You again raise the objection to belief because of the presence of evil in the world. Yes, it is undeniable that the world is indeed faulty and how can this be if it is run by a loving God? You are of course right that we should not minimize the extent of evil in creation. The psalms are replete with complaints about evil and injustice in the world. They poignantly raise the question – how long will this wretched state continue? But they point out certain features of evil that we need to bear in mind.

Evil is an intruder, a parasitic growth on the goodness of creation. It is not a natural part of what is – it is a distortion. Its origins are mysterious and it constantly raises a sense of puzzlement and failure and sorrow at how creation has been compromised.

One of the early attempts to assign responsibility for evil is given to idolatry. Idolatry, in a very broad definition, may be seen as humans seeking life and meaning in the non-living aspect of the world. We may think that we are much more advanced than the ‘primitive’ people of the Old Testament but a closer inspection will show that our lives are also governed, to a large extent, by idols. Just think of some of the factors that are central in our lives: money and wealth and power are just three of the most important influences in the lives of people and just think how much evil we add to the world in pursuit of these three illusory goals. In a sense, whenever we worship an idol, we lose a little bit of what it means to be human. We grant control over us to forces and items which begin to dominate our lives, forces which inevitably bring death.

At the root of it, evil is an anti-creation force. It denies creation by threatening it with the most powerful weapon in its arsenal – death. Through this, evil challenges the goodness of creation planting the view within us that the world is a threatening place. Evil, at its heart, is an anti-creation, anti-life, anti-God force which seeks to annihilate creation.

What is important to remember is that the physical is not evil although there are religions which, seeing the corruptibility of the material, say that matter is bad and we should strive to free ourselves from it. Salvation becomes seen as an escape from the material world into some ‘spiritual’ domain. The Christian view is very different and if I may so put it, it is very ‘material’, seeing matter as central to human beings. The Christian view takes into account that evil exists, but it does not see evil as the final and victorious force in creation nor does it see evil as arising from the material world. Yes, evil uses matter to cause pain, and suffering, and eventual death, but matter is the innocent in all this, being abused by evil. In the Christian view, matter is not evil because it is through matter that we communicate with each other and with God. It is through matter – our bodies and the substance of this world – that we worship God.

Yes, there is a sense of questioning why the suffering of the world goes on but there is no neat and final answer as to why evil is an allowed intruder into the world. In some sense to try to give a definitive answer to the question of the existence of evil is to belittle the seriousness of evil. To a large extent, evil is an irrational force and rationality cannot encompass it or ‘explain’ it. We should also remember that the world is a work in progress and it has not attained its final state. Therefore, the sufferings are temporary and will be addressed at some point in the future.

What shouldn’t be forgotten, also, is that humans contribute to the existence of evil by their behavior and selfishness. If we look at wars, at famines created by states, and other atrocities, we will see that humans are no minor contributors to the existence of evil. Sometimes the myth of progress claims that we will be able to reduce evil, but we see the falsity of this claim. The twentieth century, as a result of ‘progress’, killed more people than all the other historical periods combined. The problem of pain and evil cannot be solved by incremental improvements. History has shown that this is a false premise. No matter how much progress we think we achieve, on the question of evil there is the looming and lingering question about the fact that we cannot do anything about past evils, except to forget them.

This is the underlying problem with efforts to explain evil or to say that things will now be better. But, what about all of the evil that has already happened? How can that be addressed and dealt with? Or will we simply rationalize the matter by saying that all of the suffering of the past is the price humanity needed to pay in the struggle against evil. The problem of evil has many aspects to it and it is difficult to find one all-encompassing explanation for this anti-creation anomaly.

Aside from the physical pain that evil brings on, there is another area which evil attacks. Evil attacks creation by making it pointless and devoid of any meaning or purpose. And this can be as painful as any physical suffering. This seems to be one of the most potent attacks of evil against creation. Evil and suffering call into question the goodness of creation and put forward the view that there is no meaning, no purpose and hence no hope in existence. Many people seem to have lost trust in God because of the senselessness they see in the evil in the world.

Several things need to be kept before us when we consider the existence of evil. Remember that creation is a work in progress and we therefore, at this stage in time, do not see its final structure. The presence of evil has often been used by non-believers as a reason not to believe. Critics of God often point to the existence of evil as incompatible with the goodness of creation, and call God, if He exists, a bumbler who is weak and incapable of dealing with the blight of evil. But there is also the additional point – if there is a ‘problem of evil’ then there is also a ‘problem of goodness’, something that is conveniently forgotten. How do we answer the unquestionable existence of good in the world or do we simply choose to ignore it?

In a sense, the whole story of the Old and New Testaments is a description of how God is going about the addressing of the question of the existence of evil and how He is finally going to eradicate it. The New Testament, in particular, says that it is the New Creation which will finally vindicate and justify God’s actions and creation. This New Creation was ushered in with the Resurrection and it is in the process of being completed. Birthing is a painful process, as any woman will testify, and that is why we still have pain and people die and evil seems to be unrestrained. The New Creation is being ushered in. With the Resurrection, the world has changed in a very profound way and we already have intimations of this new world through the actions of people who incarnate their faith in God. In other words, the Church offers her answer to the problem of evil by teaching us about the eschaton, the point at which the creation project will be completed. And she also teaches us how God deals with evil through His saints and through all believers and even non-believers.

But before we leave this topic for today, I want to address something that you mentioned in the past. Didn’t God play a painful ‘experiment’ with us by allowing us to suffer and ail and die while He was getting His act together so as to fix creation? Did God ask us if we would be willing to participate in this ‘experiment’ which has cost us so much in pain and suffering? And how can God forgive those who have harmed and hurt us, but not Him? These are serious question that I am sure that lurk if not in the consciousness of people, then they are buried in the depths of our psyches.

This question is touched on in Dostoyevsky’s novel – Brothers Karamazov. One of the brothers, Ivan, asks the following question. Would the promise of wonderful rewards be justified if it cost the life of a single child? And his answer is very clear – no, it would not be worth it. And I think a lot of people would agree with Dostoyevsky. A lot of people would answer in unison with Ivan – take my ticket to paradise, it is not worth the price that it demands. There are many serious questions that arise when we consider evil and how to deal with it in the past, in the present and in the future. The question that Dostoyevsky raises is important and serious but there is more to it and this is something we will have to leave until the next letter.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas