This is not an armchair question. It is a hospital-room question. It is asked through tears at a graveside. It rises from the heart when the phone rings with bad news, when betrayal lands like a gut punch, when a child suffers, when the body breaks down and the world seems brutal, heartless, and cruel. So before we say anything else, we should say this: it is a valid question, and it deserves more than a tidy answer tied up in a neat bow.
In this ‘Got Questions?’ series, I have already made the case that God exists. Now comes the question that lands hardest when life hurts: How can a good God allow evil?
And even after we say true things, some will still protest, “But why this evil, why this loss?” Behind every question is a heart, often a wounded one. Sometimes the deepest need is the ministry of presence: a brother or sister who listens, prays, weeps with those who weep, and does not rush the grief. And right there in the pain, God often comes near, even when He does not explain the reasons. He draws near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). Psalm 73 captures that honest turmoil of the soul, and the slow return to trust… “until I went into the sanctuary of God” (verse 17). It was in the sanctuary, among God’s gathered people, that Asaph saw God as He truly is. His heart was steadied, and everything came back into its proper place.
So we are asking something sharper than whether God exists: since God is good, holy, and sovereign, why is there evil, and why does He permit so much suffering in His world?
What is evil?
We should begin by defining what we mean by “evil.” Evil is not a created substance. It is not a “thing” God made the way He made light and land and stars. Evil is real, and its wounds are deep, but it is a corruption of the good, a twisting of what God made upright. Scripture calls sin “lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). It is rebellion against God’s good rule, whether loud defiance or quiet refusal.
Some ask, “I understand that human beings willingly commit moral evil. But why earthquakes? Why childhood cancer?” Scripture teaches that creation itself was subjected to futility and groans because of the Fall (Romans 8:20-22). The whole world is broken because humanity’s rebellion fractured everything. Death, decay, and disaster entered through the Fall (Genesis 3; Romans 5:12). We live in a fallen world, where everything, including nature itself, reflects the consequences of sin.
We ask God to remove evil, but we forget that evil is not only “out there.” It is in here. If God removed all evil today, He would have to remove us too, because evil lurks in every human heart. Saying so does not minimize your experience. It tells the truth about what has happened to all of us.
Evil presupposes God
Now notice something important. The moment we call something “evil,” we are appealing to a real moral standard. We are saying, “This ought not to be.” That word ought announces a real standard. Goodness is objective. It is binding. And it only makes sense if there is a holy God whose character is the measure of what is good. Take Him away, and what stops “evil” from shrinking into mere preference, like choosing coffee instead of tea? The heart knows evil is more than that.
And this is where the question takes an unexpected turn. Some raise evil as an honest objection to belief in God, and the objection deserves an answer; much of this article is my attempt at one. The skeptic can even grant Christian premises for the sake of argument and ask whether a good and sovereign God is consistent with the world we see. Fair enough. But notice what the objection borrows: a real standard of good and evil that binds even God’s critics. What grounds that standard? Remove the Judge, and you do not get rid of guilt, you get rid of a courtroom. You can still feel outrage, but you can no longer say, with moral authority, “This is truly wrong.” Take God away and the pain of evil remains, now stripped of ultimate meaning, final accounting, and any certain hope of justice.
The mystery of God’s sovereignty and holiness
But now we come to the very heart of the issue. If God is sovereign, why does He permit evil at all? Scripture does not satisfy every curiosity, and it does not invite us to put God on trial. When Job pressed God for an explanation, God answered with God, not with a chart: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38-42). In other words, we are not competent to sit as judges over the Judge of all the earth.
Notice: God never tells Job why he suffered. But after encountering God Himself, Job says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). Job got God instead of explanations, and that was enough. Sometimes seeing God rightly is the answer, even when the “why” question remains.
None of this makes God indifferent. He is holy, and He has the right to govern His world according to His own wise and righteous purposes. He is not accountable to His creatures. He does not take counsel from us. He is the potter, and we are the clay. And yet, Scripture also insists on something else at the same time: God is light, and “in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). He is never the author of sin, and He never excuses the sinner. We commit evil because we want to. We cannot shift the blame upward.
There is mystery here, and Christians should admit it without embarrassment. We do not know all that we would like to know about the origin of evil. Many simplistic answers fall apart under honest scrutiny. But Scripture does not leave us in the dark. It insists on holding two truths together: nothing unfolds outside His providence, and yet He remains perfectly holy. We can affirm both truths even when we cannot fully explain how they fit together.
