From The River of God by Kim Cimio — Part I. Life, Chapter 3
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)
Why the classic Christian answers to the problem of evil fall short, how the Bible links evil to a spiritual enemy, and why the real answer is not an argument but an encounter with God.
What is the problem of evil?
The problem of evil asks why a world created by a good God contains so much evil. It was first raised by the pagan philosopher Epicurus. David Hume summarized it: “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?” It appears in many forms, such as “Why do bad things happen to good people?” This is not an abstract question. I once stayed with a pastor in Frankfurt whose wife, a nurse, became so overwhelmed by the suffering she saw at the hospital that she abandoned her faith and eventually asked for a divorce. For many people, the problem of evil is a concrete crisis.
Does Augustine’s answer, that evil is the absence of good, solve the problem?
Augustine argued that evil is not a substance but a privation of good, as disease is the absence of health. If evil is an absence, it doesn’t exist, so the question “why does evil exist?” dissolves. Theologians like this answer because it is logical. But it satisfies only logical minds, and most people find it dry. When a mother who has lost a child asks, “Why, God?” you cannot tell her, “Actually, evil doesn’t exist.” In Jung’s terms, some people are thinkers and others feelers. At Antioch, Paul the thinker opposed Peter the feeler to his face (Galatians 2:11–14). We need thinkers to keep the gospel from compromise, but they can also turn Christianity into a dead formula of propositions detached from our relationship with God.
Does God bring good out of evil?
Often, yes. Joseph was betrayed, enslaved, falsely accused and imprisoned, yet became Egypt’s prime minister and saved many from famine: “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). An administrative glitch delayed my graduation, and during that extra semester I got a ten-year US visa. Arthur Custance noted that typhoons redistribute heat from the tropics and forgotten squirrel nuts become trees. Paul promises that “for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28). But this answer fits best when suffering is small. Before war or genocide it feels hollow; Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov renounces any “higher harmony” not worth one tortured child’s tears. It can also be abused. Telling a rape victim to accept it as God’s will dehumanizes her. Trauma must be acknowledged as trauma, not treated as a stepping stone.
Does free will explain why God allows evil?
The free-will defense says evil is the necessary cost of creating beings who can truly choose. I like that it holds the perpetrators responsible instead of blaming God for what a robber does. But it has problems. It doesn’t explain natural disasters or accidents, where no one intended harm. More seriously, it strains the traditional idea of God’s omnipotence. As R.C. Sproul 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.” In reaction, open theology claims the future is open even to God. Some great Christians hold it, but as Bruce Ware argued, it seems to diminish God’s glory, and it is a hard pill for many Christians to swallow.
What does the parable of the weeds teach about the origin of evil?
In Matthew 13:24–28, the servants ask, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?” That is the problem of evil: if God is good, where does evil come from? The master answers, “An enemy has done this.” The Bible directly connects evil with a spiritual enemy. C.S. Lewis wrote that real Christianity “goes much nearer to Dualism than people think.” Peter, James and Paul all tell us to resist the devil. Gregory Boyd, in Satan and the Problem of Evil, attributes evil to Satan’s activity. Then overcoming evil means overcoming the enemy, which is the picture of Jesus in the New Testament. Its most quoted Old Testament verse is Psalm 110:1, “until I make your enemies your footstool,” and as Gustaf Aulén showed in Christus Victor, the Church Fathers saw the cross above all as victory over the enemy.
How does the enemy get into our lives, and how can we resist him?
Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Paul told the Corinthians to forgive “so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs” (2 Corinthians 2:11). Unforgiveness is one door. The internet works like a rage machine; “rage bait” was Oxford’s Word of the Year 2025. Rage leads to dehumanizing others, and when we don’t forgive, we invite the enemy in. A second door is worshiping other gods. Many seekers today explore Eastern religions; the Indian Christians I asked did not recommend yoga. There is no point playing with fire in a spiritual battle. A third door is pride, the sin by which Satan fell (1 Timothy 3:6). James and Peter both link humility with resisting the devil: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6–7).
What is the full armor of God in Ephesians 6?
Paul describes six pieces plus prayer (Ephesians 6:14–18). The belt of truth gives stability and security: we believe not what we want but the truth revealed in Christ (John 14:6). The breastplate of righteousness guards the heart against accusations that we are guilty; we answer that we are justified in Jesus. The shoes of the gospel of peace give us firm ground, because God is for us, and let us carry his peace into the world. The shield of faith quenches the enemy’s flaming darts that make us panic and lose hope. The helmet of salvation protects the mind from negative thoughts; God’s plans are “for welfare and not for evil” (Jeremiah 29:11). The sword of the Spirit, the word of God, is the only offensive weapon; Jesus used it in the desert. Finally, praying at all times in the Spirit is not armor, but it is essential to spiritual warfare.
How did Aristotle’s logic shape Christian theology?
Aristotle formulated the law of contradiction: something cannot both be and not be in the same respect at the same time. This helped Europeans avoid much nonsense. Forgotten in the early Middle Ages, Aristotle was rediscovered through Arabic translations around the twelfth century, and theologians began systematizing Christianity. Peter Lombard arranged authoritative statements into his Sentences; Peter Abelard’s Sic et Non set apparent contradictions side by side and resolved them logically. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae built Catholic theology into a vast logical system, and Calvin’s Institutes did the same from a Protestant perspective. Theology became precise and technical, a sharp departure from Plato’s images and dialogues.
What is the danger of treating faith purely as logic?
In John 9, the disciples see a man blind from birth and ask, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” From the biblical principle of blessing and curse (Deuteronomy 11:26–28), they had built a doctrine that suffering is always punishment, the same doctrine Job’s friends used against him. They reduced a suffering man to a theological puzzle. Jesus refused the question and looked for how God’s works might be displayed. As The Message puts it, “You’re looking for someone to blame… Look instead for what God can do.” Logic pushes us to fit reality into universal statements, and in doing so we can dehumanize people. Curiosity out of hand becomes an idol. Logic also struggles with Christianity’s genuine paradoxes, like the Trinity and predestination versus free will. And if God is “pure actuality” with no potential, then every event, including evil, seems contained in his one eternal act, which would make God the author of evil. Within that system, the problem of evil is inevitable.
What is the ultimate answer to the problem of evil?
There is no intellectual answer, and there will be none. In the Book of Job, a righteous man suffers while his friends accuse him. When God finally speaks, he doesn’t explain or console; he shows his grandeur: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4). Job answers, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (42:5). When our deep desire to encounter God is satisfied, the other questions no longer matter. In Psalm 73, the psalmist nearly stumbled over the prosperity of the wicked until “I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.” The temple is a place of encounter, not information. This is not the opium of the people; it is seeing a hidden reality. As Carl Jung said, you cannot solve life’s problems, but you can outgrow them. We outgrow the problem of evil by encountering God.
Source: Kim Cimio, The River of God (Vision & Logic, 2025), chapter 3, “The Problem of Evil.” Answers are condensed from the book in the author’s words.
