This is an ancient question, one to which the oldest book in the Bible, Job, was entirely devoted. It is asked repeatedly in the Scriptures: Jeremiah asks, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” (12:1). Psalm 73 is a discussion of this question. Jesus said, “In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).

But the answers the Bible gives, to the extent that it answers at all, are not very satisfying. Job is told (I’m paraphrasing Job 40), “Who are you to question me?” Others tell us to look to another place, heaven, where wrongs will be finally righted. But why would God allow evil in the first place?

Many people sincerely ask this question, and the fact that a solid answer eludes us causes some to bring charges against God. However, it is also a question asked by insincere people who have no desire to find an answer, but merely want a defense against the possibility of a Master to whom submission is demanded. Still worse, some use the argument to defend their behavior, which they know would be offensive to a Righteous Lawgiver. I once found myself in the first camp, if not the second or third.

In 1978, 36 years ago, I was a fulfilled husband and computer designer. My wife Mary and I were prosperous professionals; we loved camping, nature and photography. We ran a group home for troubled teens, and we both enjoyed the challenges: meetings with probation officers, going out for peanuts & beer with fellow foster parents, and keeping up with our kids’ antics as we tried to model a stable family, something they had never experienced. We had no marital, job, money or health issues, except that we had been trying unsuccessfully for some years to start a family of our own. The kids (by and large) loved living with us, and they did well in our home. They were rewarded by being returned to their natural parent(s), but often would immediately screw up royally. Sometimes they even screwed up right before being returned. We saw this as a desire to stay in our home, and took it as a compliment.

But it wasn’t. We weren’t giving these kids something that could weather the storms of trouble. Their home lives were filled with fear, confusion and despair. Life at our home was free at that time of all that, but that was not real life, which can include unexpected disasters, sickness, injustice and insecurity. How could we give them something that could endure in difficulty? I’m afraid that, at that time, I didn’t have it, so I couldn’t give it.

When we got married, nine years before, I was still an undergrad. My parents had almost divorced repeatedly since I was five, so my concept of a family was a bit skewed. But I thought it would be cool to marry. As an agnostic, I was free to choose my own convictions regarding marriage, so I decided that divorce was no problem — as long as no kids were involved, since I saw my parents’ turbulent brink-of-divorce marriage take a big toll on my sister. Both our parents eloped, so we did also, and we kept our marriage a secret (that only lasted two weeks). My only stipulation to my bride was that we have no kids for five years. In my mind, that would be enough time to see if we wanted to continue or divorce. My buddy and I went out and got drunk the night before; Mary went out with her best girlfriend. But since she nominally believed in God, she also prayed over our impending marriage.

The next five years were complete prosperity. With two incomes, we made money hand over fist and bought a GTO, camera equipment, and a brand new home. We had two dogs; a Norwegian elkhound and a Samoyed. But Mary missed having kids. She knew I loved kids too, because I always romped and played horsey with all the nephews and nieces (we have seven siblings between us). I still wasn’t sure our marriage was a “keeper”, though, and balked at starting a family.

One day Mary, who worked on the orthopedics ward at a hospital, had a patient named Clete Dunn, who must have been in his upper sixties. He was an odd individual who ran a group home on the edge of town. He and his wife Marie took in the hardest 12-year olds, eight at a time, that the county had. He was in the hospital with a broken hip, suffered by slipping on ice while feeding his raccoons. Since Mary wanted kids, but I didn’t want the commitment, she thought maybe I would agree to start up our own group home.

We visited their place, and were blown away. These kids adored “dad” and “mom”. They were complete terrors, kids right off the streets of St. Paul. I wouldn’t want to meet them in an alley. But they would have protected Clete and Marie like a gang member protects a brother. Clete was gruff with them, permitted no backtalk, and they were mischievous as ever; but they loved their family.

Well, we signed right up, initially licensed for four, then eight. Although we had over forty kids, we never approached the Dunn’s numbers, who did this for many, many years.

