If you speak to unbelievers frequently for any length of time, it should not take long for you to be faced with the question of the origin of evil. Many have been silenced with questions like, "Where was God, when my mother suffered and died from cancer," or "If God is real, why did all those people die during Hurricane Katrina?" Many atheists argue that the existence of evil challenges the existence of God. According to Ravi Zacharias, "Atheists say that the reality of evil proves that God isn't real."
There are several arguments that one could make for the existence of God. One, for example, is the reality of an objective moral law. According to Zacharias, "If evil exists, then we have to assume that good exists...If good exists, we have to assume that a moral law exists...If a moral law exists, we have to say that there is a moral lawgiver-or we would have no basis for an objective moral law." Other examples that have been used are intelligent design, and the law of cause and effect that reasons that there has to be an uncaused cause (God).
Although these arguments are valid, they do not answer questions pertaining to the existance of evil. Since we as believers know God is good and is not to blame for our peril, we must then ask in return, "If God is not to blame then who is?"
The Bible affirms that human beings are responsible. Zacharias states, "Evil isn't just something outside of us that inflicts suffering on us. Evil is something inside of us that inflicts suffering on others." Many may answer, however, "But God created us." Because like produces like, it would not make since for a perfect God to create something that is flawed. He created all things perfect including man. Even though, Adam, our representative, was created in God's image, he was given complete freedom. As Genesis 3 demonstrates, he chose disobedience. Through one act of disobedience, sin entered into the world ruining God's perfect creation and contaminating the entire human race.
It is God, however, that provides a solution for the evil we cause. It did not take long, after the fall, for God to provide hope to a seemingly hopeless story. He tells the serpent that the Messiah will come and crush his head in Genesis 3:15. Jesus did this by taking on flesh, meeting God's standard for living, and dieing as our substitute so that through him we could be brought back into a right relationship with our creator. According to Zacharias, "The death of Jesus on the cross shows the reality of evil—and God's solution for it."
Zacharias, Ravi. Jesus Among Other Gods. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000. 89-101.
