On the Steps of Theodicy: The Search Begins

When faced with the reality of suffering, the classical view of God becomes exceptionally difficult to defend. The idea that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving is challenged by the existence of evil. It brings up the age-old question of theodicy: how do we reconcile our notion of a loving God, a God who has the power to eliminate suffering, with our notion of justice in the face of evil?

The problem of evil has become one of the largest stumbling blocks in the question of God’s existence. In the face of the Holocaust, this problem has only grown. Couldn’t God have stepped in at any point in order to have saved the millions who perished? And if God had the power to do so, but chose not to, can we truly call that love?

Witnessing the evil and suffering that occurs every day, and not seeing any signs of God stepping in, it is no surprise that there are so many who struggle with faith. After all, if we can’t explain how a loving God would allow for so much suffering and evil in this world, can we blame people for lacking faith?  

There have been many attempts to provide solutions for this problem. Some try to shift the blame. It’s not God causing the suffering, but it’s a product of free will. Or it’s Satan, the great deceiver, who brings evil into this world. But often these solutions miss the mark, because God remains the root cause. God created free will and knew its ramifications. God created Satan and knew what would happen. With an all-knowing God, God remains the cause.

So how do we address this problem? How do we put forth a rational argument that explains how a loving God would allow for all of the evil and suffering in this world? The solution is complicated, as the problem itself is far more complicated than many realize.

When looking at evil, it is not a single notion. Instead, we must separate it into two main categories: moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil deals with willful acts committed by humans, such as rape or murder, while natural evil refers to natural disasters. Answers that deal with one sort of evil don’t necessarily translate to the other sort of evil. Any solution we propose must address both sorts of evil.

With all of this, we must also come face to face with the Holocaust itself, an event that had a massive impact on theology and transformed the discussion surrounding suffering and evil. For many, it was the Holocaust that killed the classical view of God and led to people making the claim that God was dead. It was the Holocaust that not only made the world question why God, who was all-powerful and all-loving, would allow the slaughter of millions of people, but also, in the same instance, showed that every human has the capacity to do evil. It’s an atrocity that can’t be ignored.

Looking at the Bible, this complicated situation doesn’t become any clearer. There are dozens of Biblical explanations for the existence of evil, such as it being a byproduct of free will, that there is some hidden plan, that it’s a mystery, or even that evil isn’t necessarily bad, as it teaches us something.

None of those explanations are inherently false, and in some situations, they have advantages and may be justified responses. But in regard to the Holocaust, they don’t measure up. In response to burning children, to tossing babies into fires, such explanations are found wanting. Part of the issue is that those who wrote the Bible simply couldn’t have known how far evil could go. They couldn’t imagine the technological dimensions that allowed the Holocaust to be so efficient.

In such a situation, though, where children are being burned alive, the question of why there is evil may be beside the point, and instead, we should be asking, “What do we do now?”

There are certain things that can be said, though. Overall, the Bible takes a more nuanced view of the subject rather than seeing things in black and white. Instead of picking a single perspective, Biblical texts often provide multiple angles, which really help show the complexity of the situation. Most importantly, though, Biblical writers even dared to connect God with both suffering and evil, forcing readers into a deeper conversation of what that connection truly means.

We aren’t given overarching statements; the Bible brings us into a middle position. The Bible claims that some suffering is the will of God, but not all of it is. Some suffering is due to sin, but not all suffering is due to sin. From the Bible, we get a view of God that isn’t absent from the life of the world, as deism claims, but at the same time, God doesn’t micromanage it.

Instead, God takes on a relationship with us. Relationships are complicated. They change over time as we develop; they demand a give-and-take, and they are often something we navigate throughout the life of that relationship. It is in this relationship with God that our best understanding of suffering may emerge.