Years later again, we had seen success, but as I said, not when the kids went home. One day, Mary was in a car accident. She was driving a road right at sunset. The sun was directly behind her, and blinded a car that was pulling onto the road from the side. Mary could do nothing, and collided with the car. I was at home, and got a call from the other driver, who was OK. He said an ambulance was coming for my wife. He didn’t know if she would be OK.

I called all the kids, hustled them into our van, and sped to the scene. Unknown to me, one of our kids had just taken an overdose of a drug, and was pretty out of it. So, I ended up following the ambulance to the hospital with the boy swearing, “I’m gonna get that mother-f***er!” He said he was going to turn in his pusher. At the hospital, I had to deal not only with Mary’s care, but a boy in my charge tripping, vomiting on the hospital courtyard. Of course, when the boy sobered up, he refused to “narc” on his pusher.

All this left us pretty frazzled. We needed a small break. So since our anniversary was upon us, I read the riot act to the kids and told them we’d be gone for two hours to get a pizza. But when we returned, they had gotten a gallon can of paint stripper out of our (locked) workshop and were in the back yard, sniffing their way to oblivion.

We, especially Mary, had had it. We called the probation officers, emptied the house of kids, and went on a vacation to Colorado. All the uproar pushed Mary into really examining the meaning of her life. She read a book called “Fully Human, Fully Alive” and began visiting a charismatic Lutheran church. She had a “born-again” experience, and her nominal religion became a personal relationship with Christ.

We resumed taking in kids, but now we had a bit of a crisis. We had occasionally visited a church for years, mainly to stave off Mary’s feelings of guilt for not going. Now, she dragged me off to church every Sunday. I didn’t mind attending church, because I saw that religion filled a need in her life that I didn’t share. But all these sermons, every week, rubbed my nose in questions I had not fully answered in my mind. I took strong offense at many things the pastor said; I especially remember wryly saying to Mary, “How will you feel in heaven, knowing that I am burning in hell?” Mary’s Bible knowledge at that time was very meager and she doesn’t like to debate like I do, so she sat silently and took up the issue in prayer. She also volunteered at church, so the office staff was praying for me as well.

They came up with an idea. There was a married couple at church; both were new believers, and they were on fire! Everyone just loved being around them — they were so encouraging. So Mary asked me if I minded having them over for dinner and a “talk”. Sounded like a capital idea to me, so she set it up.

The evening came, and we had a wonderful time at dinner. The couple’s enthusiasm and personal testimony were contagious, and I’m sure everyone around me, and all Mary’s friends, were lifting this encounter up to God in prayer. After dinner, we settled into serious discussion. I went directly to my most earnest issue with God: “How can a righteous, omnipotent God allow evil? Either he doesn’t care, and thus is not righteous, or He can do nothing about it, and thus is not omnipotent.” Our guests were enthusiastic, but had not considered this question before. We talked for many hours, until about 1AM. They left, and a couple days later Mary got a note from them saying that they could not get together with us again, as it was too difficult on their faith.

I figured that throughout the centuries, no Christian had been confronted with this question, and now reason and clarity would put this Jesus thing to rest once and for all. But I had no desire to participate in the fall, since it provided much innocent consolation to my wife and her friends.

But Mary wasn’t finished. We had a pastor at our (her) church, Irwin Prange, that was a bit more seasoned and formally educated, and perhaps he would be able to mount a defense. He had been in behind-the-lines intelligence work during WWII, and came to us from the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, where he conducted three services each Sunday, one each in English, German and Spanish. I was a bit reluctant to meet with him though, because it was one thing to damage the faith of a single lay couple, but I didn’t want to damage the faith of a professional pastor. Look at all the good he was doing. Nevertheless, we met.

When the meeting time came, I prepared myself to give him my best, most honest argument. After meeting with the new believers a few weeks before, I was prepared for at least an hour of serious debate. To my surprise, I had barely gotten the question out before he turned in his chair, pulled three dusty volumes from his bookshelf, and set them down on the desk. He also set his own small book, “The Gift is Already Yours“, on top of them. He said that the three books addressed the issue I raised, and the last was his personal testimony. He charged me with the task of reading them, after which we would meet again. We never met again, at least not on that topic.

