like squirrels forgetting nuts. When the suffering is too serious, like a community shattered by war or genocide, the appeal to a greater purpose becomes deeply unsatisfying. Dostoevsky expressed his frustration with this answer when he wrote in The Brothers Karamazov, “I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It’s not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to ‘dear, kind God’!”
Also, this doctrine can be abused to minimize real pain. Telling someone “God has a purpose” can feel like invalidating their trauma. I heard that some counselors tell rape victims, “If you do not accept this rape as the will of God, there can be no healing.” I would not know what to do if I heard that as a victim. As a human being, my trauma should be acknowledged as trauma first, not as a stepping stone for a bigger blessing. But if you focus on the greater good first, then your attempt to help actually dehumanizes the victim.
Free Will
Another popular Christian answer to the problem of evil is to argue that God allows evil to exist because it is a necessary consequence of creating creatures with free will. Since free will is only meaningful when you can choose to do evil, it is natural that evil exists in the world. I like this position because I think people often blame God for the evil that people choose to do. Let us say a robber steals something precious from you. Instead of blaming the robber, you might be tempted to blame God for letting evil happen to you. But the perpetrators of evil should be held responsible, not God.
Still, this position has its own problems. First, it does not explain evil caused unintentionally. There are many natural disasters, and you cannot blame nature, which has no intention. Even accidents are caused unintentionally. If a drunk driver causes an accident, you can blame them, but if the road was slippery because of rain and an accident happens, how do you explain this evil?
The bigger problem is that this position challenges the traditional idea of the omnipotence of God. Many theologians believe the omnipotence of God means everything that happens is the will of God. But if evil people can do evil outside of the will of God, then how can God be omnipotent? As R.C. Sproul once said, “If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.” According to traditional theology, there can be nothing outside of the will of God, and free will does not exist.
As a reaction to traditional theology, some theologians developed open theology, which says, “The future is open, and even God doesn’t know what will happen.” I know that some great Christians believe in open theology, but accepting it sounds like giving up the concept of the omnipotence of God. I have heard a Bible teacher who supports open theology saying, “God is not in control,” which fits open theology but not what most Christians believe. I am not saying open theology is wrong, but it is a hard pill to swallow for many Christians.
The Enemy
In the parable of the weeds, Jesus said:
The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?” He said to them, “An enemy has done this.” So the servants said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” (Matthew 13:24–28)
I think this is a key passage in understanding the biblical position on the problem of evil. The servants’ question, “Did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?” corresponds to “If God is good, how can there be evil?” And what did the master say? “An enemy has done this.” Here we see that the problem of evil is directly connected with the enemy.
C. S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, “Real Christianity (as distinct from Christianity-and-water) goes much nearer to Dualism than people think.” What he meant was that, contrary to what many people think, the devil has its place in Christianity. The enemy plays a role, and our role is to fight him back. Therefore, the Bible says that we should not forget to resist him. Peter said, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). James said, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Paul said, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).
In Satan and the Problem of Evil, Gregory Boyd tries to solve the problem of evil by attributing evil to the activities of Satan. If evil comes from the spiritual enemy, then overcoming evil means overcoming the enemy. And that is the picture of Jesus in the Bible. The most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament is Psalm 110:1:
The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
We do not read this verse much because it does not fit our understanding of the gospel, but it was a very important part of Christian faith in the early church. As the Swedish theologian Gustaf Aulén wrote in Christus Victor, the death of Jesus was seen as a victory over the enemy by the Church Fathers, rather than simply being punished for our sins, as we usually think.
Jesus contrasted himself with the enemy: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). The enemy is a thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Many lives are destroyed by him. In the movie Se7en by David Fincher, a young, promising detective investigates gruesome murders, only to have his life destroyed by the serial killer. Without the serial killer, he could have had a wonderful life. But because he got involved with the serial killer, his life was irrecoverably damaged. And that is what happens when the enemy enters your life.
Put on the Full Armor of God
Then, how can we avoid getting involved with the enemy? Paul said, “Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs” (2 Corinthians 2:10–11). The enemy uses the same weapons to attack us, so if we pay attention, we can stay safe from his attacks.
One weapon is unforgiveness. Paul did not say, “Forgive because of Christian morality.” He said, “Forgive because we know if you don’t forgive, the enemy will use it.” Often, the internet functions like a big rage machine. When you see a boring headline, you do not click. But when you see a rage-bait headline (“New Law Lets the Government Take Your Property Without Warning,” “Politicians Want to Ban Your Favorite Foods for ‘Climate Reasons’”), you have to click. The more you use the internet, the more you become accustomed to rage. Then the next step is to dehumanize the hated group. Many extreme political parties have had great success by demonizing certain groups. The problem is that when we are angry, we do not forgive, and by not forgiving, we invite the enemy into our lives.
