Why Does God Allow Evil to Happen?

Last week a powerful 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti. It flattened the already poor nation, hundreds of thousands have died and now the survivors are undergoing every form of suffering imaginable. Many Nations, businesses and organizations are responding to this crisis. In the last few blogs we have shared with you how the Passionists are responding to this crisis. While the international response efforts are certainly wonderful to see the ongoing tragic stories that we continue to hear are sometimes too much to bear. The perennial questions have begun to surface: “why does God allow evil? or “why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?”

Passionist spirituality has reflected on this question from the lens of our own Charism that is devoted to the memory of Christ Crucified. We see the Passion of Christ as a redemptive moment for all humanity. This moment suffering and death was a gift of God’s love to us all. It was a moment where God, through Jesus, took on our own suffering, injustice and pain. God’s incarnation with humanity was complete as it touched on all aspects of our humanity including our moments of suffering, despair and death. But even with this theology we continue to witness unimaginable suffering where we wonder what redeeming purpose could possibly come out of it.      

With this topic I would like to offer the Book of Job as a suggestion for theological reflection. This was exactly the question that the Jewish community faced with the Babylonian captivity because until then they thought that God’s action were always good and just (from their own perspective of what is good and just) and where equally confused about the actions of God when this cataclysmic event took place in their own time. The Temple was destroyed, many had been killed and executed including the entire royal family, and the remnant where exiled to Babylon where they thought they would perish. Out of this comes the Book of Job. In this Book the Israelites rework a new theology about how God can function in a way we can appreciate when evil events indiscriminately are allowed to happen. Job asks the question: “We accept good things from God; and should we not accept evil?”

In this book Job ultimately breaks down and becomes angry with God. Many of us can feel this anger with God right now. In Chapter 38 God responds back to Job by humbling Job back into his place within creation:

“Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance? Gird up your loins now like a man: I will question you, and you tell me the answers! Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its size; do you know? Who stretched out the measuring line for it? Into what were its pedestals sunk, And who laid the cornerstone?”

This may strike us as harsh but basically God is telling Job and reminding us all that we cannot measure the greater good and evil from our own narrow vantage point. The evil that Job faced, the evil that Israel faced and the evil that Haiti faces today has some purpose. We cannot imagine what purpose could possibly justify such an action but since we are not the authors of Creation (as God reminds Job) then we are to relegate this into the realm of faith.

As Lord Alfred Tennyson had said: “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.”

In the principles of Catholic social teaching we are taught about the common good in this way. We are taught that God alone is good (Luke 18:19) and of course God is the sole author of all creation. The good we seek as Catholics is not our own good but the common good that “embraces the sum total of all those conditions of social life which enable individuals, families, and organizations to achieve complete an effective fulfillment.” (Mater et Magistra #74) Whatever universal good can possibly come out of this event God alone only knows, but we are left with doing what we can to build the common good in a place and with a people that have been absolutely devastated. The earthquake took place, and we are powerless to control what has already taken place. The issue for us is not to dwell on this but to act. We must act to promote the good to our Haitian brothers and sisters who are currently suffering from so much evil.

5 Responses to “Why Does God Allow Evil to Happen?”

1. Nancy Nickel says:

   January 19, 2010 at 4:40 pm

   John,
   Can I get a copy of that photo of Rick Frechette with the child? Great commentary!
2. Deacon Tony Cuseo says:

   January 21, 2010 at 9:08 am

   I like to think that God crys with us and suffers with us when we are faced with suffering and pain. I belive that God wants us to do all we can to alleviate the sufferings around us by living the Gospel and following the teachings of Jesus and loving and doing good to our neighbors.
3. John says:

   January 21, 2010 at 9:23 am

   I think it’s an amazing thing to consider the Crucifixion as a moment of incarnation where God experiences the suffering, pain and abandonment. Based on this theology we believe that God walks with us in our own pain and misery. With Paul preaching about the mystical Body in the second reading for this Sunday it makes me think that we are called to express the same compassion to our suffering brothers and sisters that we believe God has for all those who are in the midst of suffering. As you say Deacon Tony: “Loving and Doing Good to our Neighbors.”
4. Cheryl Murphy says:

   January 25, 2010 at 1:53 am

   I just read Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s Jan 24th column addressing where is God in all this? Fr. Rolheiser points out that Scripture usually doesn’t answer this. It doesn’t try to explain… “It simply continues to tell its story, and, eventually, we see how God redeems a tragedy from which he didn’t rescue its victims….” In Haiti “….[God was] weeping with its people, grieving outside its mass graves, sitting in the sadness beside its collapsed buildings. He was there, though he provided no Hollywood or Superman-type rescue. Moreover we can be sure he will redeem what was lost. In God’s time, eventually, not a single life or single dream that died in Haiti will remain unredeemed. In the end, all will be well and all will be well and every manner of being will be well.”
5. johngonzalez says:

   January 26, 2010 at 12:29 pm

   well put Cheryl. I would assume that the concept of God’s time may give many of us including myself much trouble. Again it takes us out of the element of control. We have expectations and those expectations are also limited from our own finite experience. We who struggle to live the Kingdom of God are challenged by this perspective of space and time. Scripture is a sacred story that describes this process so that we can identify our situation within the context of a greater picture. I love how Catholics recognize the ongoing tradition that continues where scripture ends so that we can see how throughout the recent historical periods we continue to develop the vision of the Gospel. Scriture will not tell us the details of why a specific tragedy happened but it will place a context for what we are going through. That is why I think the Book of Job offers us much wisdom from the recent situation that the Haitians are going through and anyone else who feels desolate and abandoned.