At home, I opened the first book, appropriately titled “God, Pain and Evil”. The first chapter, to my surprise, was devoted to making the very charge that I was making, but doing a better job of it. I wondered what could possibly come in following chapters, since this book was purportedly defending against this charge, not making it. I found that the second chapter made a very eloquent response, leaving me amazed. But then, the third chapter turned and attacked those arguments, and again the fourth chapter defended. I realized that I was totally out of my league. It was not that the language was above my understanding or anything like that, it was just that I was a mere child dabbling in issues that had been wrestled with over the centuries, and I was simply not up to the task. Humbled, I never even finished the first book. I wish I could find that book again now, to see if I have matured any, but alas, pastor Prange has long since gone to be with his Maker. My experience was extremely useful in defusing my arguments for me, but since I can’t even remember them, they are of no use to you. I’ll have to bring other evidence to bear.

By the way, I read the short book of his testimony, and found that his life was filled with danger and miracles (yes, miracles), because he was willing to risk everything for God. He was an early hero for me to imitate.

Getting back to the problem of pain: one first thought began to emerge. I noticed that sometimes, people purposely put other people that they supposedly care for, in pain. I thought of men that go to boot camp. They are mercilessly harassed and broken down. And the strange thing is that the more elite the fighting force, the more intense the pain. Green Berets, Rangers and Seals actually have to endure torture as part of their training. The pressure is so extreme that even though the recruits steel themselves to endure, most fail and bail. The same harassing occurs in fraternities. I was in a professional/social frat, Kappa Eta Kappa, so “hell week” was nothing compared to what my brother, who pledged to social fraternity Kappa Sigma, had to endure. But why do they do it? Are they sadists? Well, maybe a little. But the same thing was true when I made varsity on my high school wrestling team; I needed to endure “initiation”. And street gangs beat and occasionally kill those that seek admittance into the gang. When we eventually had kids of our own, we deliberately sent them to a missions program where they were subjected to two weeks of boot camp adjacent to Cape Canaveral, where they bathed in a pool that was occasionally visited by an alligator, slept in tents in a snake-infested jungle, washed their clothes in a bucket and ran an obstacle course before breakfast. Then they were sent overseas to clear landing strips or serve at an orphanage. Meanwhile, their friends played soccer and swam all summer.

The reasons for subjecting others to pain are manifold. Gangs, and others as well, may truly be sadistic. But the military? No, their reasons are mostly good. For one, they need to break down the stubborn, independent streak in the recruits and rebuild them into an integrated fighting unit. It’s important that soldiers’ first response be to obey, and perhaps later to question. They can’t have every soldier evaluating every order before responding. They also need to gain trust in their commander and their fellow soldier. Finally, they need to be shown that they can endure much more than they might have imagined. My son has been through Officer Candidate School and sees it as a positive experience (after the fact!). And it is important that the recruits encounter unexpected, even ridiculous situations. He had to clean the floor of every speck of sand with a feather for a broom. After it was all clean, he was immediately ordered to take pocketfuls of sand from outside and throw them on the freshly cleaned floor. If orders are difficult but make sense, like cleaning the toilets, they don’t learn to obey first.

So OK, inflicting pain on a person, even nonsensical pain, can have a purpose. But that doesn’t explain why God should allow pain in the first place. If He didn’t allow pain, we would not have to learn how much pain we can endure, and we would not have to learn compassion for others who are experiencing it.

At this point, I need to point out that I don’t have all the answers. Some pain is just plain unexplainable. Our fourth child, now 22, has traveled a rocky road, and I can’t say for sure what his eternal disposition would be at this point. He has seen some friends close to him die, and I’m not sure he’s willing to put his full trust in God, even though he spent four summers overseas in His service. I’m still waiting for the day when we can have a frank discussion about these matters. If he were to die before that happens, it would leave me very unsettled. We have a married couple that are close friends. Though believers now, early in their marriage they had severe difficulties and divorced and then remarried. The situation was very traumatic on one of their three kids, who was a gentle, kind child that loved animals. He was driven into drug problems and ended up launching himself off the road in his car, leaving him in a vegetative state. The parents had to execute the dreadful task of pulling the plug on the child they loved, without assurance that he was destined to the place of comfort they believed in. It brings me to tears now as I write about it.

