The Problem of Evil: How Can God Be Good If He Allows Evil?

"How can we say that Jehovah is good if he allows evil to exist but is able to stop it?" This is one of the most important questions in Christian theology, and the one to which most Christians do not have an decent answer. Most people try to skim over this question or write it off be claiming "free will." While the concept of free will does have an important role in the answer to this question, it is clearly not sufficient to answer the question on its own. It is an attempt to answer this question once and for all in a satisfying way that motivated the essay (that I authored) upon which this blog is based. The ultimate purpose of this blog is to make that answer available to as many people as possible.

The answer to this question is intimately tied into God's purpose for humanity and the Earth. What is that purpose? To answer that, we have to think back to the beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but he did more than that. He created a small pocket of paradise on earth and called it the Garden of Eden, and he created man and woman and placed them in the garden and told them to be fruitful and to cover the earth and subdue it (thus spreading the paradisaical garden until it covered the entire earth) and to have in subjection the animals of the earth. He also told them that in the day they ate from the tree in the middle of the garden, they would die. Does this mean that if they had not eaten from the tree that they would still be alive? Yes! God's original purpose for mankind was to live forever in paradise on earth.

It is not reasonable to believe that God's purpose for the earth has changed. To believe that would be to believe that a rebellious angel could force God to change his plans. While it is true that Satan has postponed God's purpose for the earth and mankind, that postponement will not be indefinite. So, why was God's purpose postponed at all? This is because when Satan convinced Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, he did much more than get humans to rebel against God; he called into question God's sovereignty, or right to rule over his own creation. Satan was basically saying that he had a way that was better than God's rule. He also was insinuating that God was holding something back from his creation.

Notice the full name of the tree in the middle of the garden, it wasn't simply the Tree of Knowledge, it was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. When Satan tempted Eve to eat from the tree, he told her that by disallowing her to eat from it that God was holding back the knowledge of right and wrong because he knew that when Eve ate from the tree she would become like God, knowing right from wrong. This did happen--in a symbolic way. The tree itself did not have magical powers that imbued special knowledge upon Eve. Instead, once Eve ate from it, the tree symbolized Eve's own determination to decide for herself what was right and wrong, rather than obeying God and being humble enough to allow him to show her what was best for her. Instead of respecting God's right to rule over her as her creator, she undermined his authority by making the willful decision to decide for herself what was right and wrong; the same applied to Adam. Therefore, the devil, Adam, and Eve all stepped into a position that rightly belonged to Jehovah when they decided to rule themselves.

Thus began sin and wickedness in the world. So why didn't God just destroy the rebels and start over? The problem is, that would not have actually solved anything. At the same time this was happening, there wee still plenty of faithful angels in heaven, waiting to see what God's reaction would be. If he had simply wiped the rebels out of existence and started again, what message would that have sent to the other angels? Might not some begin to think that maybe Satan was right, and God was hiding something? Atheists are fond of saying "might does not make right," in other words, just because God has the power to do anything he pleases does not mean that any action he takes is necessarily good. The angels probably agree with that human sentiment.

God's solution, rather than wiping them out, was to allow Satan to make his case, that God's creation could rule itself without his interference; and what a horrible job mankind has done of ruling itself. Not a single government in human history has been able to eliminate even those elements which are at least theoretically controllable, such as poverty and crime, let alone sickness, natural disasters, death, and a myriad of other problems that plague mankind--all elements that Jehovah has the ability to eliminate if we choose to submit to him. But why has God allowed this to go on for so long? Jehovah, in his infinite wisdom, has allowed Satan enough time to fully complete this experiment, so that when it is over there will be no room for doubt. Over the millenia, nearly every form of government has been tried out (from limited totalitarianism, theocracies, and dictatorships to socialism, democracy, and republicanism), and all of them have failed miserably in eliminating mankind's problems. One form of government yet remains--one single, totalitarian government with global reach and unlimited authority and resources; such a government is currently being engineered. The pending total economic collapse and the resulting chaos that would breed fertile ground for what some have termed a "New World Order" is not a result of mankind's ineptness at ruling itself, but has been designed by the Devil himself, and there's a much more fear-inspiring reason for it than simply so that Satan can prove his point.

To give you an idea of that reason, the Devil knows his time is short--but I am jumping ahead of the story. Going back to Genesis, a prophecy was issued by God himself at the time of Adam and Eve's rebellion: "And [Jehovah] said unto the serpent [...] I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." This prophecy can be understood by looking at what Paul refers to as the mystery of God (1 Cor. 4:1, KJV).

