But If God Exists, Why Does He Allow Evil?

Why Does God Allow Evil?

To many, the greatest obstacle or excuse to believing in God is not the lack of evidence for His existence, but the existence of evil itself. They cannot understand how a God who hates sin, injustice, suffering, and death, and who possesses the power to bring them all to an end, could allow such things to continue. To them, the tragic realities of this present world appear incompatible with the existence of an all-powerful and perfectly good God.

Yes, God is perfectly holy, He hates evil, He delights in mercy, and He takes no pleasure in the suffering of His creatures. However, God has nevertheless permitted the untold atrocities, diseases, wars, oppression, and death that have marked human history to occur. This naturally raises the question:  If God is all-powerful, why does He not simply appear in His full glory, destroy Satan, judge evil, and restore the world to the way it was before sin entered creation?

To many, such a solution appears obvious. If God truly loves mankind, why allow sin, suffering, disease, injustice, and death to continue? Why not simply intervene, remove evil forever, and establish His righteous kingdom upon the earth? The answer, however, is far more sobering than many realize.

Throughout Scripture, God repeatedly reveals that sinful mankind cannot stand in the unveiled presence of His full glory. When Moses asked to behold God’s glory, the Lord replied, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live“ (Exodus 33:20). Likewise, whenever God revealed even a measure of His majesty, men instinctively fell upon their faces, overwhelmed by His holiness and acutely aware of their own unworthiness. God’s holiness is not merely one of His many attributes; it is the absolute perfection of His very being. Just as darkness is consumed by light, that which is finite, corrupted by sin, and separated from God cannot endure the unveiled presence of the infinite perfectly pure Creator. The patience we sometimes interpret as God’s failure to deal with evil is the very patience upon which every sinner depends.

This reality should cause us to reconsider the question and instead ask : If God allows such temporal suffering in order to extend to mankind every opportunity to escape His judgement, how much more dreadful must that final judgment be for those who are not in Christ?  Genesis 15:16 with 2 Peter 3:9  establishes a consistent biblical principle: God’s delay in judgment should not be mistaken for indifference toward evil; His patience provides opportunity for repentance, opportunity for salvation in Christ, but God’s patience will come to an end. God “is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:30–31).