So does God allow pain, and if so, why?

Different theologians have different views on this subject; I will just speak for myself. I maintain that when the Bible says that God made man in His image, it does not refer to a physical image: arms, legs, hair, and the like. Rather, it refers to God’s nature. One of God’s most distinctive characteristics is His sovereignty — His unrestricted freedom — He answers to no one. When God made man, He endowed him with a modicum of this sovereignty. It is not absolute, nor complete, as God’s is. It is what we refer to as “free will”. Man can exert his will on the reality in which he lives. This does not mean that he can do anything he wishes. My sphere of influence is limited, and in fact, factors outside of my control may play a much larger role in my behavior than I realize. For example, I did not choose to be a man and not a woman. I am not to be credited or blamed for my innate intelligence (or lack thereof). Even my thoughts themselves have influences outside my control. For example, I would be occupying myself with very different thoughts than this essay if my house were on fire fight now, or if I were running a fever of 104. But to some small extent, I believe, I control my thoughts and actions, and I choose this rather than that. But, I do not control the consequences of my actions. If I do something good (or bad), reality determines the outcome, not I.

Note also that God’s behavior may be restricted as well. When God makes a promise and is faithful to keep it, He has limited His behavior. But that is consistent with sovereignty, since sovereignty doesn’t mean that God can do anything — it just means that God answers to no one else. If He could not restrict His own actions, he would not be sovereign.

One way that God has chosen to restrict His own actions is by giving man freedom to act, albeit limited. By permitting man freedom within a given sphere, He is correspondingly limiting His own freedom to control man’s behavior to that extent.

Why would God do this? I believe it is out of love. God doesn’t need us, and we do not deserve His love; in fact, we violate His moral code in a thousand ways every day and deserve His condemnation. But He loves us. I can give no reason why.

Anyway, free will is necessary for us to be truly sentient — consciously aware. Without free will, we would be nothing more than robots. As an analogy, do you know that you could prevent your children from making wrong choices and always doing what you desire? Simply perform a prefrontal lobotomy on them. We don’t do that to our children, and God doesn’t do it to us. We both prefer to risk the possibility of rebellion and rejection over coerced obedience.

So, God created other conscious beings, in the process necessarily creating the possibility of rebellion, sin and evil. Adam and Eve were the only humans that ever lived who were unencumbered by an inherited propensity toward sin. They could have lived indefinitely in a state of perfect harmony with their Creator. But they chose to rebel, and cast a pall over themselves, their offspring, and the cosmos. This is the origin of pain, sadness, despair, corruption, and all that is wrong in this world. We all have a deep-seated realization of this, and nurture a longing for a world where all could be as it should be. This curse shows up in science as the law of entropy. Thermodynamically, it means that a specific amount of useable energy was in the universe at t=0, and the amount is constantly decreasing. There is no hope of reversing this process. More generally, it means that the universe is constantly digressing from its most improbable state into progressively more probable states (makes sense, does it not, since that’s what it means to be “probable”), in the process losing information. I claim that natural selection is a conservative process that militates against decay, but is incapable of creating significant new information. As the saying goes, “Life is a bitch, and then you die.”

So I believe that God created the possibility of pain and evil, a necessary consequence of our free will, Adam and Eve unleashed it, and we sustain it.

I would be remiss if did not at least mention that God had a plan B, a plan of “salvation”, prepared from the outset to “salvage” the situation if the worst-case scenario were to occur. This Plan would require extreme sacrifice on God’s part in order to permit escape for humans while still not violating fundamental laws of justice which God had established.

If you want a very readable treatment of this topic from a Christian perspective, I recommend “The Problem of Pain” by C. S. Lewis (who also wrote “The Chronicles of Narnia”).