Why does God let bad things happen?

by Rev. Robert S. Jungé

Listen to the news and you hear war, disaster and disease. Look at the lives of many of your friends, and you see tragedy. Consider your own life, and you may well wonder why some sad or even awful thing happened.

It must be clear to all fair-minded people that a loving God could not possibly will that these things should happen. But if God is all-powerful, and all loving, why do they still happen?

The simplest answer is man’s freedom. God created us with the hope that we should become loving human beings. Freely learning to love God and each other is the key to happiness. And the very purpose of creation is a heaven from the human race, where God from His love can make us eternally happy. But to compel someone to love you is impossible. You can’t make your married partner love you. You can’t make your kids love you. They freely choose to. That’s the nature of love; it is freely given or it isn’t love at all. Unless we freely choose to love God our love won’t be real.

We are not robots. We are human beings, free to choose who and what we will love. God won’t make you do what is right. To do so would be contrary to His love and His wisdom. It would be contrary to the very purpose of His creation. Therefore He permits evil. He does not will it.

Permission of evil lets us see the consequences of our faults. It is an invitation to change our ways. Take for example the coach of a team. On Monday morning he shows the team a video of how they played. He certainly doesn’t will the mistakes that show up on the screen. He hopes that each player will learn from his mistakes and play that much better the next time. And the better they learn to play the more they will love the game and respect the coach and their team mates. In the game of life, we can learn to love and respect our Divine Coach and our neighbors on the team. When we do, we really enter into the joy of life.

Or again, parents sometimes quite wisely let their children try to do something, knowing that they will fall down, and maybe even in measured ways hurt themselves. Why? Because they hope they will learn from it. The Lord, our Heavenly Father only permits our falling down, if good can come out of it.

Last September we saw a national tragedy. At that time we tried to remember that all the good people who died are now finding their way to an eternal and happy life in the Lord God’s heavenly kingdom. Now they love and serve each other as a wonderful team. They are living in a world even more real than this, because they are surrounded by all the things they love. In Biblical terms they are entering into the joy of their Lord.

With some time behind us, if we look we can see some of the good that has come out of September 11 for us as a nation. Many people have taken a more serious look at their lives. Many have played down their differences. It is harder to see, but even those who have suffered a direct and personal loss can learn from it. After their grief, perhaps they will think harder about eternal life. Perhaps they will discover a love and longing for their partners or friends that is very precious. Perhaps that longing will become the core of a new way of life for them, a way founded upon a belief in the hereafter and preparation for it. We do not always see the good which comes out of tragedy, but one thing we can know is, that it is never permitted unless it can be turned to good, if we let it be turned.

The Lord God does not will human suffering, but He does permit it. Indeed seeing the consequence of evil is the only way our hearts can be turned freely to a life of good.