At 1 Cor. 2:7, he speaks of "the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which god ordained before the world, unto our glory" (KJV). This mystery, which was ordained before the world (or before "the ages" according to the NKJV) was the prophecy that was issued by God to the rebels before governments and human rulership began (depending on the translation, the world sometimes symbolizes the human population of the world or those that dominate the world, i.e., governments, such as when the Bible speaks of a time when the earth was all of one language). So the mystery of God is the prophecy about the serpent (which represents the Devil), a woman, and two seeds borne from each.

To unravel the mystery and identify the woman, we can turn to Mark 4:11, which states, "And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God" (KJV). So the mystery has to do with the kingdom of God, and indeed, the woman is identified as that kingdom (there is reasoning behind that association, but this post is not about that, if I get a request for it in the comments section, I will create another post illustrating the reasoning behind it); the purpose of the millennial rule of the Kingdom of God is to reverse the millenia of destruction and degradation that corruption and sin has reaped  on the Earth and on mankind, and to restore mankind to perfection and the Earth to a paradise, as was God's original purpose. Spear-heading this project would be the seed of the woman, identified in two parts as Jesus Christ, and the 144,000 humans that are to be resurrected into heaven to rule with him in the Kingdom.

The mystery of the bruising of the heel and the bruising of the head becomes apparent with this understanding. God foreordained that Jesus would come to earth, become the baptized Christ, or promised-one, and die for humanity. But he would eventually be resurrected back into heaven. This was the heel wound that the serpent would cause to the seed of the woman. Satan's head wound, however (a head wound being symbolic of something fatal, and not a surface wound such as the heel wound) will come once Jesus finally destroys Satan for good. It should be noted that this will not happen immediately. Revelation speaks of the Devil being thrown into the abyss for a thousand years, corresponding to Christ's thousand-year rule of peace, during which time mankind will be restored to perfection. After that time, Satan and the demons will once again be released for a short time to test people's resolve to stay faithful to Jehovah. At this time, there will be absolutely no excuse for doubting the existence of God or his sovereignty (which, again, is the purpose for why God has allowed evil to continue on for so long). People will be perfect and in the same position Adam and Eve were in when they were tempted by the Devil. After this short period of testing expires, then Satan will be sent to the lake of fire and experience the second death along with all those who rejected Jesus' rule (which he will have authority by God to carry out) during the thousand years.

After all this, everyone lives happily every after, and the outcome of this whole experiment will be that such a test will never have to take place again (Isaiah 25:7). The destruction ad evil that abound as the result of the result of the current rule of humans will stand as a testament forever to what results when when the creation tries to rule itself. This is symbolized in the bible as smoke ascending as a warning signal (like the smoke of a wreckage) at Revelation 19:1-3 and at Revelation 14:11. Therefore, because of the ultimate outcome of this experiment, if anyone every rejects God's rule again after the devil and all rebels have finally been done away with, there will be no room for doubt in anyone's mind that Jehovah has the absolute right and authority to eliminate that person without question.

So when is the government going to be established? Well, the Bible says that no one knows the day or the hour of the return of the Son of Man (Jesus Christ), but when it is established, it will commence the beginning of a period of time referred to as the Great Tribulation. From the moment the kingdom is established, there is a three-and-a-half year period before Armageddon, the final battle between Christ (in his heavenly form as Michael the Archangel), his 144,000 co-rulers and his angelic army, and Satan and the other demons. At the establishment of the kingdom, the Great Dragon (Satan) will be cast out of heaven and thrown to the earth (Rev. 12:9). This will be the beginning of the Great Tribulation because the Devil, in his great anger, will become wrathful (the Bible says woe to the earth and the sea at that time because the Devil is cast down to the earth and knows his time is short--Rev 12:12). That is when Satan will maneuver things into their final position to set up the totalitarian world-wide government spoke of before, and we see the pieces of this outcome falling into place already with increasing unrest in the world as regimes get toppled and governments are forced by the people to step down, and the ever-impending financial collapse (which will surely become a domino affect and devastate all governments of the world). Do not be fooled though--although we see the pieces falling into place for government collapse, the Bible does say that Christ's parousia (or "coming") will occur at a time when the leaders of the world are saying "peace and security" and it will occur at a time when "you" (referring to those who are saying "peace and security") do not think likely.

