There’s this old paradox proposed by atheists. “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able to? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ¹ So, if the Christian God is all omnipotent and doesn’t will evil, why is there evil? Well, to begin we have to go back to Adam and Eve.
When God created Adam and Eve he allowed them to eat anything in the garden except the Tree of Good and Evil. He wanted to be able to love his creation truly and for that to happen he had to provide a choice. Adam and Eve chose to either trust in God or separate themselves from him and declare that they know best. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree something fundamental in us broke and that’s where evil flows from. So, why doesn’t God just wipe the slate clean? How would he be all-loving if he just wiped Adam and Eve out because they chose not to be with him? Even if he did, how would it be different except if he were to strip us of our free will? Then we wouldn’t be loved, we would be robots. ²
Evil is not of God but a symptom of what is broken in us. God looks to repair that broken part of us while also maintaining perfect love which is why he sent his son for us. So, that we may choose to follow, we can choose the ultimate gift of Christ but because God loves us he also allows us to reject that gift. Read Genesis 1 and notice how each day ends. “And he saw it was good”. So, God has created an intrinsically good world. However, because of our fallen nature, we have war, disease, hunger, disasters, death, etc. So, what do we make of this?
The Catechism reads “The fact that God permits physical and even moral evil is a mystery that God illuminates by his Son Jesus Christ who died and rose to vanquish evil. Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.” ³. God would not permit evil that he did not intend to use for good and you might not see it in the moment. The good might not even be intended for you. It might be intended for someone else.
Towards the end of Job around chapters 38-39 God gives this speech to Job giving a picture of just how much God sees of the universe. He sees every little thing going on all the time. We don’t see the world he does. Rather, we see the world as if we were peeking through a keyhole. We see our little slice of the world and only bits and pieces of other people. How can we expect to know God’s true intentions all of the time? Trust that we are loved by an all-good God. We may not understand now but come the day we enter into full communion with him all will be revealed.
¹Epicurus
²CCC 1731
³CCC 324