Another way we get involved with the enemy is by worshipping other gods. While the older generation was strongly anti-religion, the newer generation consists of seekers. They show interest in many religions, especially Eastern religions. The popularity of yoga shows how people are attracted to Eastern culture. However, we should be careful not to leave true faith just out of curiosity. Nowadays, even doctors recommend yoga, so it is easy to accept this religious practice from another religion. Many Christians think it is not a religious practice, but when I asked Indian Christians, who should be familiar with them, they did not recommend doing it. There is no point in playing with spiritual fire.
Finally, pride is a serious spiritual sin, and it can open the door for the enemy to enter. When Paul was advising Timothy on choosing a church leader, he said, “He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Timothy 3:6). Church tradition says Satan fell because of pride. And whoever lifts themselves up might be condemned just like Satan. James said, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:6–7). Peter said, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another… Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God… Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion… Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5:5–9). You cannot be proud and resist the devil. We can have victory only when we do not share the sin of pride with the enemy.
Paul explains how to protect oneself in this spiritual battlefield:
Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. (Ephesians 6:14–18)
Here there are six parts of the full armor of God. Each plays an important role in protecting us.
The Belt of Truth. Without a belt, your body can easily lose balance (which is why weightlifters wear strong belts). Also, without a belt, your pants feel like they will fall off. So a belt gives security. Our belt is the truth of God. We do not just believe what we want to believe. We believe the truth revealed in Christ. We need to remind ourselves of this fact.
The Breastplate of Righteousness. The heart is a vital organ, and that is why the enemy often attacks the heart to kill us. The heart is also the seat of emotion. We need to protect the heart by wearing the breastplate of righteousness. The enemy attacks by saying, “You are unrighteous, you are sinful, you are guilty.” We need to say, “I am righteous, and my heart is justified because of Jesus.”
The Shoes of the Gospel of Peace. The gospel gives you peace with God, and that peace becomes the ground beneath your feet. Because God is for you, you can stand firm. Because God has reconciled you, you can run into the world carrying his peace. Jesus said, “My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). We should remember that we have already received peace from Jesus through his gospel.
The Shield of Faith. Paul says that with this shield, we can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. The flaming darts of the evil one burn us. When we are hit by these darts, we suddenly lose hope and panic. To avoid that, we need to have faith.
The Helmet of Salvation. The head is another vital organ, and the enemy always attacks us by filling our minds with negative thoughts. God said, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). But the enemy’s plans for us are evil. We need to reject those thoughts and protect our minds with the helmet of salvation.
The Sword of the Spirit. Every other piece of armor is defensive. Only the Word of God is a weapon. Jesus knew the power of the Word of God and used it to silence the enemy in the desert. In the same way, we can use the Word of God in our own battle. When we face the attacks of the enemy, we should use the sword of the Spirit to defeat him.
Prayer. Paul finished the passage by adding “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.” It is not armor, but it is an essential part of our spiritual warfare. Prayer is the last but not the least element in protecting ourselves spiritually.
Aristotle and the Gospel
As the gospel came to Europe, Christianity became inseparable from Aristotelian logic. The Western tradition uniquely formalized logic into an abstract system, and this tradition started with Aristotle. In Metaphysics, Aristotle said, “One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time.” Or, to paraphrase, “You can’t say contradictory things about something.” This may sound like common sense, but it was a revolutionary idea. With this law of contradiction, Europeans could avoid a lot of nonsense.
Aristotle was forgotten in the early Middle Ages because he was not translated into Latin, and most people could not read Greek. But around the twelfth century, Europeans rediscovered Aristotle through Arabic translation, and they began the process of systematizing Christianity. This meant they tried to reconcile different views of authorities, especially the Church Fathers. So Peter Lombard compiled authoritative statements (called Sententiae) from the Bible and Church Fathers, arranging them thematically into a coherent whole. Peter Abelard was a logician who turned into a theologian. He applied the rigorous methods of scholastic logic to religious questions, notably in his book Sic et Non (Yes and No), where he systematically presented theological and philosophical authorities in apparent contradiction and then analyzed them using logical reasoning.
In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas laid the foundation of Catholic theology through his book Summa Theologiae. In this book, he covered most of the topics concerning Christian faith in a logical, systematic way. If you have a question about something in Christianity, there should be an answer for it somewhere in this massive book, which could reach 14,000 pages in some editions. Calvin laid the foundation of Protestant theology through his book Institutes of the Christian Religion. This book looks modest next to Summa Theologiae, but it can still reach over 1,700 pages in some editions. Calvin did the same thing as Aquinas: he built a logical system of Christian faith, but from a Protestant position.
The Danger of Logic
Even though logic is useful, it has its dangers. We see one problem of logic in John 9. In this passage, when Jesus and his disciples saw a man blind from birth, the disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). To understand the situation, we need to understand the historical background. In the Old Testament, we read that God blesses people when they behave well but punishes them when they behave badly. For example: “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known” (Deuteronomy 11:26–28). From that, the Jews eventually concluded that what happens to us is the result of our behavior. They started from a biblical principle and constructed a theological doctrine. This doctrine, which may sound biblical, was still open to abuse. Think of the friends of Job. They said, “Since your life is so full of disasters, it can only mean that you have sinned!” That was not what Job needed to hear in that painful situation. We all want to establish theological doctrine, but it can become detached from life and become inhuman.