Think of light. Physics tells us light behaves as both a wave and a particle. These seem contradictory, but both are true, and scientists hold them together even without fully understanding how. If finite minds can hold together mysteries in the physical world, why should we be shocked when infinite realities exceed our complete comprehension? Mystery does not mean contradiction. It means our minds are finite and God’s ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9).
God’s answer: The incarnation and the cross
Now we come to the center of the Christian faith, and it is not an argument; it is a Person. The God of the Bible is not a distant, detached, deistic deity, merely watching the gears turn from far away. He stepped into our world in Jesus Christ. He shared our flesh and blood. He was tempted as we are, yet without sin. He is able to help sufferers, and He is a High Priest who sympathizes with our weakness (Hebrews 2:14-18; 4:15). In that sense, God can look at our protest and grief and say, truthfully, He understands why we hate evil. He does too. He has seen what evil does up close.
And then we come to the cross, the place where this question is finally silenced and answered at the same time. What is the most evil act in human history? The crucifixion of the Son of God. Sin and hell and hatred and cowardice gathered together and did their worst, and the only truly righteous Man was murdered in public. And yet Scripture says Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). What men meant for evil, God meant for good (Genesis 50:20). God was not reacting to the cross. He was accomplishing redemption through it. If you want to know what God thinks of evil, look at what it cost Him.
At the cross, the incarnate Son of God bore our sins and endured their full penalty in our place. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). The price tag of redemption is the measure of how seriously God takes evil. And the fact that the Son paid it Himself is the measure of how much He loves sinners.
And Christ did not remain in the grave. The resurrection is God’s public declaration that sin, suffering, decay, and death will not have the last word. The risen Christ is the firstfruits of a renewed creation, the first sheaf of a harvest still to come (1 Corinthians 15:20), when God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore” (Revelation 21:4). The graveside, the hospital room, the breaking body: the risen Christ has an answer for each of them, and the answer is resurrection.
Evil will be judged
And this is also why the Christian can say, with tears and with confidence, that evil is not ultimate. God will judge it. God will expose it. God will repay it in perfect righteousness. There is a day coming when every hidden thing will be brought into the light, when every wrong will be judged and no injustice overlooked, and when God’s holiness will be seen to be beautiful, not harsh.
Some say, “I don’t like the idea of judgment.” But if you hate evil, you should long for judgment. Judgment means the child abuser does not get away with it. The genocidal dictator does not escape. The unrepentant oppressor faces justice. A God who never judges evil is not good. He is complicit. The cross shows us God’s heart: He offers mercy now, but He will bring justice in the end.
And hear this clearly: the Lamb is reigning now. By faith we see it already. Christ is seated, His kingdom is advancing, and even the bitterest seasons remain under His wise hand. God works all things together for good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Notice carefully: Paul does not say all things are good. He says God works them for good. Cancer is not good. Betrayal is not good. Abuse is not good. These are evils. But God, in His sovereign wisdom, can take even the worst evils and weave them into His redemptive purposes for those who trust Him. He is never the author of the evil, and He never approves it, but He does not waste it either. And one day what faith sees will be confessed openly. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess the reality that is true right now: Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). History will reach its appointed end with the Lamb exalted, and with God vindicated as good and holy forever.
Even now, God restrains evil more than we know. The world is fallen, but it is not as evil as it could be. There is still beauty and kindness, still laughter and love. These are mercies. And God’s patience is forbearance, giving space for repentance, holding out mercy through Christ while the door is still open.
What should we do with this?
So what should we do with this? If you are suffering, you do not have to pretend it does not hurt. You are invited to trust the God who is holy, wise, and never cruel, and who has proved His heart at Calvary. And if you are skeptical, do not stop at the question. Look at what you are appealing to when you call something “evil,” then look at the cross, where God’s holiness and love meet in full brightness. The God who will judge evil is the God who entered history to save sinners.
You do not have to understand all God’s reasons to trust Him. You only have to look at the cross, and then at the empty tomb, and see what kind of God He is.
Do not let evil drive you from God. Let it drive you to the cross, where God has already begun to undo it.
If you are suffering, or if you have questions you want to talk through, please reach out. We are here for you.
Evil is loud, but it is not lord. Jesus Christ is Lord.