 Jehovah's Witness: Good News from God, Section 8: Why Does God Allow Evil and Suffering? I was given this material during a recent visit from Witness proselytisers, and because I was debating the topic of the problem of evil at the time I had a read. Of course, the problem of evil is a classic problem in theology and there have been many attempted explanations over the centuries but I think it is one topic a lot of believers have problems justifying. Science denial is easy but denying a more emotional, and often personal, issue like why do bad things happen to good people is usually more difficult. So I'll quickly mention the points made in this material and comment on their validity. 1. How Did Evil Begin? The claim here is that Satan lied to Eve who in turn tempted Adam (Genesis 3:1-6, 19) and that lead to suffering and death for the whole world until today. So Adam and Eve ate fruit from the forbidden tree (seeking wisdom) and they, along with all future humans, were punished for it. Surely no sensible person would take this story literally but I have a feeling many of these people do. We know beyond reasonable doubt that the Adam and Eve story isn't literally true because the Earth is billions of years old, life has been here over 3 billion years, humans hundreds of thousands, and there were no two original humans. So the story is a fairy story but let's analyse it anyway. Does the punishment fit the crime? It seems rather harsh to punish the whole world for a relatively minor crime of two people. If anyone except God had done this words such as "tyrant" and "evil monster" would surely be appropriate. And Eve was tempted by Satan, who was a creation of God. She was guilty of being naive as much as being disobedient. Why did God allow such a severe test which could really only end one way? It makes no sense. Finally the story is rather misogynistic. Poor Eve gets the primary blame for all the future problems of humanity, and all future women are punished by having painful and difficult childbirth. It is very clear that the Bible was written by men! But does the story have a deeper metaphorical meaning? Here's how I would interpret it: seeking forbidden knowledge and disobeying God is a human failing and the consequences, imposed by God, are the bad things which happen to us all. If God created us with free will and curiosity it seems rather unfair to then punish us for using these attributes. And is it real free will when the consequences of making the wrong decision are so bad? If you were told by a dictator that you had the choice of doing what he told you or disobeying him but he would then torture you is that still a gift of freedom? I don't think so. 2. Was God's Creation Defective? It might seem that humans and Satan were majorly defective, yet God made them. How could this be since everything God does is perfect. The proposed explanation is that God gave angels and humans free will and this lead to them making bad choices. As I said above, freedom of choice which only has one acceptable (to God) outcome and where the wrong choice is punished severely is hardly a freedom at all. It's like a dictator (think Hitler or Stalin) saying you don't have to join me but if you don't I'll torture and kill you. That isn't free choice at all so the whole argument falls apart. 3. Why Has God Allowed Suffering Until Now? Apparently this is because God needed to give us 6000 years (yes, there's that fake number again) to realise that we can't solve our problems and rule ourselves and that we need him. Now that our failure is very clear God will end the world as we know it and only believers will remain. People have been predicting the end of the world for thousands of years with a conspicuous lack of success. This is just the same old scare tactics: you'd better join us now if you want to survive! Will we still have free will when this change happens? Apparently not (because if we do we can continue to make "bad" decisions) so why give it to us to begin with? It seems like an experiment by God which has laster thousands of years and resulted in pain and torture for billions. If there was ever only going to be one outcome anyway (God saying "well you failed so now I'm taking over") then what was the point? 4. What Does God's Patience Allow Us To Do? Apparently we can prove Satan wrong and choose to be ruled by God rather than mand any time we want. I don't quite see the relevance to "God's Patience" here but the whole argument is becoming less and less lucid as I work through it. 5. How Can We Choose God As Our Ruler? We should choose God as our ruler and reject politics and war as advised in John 17:14. And God's love will ensure that evil and suffering will end (John 3:16) and that believers will enjoy life on Earth forever. This promise of suffering ending has been around a long time. Even Jesus claimed the current world would end during the lifetime of those alive at the time (Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, and Luke 21:32). It seems like the whole circus is a bit late, but just by 2000 years (so far). Summary None of this makes any sense. It's simply a collection of primitive myths held loosely together by some rather weak justifications which can't hold up to any scrutiny at all. And there was absolutely no supporting evidence. The reader is asked to accept these ideas simply because they are in the Bible. I would have thought that a person who already accepts the Bible is probably not the target of this material so what really is the point? How can God (or his followers) justify the terrible things that happen to innocent people? And if you think no one is truly innocent (maybe the sickest belief in Christianity) what about the innocent children who suffer then die from cancer before they have a chance to decide whether to follow God or not? Apparently they won't be "saved" according to the material in this booklet. So either God is a hideous monster intent on punishing hundreds of generations of people (including innocent babies and children who can't possibly have committed any serious sins) or he doesn't exist. In reality the atheist explanation - that there is no god - is far more generous to God (if he did exist) than anything in the Bible! Please email me if I have made any errors or you wish to post a response here.
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EVIL AND SUFFERING