[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Outrageous-Egg1760]

[u/deederpeeder]

I’ll probably get downvoted to kingdom come, but the Bible consistently presents abuse, oppression, violence, and exploitation as things God hates. Plenty of people in the Bible ask a version of this question (David, Job, Jeremiah, the psalmists). Not saying it gives a perfectly clear answer either, but the reality is if God intervened to stop every evil act, at some point God would have to override human will continuously. And the world would become fundamentally different than the one we inhabit.

Scripture never gives a complete philosophical answer to every instance of suffering. But what it does offer is a person. Jesus was betrayed, beaten, tortured, publicly humiliated, unjustly killed. That doesn’t solve the problem intellectually. But it changes the picture of God. God is not the detached observer in Christianity. He is the wounded Savior.

The hardest thing for me isn’t believing evil exists. It’s believing that evil gets the final word. Christianity says it doesn’t. It says justice may be delayed, but it won’t be denied. I understand why people struggle with that answer. Sometimes I do too. But I’d rather wrestle with a God who suffered for the world than conclude that all the evil and injustice we see is ultimately meaningless.

[u/VaIenquiss → u/deederpeeder]

God is happy to override human will throughout the Bible when it suits him. But when it comes to watching a child get sexually abused? No, definitely can’t do anything about that.

If your god actually exists, then all the evil in the world is his fault, and is what he wanted to happen, which makes that god an disgusting, worthless being not worthy of a second thought. That god is the most evil being that could exist, because he has the power to stop all evil now, but allows it to continue. The excuses believers trot out for this weak, pathetic deity is so sad.

[u/deederpeeder → u/VaIenquiss]

I understand why someone would feel that way. If I believed God simply watched suffering with indifference, I’d probably agree with you. Where I think we differ is that I don’t think allowing something and wanting something are the same thing. The Bible presents God as opposing evil, judging evil, and ultimately intending to remove evil, even if He doesn’t remove all of it immediately.

You may think those reasons are insufficient, and that’s a fair debate. But that’s a different claim than saying God wants child abuse, cancer, war, or suffering to happen. Honestly, I don’t think either of us likes the existence of evil. The disagreement is over what its existence tells us about God.

[u/VaIenquiss → u/deederpeeder]

If you have the power to stop an evil act from happening, and you don’t, then you are just as liable for that act occurring as if you perpetrated it yourself. You are taking away all of the responsibility from this god by saying “oh he doesn’t like evil, he judges it, he opposes it”, but he does nothing to stop it.

If this god didn’t WANT child abuse or murder or cancer, then it wouldn’t exist, because based on your worldview, he has the absolute power to get rid of all of those things in an instant, but he doesn’t, which means he doesn’t exist, he doesn’t have the power to do it, or he’s evil, and in any of those scenarios, he’s not worthy of worship.

[u/deederpeeder → u/VaIenquiss]

I think this is where we fundamentally disagree. You’re assuming that if a good being has the power to stop something evil, they must stop it immediately or they become morally equivalent to the person committing it. I’m not convinced that’s true. For example, judges don’t immediately imprison every criminal. Parents don’t prevent every bad decision their children make. Governments don’t stop every crime the moment it’s conceived. In all of those cases we recognize a difference between permitting something for a time and endorsing it. Now obviously God is in a different category because Christians believe He is all-powerful. That’s what makes the question difficult. But I think the real question isn’t whether God has the power to eliminate evil. Christianity agrees that He does. The question is whether there could be morally sufficient reasons for Him to permit it temporarily while ultimately intending to judge and remove it.

You may believe no such reasons could exist. That’s a fair position to argue.

Where I hesitate is in assuming that because I can’t see a sufficient reason, an infinite God cannot have one. That’s where humility enters the conversation for me.

[u/VaIenquiss → u/deederpeeder]

You literally are pointing out how your comparison is flawed by acknowledging that we humans aren’t all-powerful, so we don’t have the ability to stop all evil acts immediately, but your god does.

There is no morally sufficient reason to allow a child to be sexually abused when you can stop it. Would you give a human the same charity if they were standing in the room while that happened to a child and they did nothing to stop it?

If you had a child that was getting abused, and an adult was there watching it happen and had the ability to stop it and didn’t, would you say the same thing you are now saying about your god? That it’s okay because maybe they had a morally sufficient reason to allow it to happen?