Why?

The last week has been one full of devastating news reports: 3 killed by a bombing at the Boston Marathon, several Britons killed in a coach crash in France, 14 killed and 200 injured by an oil explosion in Texas, 16 killed by a collapsing gold mine in Ghana, 35 people killed and many made homeless by an earthquake in Iran, over 150 people killed and thousands injured by another earthquake in China... Those are just the extreme reports from the last week too. All this leaves me asking yet again the most primal question of human existence: why!?

I’ve recently been talking to some of the youth I work with about Genesis, sin and the origins of evil. Subjects which regularly come up when we find ourselves asking the question “Why do terrible things happen in the world?”

Like many Christians, I’ve been told before by various sources that the reason all these awful things happen is because some guy and his wife, once upon a time ate some fruit they weren’t supposed to eat. So although God made the world perfectly, because of this couple that perfect world got ruined and that’s why death and disease and suffering and natural disasters - all things we think of as “evil” - exist.

Call me a heathen but I find this explanation quite unsatisfying. How can one man’s momentary lapse in judgement be the reason thousands die on a weekly basis because of disease and natural disasters? The more I study and think about it the more I feel like the reason this explanation is unsatisfying is because its not actually true!

Let me clarify something... Evil is that which is fundamentally opposed to God. If God is all good, evil is the very opposite of this. ‘Sin’ - is the label we give human actions that side with evil instead of with God. So... I can and do accept that the story of Adam and Eve. Whether literal or metaphorical - I’m still very much working that out! But I accept that the story teaches us about the beginnings of man’s rebellion against God and therefore the origins of sin. And many horrific things in this world are clearly the direct result of sin: murder, theft, exploitation, poverty, etc.

A standard principle of good Biblical Study is that we need to accept that the scriptures that make up the Bible were written at specific times into specific circumstances. Part of understanding a scripture’s message involves knowing how the first readers would have understood it. Genesis 3 was first written in a world that was already one full of sin and evil and its first readers were the Israelites - people who had just experienced 400 years of slavery, and were experiencing homelessness, hunger, war, disease and many other challenges. So they knew that the world wasn’t a very nice place. But were they using the story to explain the mysterious origins of evil? I don’t think so.

Instead I think this: The Israelites had just been called to be “God’s chosen people - His Holy Nation.” And they were trying to figure out how they were supposed to represent Him. What this story showed them is that there are things in this world (the snake) that might try to trick them into doing things differently to how God wanted them. They can relate the suffering they’d been through at the hands of the Egyptians back to this and know that they are the consequence of humans doing things differently to how God wanted them. It served as a great warning to them to not side with evil that exists in the world. And it serves as the same vital warning to us today. But it doesn't tell us why it exists.

So... This story does not answer where evil itself came from - only where sin originated. And I still struggle to accept that Adam and Eve’s actions were also the start of all “natural evil” - the bad things that seem to happen without any human input (such as natural disasters, disease, etc). Yes I know you might be able to explain away some of these natural disasters as a result of global warming which is a result of human action... But that doesn’t explain all of it...

It’s like, when trying to understand the origins of this natural evil we adopt a Pandora’s Box approach to suffering - one person’s stupid decision somehow opened a cosmic wormhole and suddenly nature behaved in a completely new way. I just don’t buy into this. Tom Wright once put it like this

“Tectonic plates gotta do what a tectonic plates gotta do...”

Earthquakes aren’t evil. Tectonic plates didn’t start moving the moment Adam and Eve swallowed. So why do things like earthquakes happen?

One explanation that I find deeply disturbing is the idea that it is God’s Judgement. Whilst the Bible has examples of God using the weather to his advantage, this doesn’t mean that everyone who dies in an unfortunate accident judged by f God. In Luke 13, Jesus uses 2 examples of recent local disasters where people were killed to make this point. So... why does it happen?