The final totalitarian government will be the vilest of all governments, not only because of its ultimately totalitarian nature fueled by Satan's wrath, but also because, since God's government will already have been established, Satan's new government (the eighth king of the book of Daniel) will be in direct opposition to Jehovah. It will be an illegal government formed by Satan after God has already established his government. For this reason, anyone giving allegiance to the eighth king will receive the so-called mark of the beast as a sign of their opposition to Jehovah's rule through their support of Satan's government.

You may argue that such a judgment is unfair because most people will be unaware of the government's symbolic position as opposing God's authority and therefore may be undeserving of receiving such a heavy judgment (the mark of the beast marks those who are to die in this system as a result of God's judgment and will therefore not receive a resurrection). To address this, first note that the Bible describes the governments of the world willingly giving up their sovereignty to this new government. In fact, after the devastation of the collapse of the world's governments (symbolized by the mortal wound of the wild beast in Revelation), the remnants of the governments and the people of the world will be so desperate for a savior, and that savior comes on the scene as what the Bible describes as essentially a resurrected wild beast (most likely it will be some resurrected form of the U.N.). At first this new organization will present itself as the solution to mankind's problems (although the real solution to mankind's problems is the promise of the Kingdom of God). It will most likely argue that the only real way to solve mankind's problems is to establish a government with full authority over the world and unlimited resources. The people, desperate for a solution, will willingly give up their sovereignty to this government. In time, however, the government will become tyrannical and totalitarian. It is at that point when it is obvious that the government is not benevolent that it will demand allegiance to be given it. And those that give allegiance will likely know that they are giving allegiance to an evil system, but one which has unlimited authority and resources and most people in the world will therefore not stand up against it, but rather give in to it. It is at this point that those loyal to God (even to their own death) will stand out from others because they will stand up in the face of death and tell the wild beast, "no" (not only because they know they will be resurrected, but also because they know it is the right thing to do). The fact of the matter is, while most people argue that God's judgments are evil and unfair, those people do not realize that if they are doing what is truly the right thing to do (which in this case includes standing up against a corrupt government), they will survive, even if they don't believe in God, because they will have avoided the mark of the beast by giving in to a corrupt system. Let this stand as a warning to anyone who is faced with a tough choice between doing what is convenient and doing what is right.

That this new government will be in opposition to Jehovah is true in both spirit and action. The Bible tells us that the days will be cut short on account of the saints, and speaks of the blood of the saints being avenged in the day of judgment. In order to reach heaven, one must be born again in the spirit--this means that one must die in physical form. This is understood to be literal. The eighth king will murder the remaining saints, or God's chosen ones, in an attempt to prove his point that no human would be faithful to God all the way to his  own death (this is what the account of Job is all about).

With all this in mind, we arrive at the unmistakable conclusion that the purpose for allowing evil to go on for so long is solely to vindicate God's sovereignty. Now, you might think this is selfish, but in reality, it's not all that different from how many parents raise their children. Parents will often allow their children to make mistakes so that they can learn from them, because we all know that experience is the best teacher. Of course, we would never allow our children to make such a grave mistake that it would risk their very lives, we allow them (usually) to make mistakes for which the benefits outweigh the risks. This is what Jehovah has done. Never for a second have things gotten to a point where they were beyond Jehovah's ability to fix. All the death and pain and suffering and tears that mankind has endured, Jehovah has the power and the will to fix it all. The book of Revelation tells us that God will wipe away mankind's tears and that death and pain will be no more. We will live in a perfect paradise forever, and it even says that the memory of this system will fade away (perhaps not literally, the effects of what happened as a result of mankind's self-rule will stand as a reminder to those who would disobey God, but the emotional scars will be fully healed), because, again, Jehovah has the power and desire to do that for us, which is far more than can be said of ANY government ever established by man.

Jesus' Death: Why Was Jesus' "Temporary" Sacrifice Sufficient to Buy Back All of Humanity?