Furthermore, once the Jews believed that bad things happened because of bad behavior, they also had to ask, “Why is someone born with a disability?” They debated whether the parents did something wrong during pregnancy or the baby did something wrong in the womb. And that was the question the disciples wanted Jesus to settle once and for all.
The problem is that they did not see the suffering man who never enjoyed sight. And he was hearing those strangers using him as an example of a theological puzzle, a humiliating experience. Jesus was different. He did not want to focus on the intellectually stimulating question. Rather, he was thinking about how God’s glory might be revealed. When he said, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him,” he did not mean that God made him born blind so that he might reveal his glory. That is a flawed theology and a misinterpretation of the Greek word hina (which could mean purpose or result). The Message Bible correctly renders this verse: “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do.”
This story shows one common problem with logic: if you are logical, you have to reduce everything into a universal statement and fit reality into your logical system. In the process, you might dehumanize people and become inhuman yourself. Also, your intellectual curiosity becomes an absolute value, and you feel you are justified in asking any question. And that is the basis of the school system today. We grew up being encouraged to stay curious, and we feel entitled to ask, entitled to find out. I am a very curious person myself, and I like to study. However, when our curiosity gets out of hand, it becomes an idol.
God and Free Will
As we saw, according to Aristotle, no contradiction can be accepted. And Christian theologians accepted this premise. However, it can be a very dangerous move. There are several contradictions in Christian faith, and if you reject them, you might destroy Christianity. First of all, the Trinity is a good example. Trinity means “God is three in one.” That is a contradiction. There have been many attempts to make it logical, but all failed. Calling the Trinity a mystery simply means, “I cannot explain it logically, but I don’t want to admit it.” Second, we do not know how to reconcile the predestination of God with free will. The Bible is quite clear on God’s predestination: “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world… he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:4–5). But if God predestined us, what is the point of evangelism or even accepting Jesus?
Yet systematizing faith is only half the story. Once theologians accepted Aristotelian logic, they also inherited the demand for precision. Precise thinking requires precise language, and so theology became increasingly technical. This marks a sharp departure from Plato, who preferred images and dialogues, not definitions. Aristotle, by contrast, built philosophy out of carefully crafted terms. Even modern English still echoes those Aristotelian categories through Latin mediation. For example, Aristotle introduced the categories of potentiality and actuality, insisting that actuality is superior because it represents the fulfillment of what a thing truly is. Later Christian thinkers drew on this framework to describe God as pure actuality, with no unrealized potential. But this creates a profound difficulty. If God has no potentiality, then God cannot choose between alternatives, since choosing presupposes possibilities not yet realized. A purely actual God performs a single, eternal act that cannot be otherwise, and everything that exists must be contained within that one act of divine willing. But if evil exists, then evil too must somehow be included in God’s eternal act. In this way, the Aristotelian-Thomistic system, despite its sophistication, risks making God not only the sustainer of all things but also the ultimate author of evil, a conclusion incompatible with the biblical picture of God.
So as long as we are stuck with Aristotelian logic, the problem of evil is inevitable. We have to admit this way of thinking is useful, but ultimately not satisfying.
Answer to Job
The Book of Job is indispensable in our discussion about the problem of evil. In this book, we see a righteous man suffering. His friends think the calamities in his life are a sign that he has hidden sins, which made him feel even worse. He claimed his innocence, but God was silent, and his friends continued to accuse him. Then God appeared. He did not try to explain or even console. He only displayed his grandeur:
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4–7)
After encountering God, Job answered:
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:5–6)
God and Job did not use terms like potentiality and actuality, and they did not have to. A human being has a deep desire to encounter God, and when that is satisfied, all the other problems do not matter.
There is no intellectual answer to the problem of evil. There has been none, and there will be none. But when we encounter God, we feel that doesn’t matter, because we see God as he is, not as some thinkers describe him.
The psalmist had a similar experience:
Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (Psalm 73:1–3)
Here, the problem was the prosperity of the wicked. When we see injustice go unpunished (as is the case in most countries), we are frustrated. The general theological doctrine of “God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart” did not help him. He could regain peace only when he went to the temple:
But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. (Psalm 73:16–17)
The temple is not a place where one gains knowledge. It is a place where one encounters God. In this meeting place, he met God, and then his mind was renewed (Romans 12:2). The injustice that bothered him so much did not bother him anymore. A Marxist might say, “That’s because religion is the opium of the people,” but no, it is deeper than that. When you encounter God, you see reality that your finite human eyes cannot otherwise see. Then he ends the psalm with praise:
Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. (Psalm 73:25–28)
By encountering God, he was set free from the oppressive thought and could be a worshiper again.
Carl Jung said, “You cannot solve life’s problems, but you can outgrow them.” In the same way, you cannot solve the problem of evil, but you can outgrow it by encountering God. That is what matters in life, not finding intellectual answers.