Frustratingly none of the books I’ve read by people also searching for an answer to this question have helped. One suggestion was that because of our position as stewards over creation, our rebellion against God somehow disrupted not just our relationship with God, but also ours and God's relationship with creation. To an extent this is helpful, but then when we see God and even Jesus sovereignly commanding creation it leaves me wondering how can God not be in control...

Instead, the authors I've read - and they have been quite a few and quite varied - conclude (also with a sense of frustration) that while we understand something of the origins of sin, the Bible actually tells us little to nothing about the origins of evil or why this stuff just happens. We get vague insights but these are like a thread on a poorly knitted Christmas jumper: pull on it and the whole thing soon unravels into nothingness - like when we blame the snake!

Thankfully, I have faith that God gets it. One of my favourite passages in the Bible is God's conversation with Job at the end of His book. Job is a book about a man trying to figure out some of the questions I'm asking here. And it ends with God answering Job "out of the storm" of his confused and angry questions by essentially saying... I'm God, you're not, and some of what happens is too beyond your understanding. But know that I'm God and I'm in control of my creation. For the time being this has to be satisfying for me.

Christopher JH Wright suggests in his appropriately named book The God I Don’t Understand that the reason we cannot answer the question of why evil exists is simply because evil doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t exist! It is an alien outsider in God’s good creation. It doesn’t belong here and thats what bothers us. Which is good. Because it should bother us. God has not chosen to explain evil to us because ultimately we shouldn’t be understanding it, we should be getting rid of it! And he suggests that when we point the finger at God and ask Him, “How can you let this happen”, God points his finger back at us and asks us the same question.

Now this does bring us back to moral and natural evil. We can definitely take responsibility for the moral evil (or sin) in this world, and there is a lot of it for us to do something about! And whilst we can’t necessarily prevent natural disasters we can certainly do lots in the aftermath to reduce suffering. But how do we respond to the things that happen that we have no control over?

This is when, I would argue, we get the right to point the finger at God. But instead of asking the question of “why” - which as we’ve explored is never really answered, instead we should be asking the question that those in the Bible ask: “how long is this going to go on for?”

The Bible is full of times when people who are unable to do something about a situation cry out to God, in anguish and frustration. There are more Psalms of anguish and lament then there are of joy and thanksgiving. This is not bad. It is not showing a lack of faith. God wants the world to be made right again and so when we encounter things that aren’t right that we can do nothing about, it is appropriate to cry out to God for him to sort them. In many ways, by showing how angry we are with God that something evil has happened we are siding with Him against the evil and acknowledging that He has the power to do something about it. Both these things could be called worship.

This may leave you thinking “but how can this be of any comfort to someone who is suffering?” And that is a fair question. But I believe that supporting that person practically in the best way that we can, as well as agreeing with them that it is not OK and praying for them with tears and anger for God to be God and make things right, is far more comfort than telling somebody the reason they’re suffering is because God is judging them or because some guy and his wife ate some fruit. Wouldn’t you agree?

There is a lot of theology surrounding this topic. And I find much of it is deep and confusing and unsatisfying. I still don’t understand why evil exists and it still bothers me. And of course reaching the end of my unravelling Christmas Jumper raises many more questions that are left unanswered. But it seems the most appropriate thing to do right now is to pause and simply pray a simple prayer...

God, please would you be God.

I know that you’re not OK with all the terrible things that happen in the world, so would you please do something about them!

Please Father bring peace to China and Iran,
Holy Spirit please would you comfort those that have lost their families in Ghana and France.
Jesus please bring healing to those injured in Texas.
God let your justice be brought to the situation in America

And Lord will you help me see what I can do too. I’m sorry that I’m guilty of spending more time figuring out the why then doing something about the what.

Let your Kingdom come and your will be done.
On Earth as it is in Heaven
Let us not be tempted like Adam and Eve to do things in our own way, but stick to your way.
Deliver this world from all the evil in it!

Because thats the promise of your Kingdom
And you have the power,
And its for your Glory
And because sometimes we can’t do anything about it ourselves except be horrified by what we see and come to you with our questions and our anger:

Why Lord? How Long? Help!