To answer the question in the title of this post, we need to go back to the Levitical laws, which state that, in God's perfect sense of justice, a requirement is made that "soul will be for soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." (Deut. 9:21, NWT--you can compare the KJV, I use the NWT here because it is a little clearer, and it renders nephesh as "soul," whereas the KJV, in this instance, renders it as "life," which is more of a description of the sense in which nephesh is used in this context rather than a direct translation). What this sense of perfect justice is saying is that if something is lost or destroyed, something of equal value must be given to get it back. For instance, if someone destroys your property, you are entitled to get your property back, or at least something of equal value. If the person does not have the means to repay the property, then he will be sentenced to an appropriate punishment by the authorities. In this case, the authority is Jehovah, and as described in his word, the Bible, there is only one punishment for sin--death. In other words, when Adam lost perfection, by sinning, he became liable to death because what he lost was a perfect human existence. Since the only way to buy back that perfect existence is with a perfect existence, and a sinner by definition does not have a perfect existence (and hence does not have the means to buy back what Adam lost), the only option for a sinner is to die. God, however, did have the means to buy back what Adam had lost; furthermore, according to his mercy towards mankind, he provided something of equal value--the perfect human life of his own Son. Jehovah did not have to do that, it was purely a matter of grace (or underserved kindness on the part of God--and love of humanity and loyalty to his Father on the part of Jesus) that the Son as sent to earth to die for us.

The question, however, is, why was Jesus allowed to be resurrected? It would seem, on the outside of it, that is life is for life and soul for soul, once Jesus gave up his perfect life in order to buy back the perfect life Adam lost, he should no longer be entitled to live. In fact, if Jesus had not been resurrected, he would be giving up much more than what necessary to buy back what Adam lost. This is where we also begin to see why Jesus single human life was sufficient to redeem all of humanity. What exactly was it that Adam had given up in the Garden of Eden when he sinned? What he gave up was exactly a single perfect human existence. This is exactly what Jesus offered up as a sacrifice. Although Jesus gave up his perfect human existence does not mean he was no longer entitled to his perfect heavenly existence (although he could never become human again, even if he wanted to--he gave up his right to his human existence when he offered up his human existence as a sacrifice to buy back humanity).

The reason why Jesus' sacrifice of a single human life is sufficient to buy back all of humanity, though, is because rather than purchasing each of perfect human existence, Jesus simply bought back the single perfect human existence that Adam had lost. Since Adam's perfect life has been repurchased by Jesus, we, as his descendants, will now be free to inherit, that perfect life rather than the sin and death we currently inherit from Adam. This does not mean that Adam will be resurrected--he had his chance at perfection already, when he died, he experienced the second death. What it does mean, though, is that the source of our inheritance will no longer be Adamic sin, but Jesus' life-giving sacrifice. Jesus was literally bought us back from Adam, and has essentially adopted us as his children by buying us back from sin and death.

Heaven, Hell, and the Hope of a Resurrection Part 1b: What is Hell? (Gehenna, the Lake of Fire, the Second Death)

Now that we have a clear understanding of the resurrection to come, we can understand the meaning of Gehenna and the concept of "hellfire" that derives from it. Gehenna, the lake of fire, and the second death are all symbols of the same thing. Christ told the pharisees that they were condemned to Gehenna, and others in human history have also been condemned to Gehenna; although the vast majority of the human population die and go, not to Gehenna, but to Hades. So what is Gehenna?

The Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) was outside the walls of Jerusalem. In the first century, it was used as an incinerator for the filth of Jerusalem. Dead animals and the bodies of executed criminals considered undeserving of a proper burial were thrown into the valley and consumed with fire, and to which sulfur (brimstone) was added to assist with the burning. When bodies were thrown into the valley, those that did not fall all the way into the pit to be consumed by fire, but instead landed on a ledge, their putrefying flesh became infested with the every-present worms and maggots. Living people were not thrown into the valley, so it was not a place of conscious torment.

Matthew 10:28 states, "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell [Gehenna]" (KJV). There is no mention here of torment in Gehenna. Jesus, by referring to destroying the body and soul separately, is emphasizing to be in fear of that which not only kills the body (normal death in this life) but also destroys the soul, completely, meaning that which destroys also the prospect of resurrection back to life. Fire has been used throughout history as a symbol for absolute destruction. If you tear up a piece of paper, for example, you can always reassemble the pieces back together. If you burn up the paper, however, there is no way to reconstruct it, the information that was recorded on it is lost forever (provided it wasn't memorized or recorded elsewhere). This is the real reason for the imagery of hellfire.

Like the information on the piece of paper that was burnt up, the people who are sent to Gehenna are erased from Jehovah's memory, and Jehovah will not recall them during the time of the resurrection. A few select people throughout history have been sent to Gehenna, meaning they died without the prospect of a resurrection--this is what the second death is. The second death basically applies to anyone who dies as a direct result of God's judgment. Because of this, there are not many in human history to whom this applies. This is mainly because Jehovah has set a specific time for the judgment day during which he will judge those still living. (The purpose of Judgment Day and why people will receive the mark of the beast will be covered a bit later in this blog.)

An example of those in history who have died prior to judgment day as a direction result of God's judgments may be many of the people who lived during the time of Noah's flood. Another example is the pharisees whom Jesus condemned to Gehenna. He did this because the pharisees, as supposed leaders in God's temple, were supposed to know and understand God's laws; however, they were hypocritical in their application. Those to whom much is given, much is required--in other words, if you are in the truth, and you know the truth, than you have a responsibility to the truth.

Anyone who has committed the "unforgivable sin," namely, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be sent to Gehenna. This terminology isn't literal. As mentioned before, the Holy Spirit is also called the Finger of God; it's the force Jehovah uses to affect his will. The idea of blaspheming against the holy spirit is to reject the working of God's Holy Spirit in one's life. This is not an ordinary thing; since the vast majority of humans do not get condemned to Gehenna upon death, it is not simply a case of human weakness or imperfection, it's a willful rejection of God's Holy Spirit.

With this understanding of hell, we can make sense of Rev. 20:14, which states, "And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death." (KJV) This would not make sense if both Hades and the lake of fire referred to the same literal place. After humanity is restored to perfection, people will no longer be under the penalty of death, so death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire, which is to say, they will be completely annihilated "and there shall be no more death" (Rev. 21:4, KJV).

I'm back

So I have been out for a while. Things have gotten a bit crazy over the holidays, but I've been moved to come back and pick up where I last left off, which was talking about the concept of hell, and I've gone over about half of the story of hell, but as I've said previously, in order to understand the second half of the concept of hell in the Bible, we need to understand about the (future) resurrection, which is the topic of the post that I just created (below).

Heaven, Hell, and the Hope of the Resurrection Part 2: The Resurrection

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, this entry will be concerned with the resurrection. Now I'm sure most, if not all, who read this will, from the outset, assume I am talking about the resurrection of Jesus. I am not. In fact the bible described three resurrections, the first resurrection of course, is that of Jesus. The second two actually involve humans.

Acts 24:15 alludes to a mass resurrection of the dead by saying, "There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust." (KJV) Now, it has been my premise up to this point (and will continue to be my premise) that the concept of hell in the Bible is not a literal place of torment, and that indeed, when humans die, they cease to exist; that is, there is no afterlife. Most Christians maintain that if you are a good Christian that when you die, you will go to heave In reality, this is not an afterlife, but some Christians will actually be resurrected into heaven--this is the first of the two resurrections involving humans mentioned above, resurrection into heaven. Note that not ALL of God's faithful humans will be resurrected into heaven. The Bible numbers those who will go to heaven at 144,000. These are the ones seen in Revelation standing on heavenly Mount Zion with Jesus. Rev. 20:4-6 says of these ones that they will reign with Christ for a thousand years (they are also the ones whom the Bible refers to as "saints," or "holy ones").

But if there is no hell, then that leaves us with the question of where "the unjust" of Acts 24:15 will be resurrected. It is unreasonable to believe that the unjust will also be resurrected into heaven. That leaves only one place: the physical Universe (or more specifically, Earth). Both the unrighteous and the faithful that did not get selected for heaven will be resurrected on the Earth. These are the subjects over which those who do go to heaven will reign. Incidentally, the thousand-year reign of Christ (along with his 144,000 co-rulers) is exactly what the Kingdom of God is. The Kingdom of God (mentioned in the Lord's prayer) is not some mystical abstract thing which resides only in one's "heart," as some believe, but it is a real and literal government designed to carry out God's purpose for the Earth (which will be discussed later on in this blog).

John 5:28-29 states, "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall com forth; they that have done good, unto a resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation [or judgment]." This passage is not referring to judging people based on their actions in this life. When the resurrection takes place, it will take place over a thousand years, corresponding to the reign of Christ--that is one of the purposes of God' Kingdom. Those that are resurrected will be given perfect bodies, like the ones that Adam and his wife had lost when they sinned. Those who have survived Judgment Day, however, will not need to be resurrected, they will already be alive. Their bodies will gradually be returned to perfection over the thousand years. The resurrection of life or judgment, in this new context, is base not on our actions in this system, but our response to Christ's rulership and direction during his millennial reign.

The reason for the resurrection, along with Jehovah's purpose for the Earth will be discussed later in this blog once I get to why it is that Gad has allowed evil to exist for so long--all three topics are intimately tied with one another.