One of the most difficult questions to answer is: “If there is a God why did he allow six million Jews to be exterminated during the Holocaust in WWII?” As a former atheist this question was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome on my journey to faith in God. I even had a personal stake in this since all of my dad’s family, being Jewish, died in Hitler’s extermination camps. Fortunately, my dad spent one year in a Nazi work camp and was spared death, or I wouldn’t be here to write this devotion.
I guess a more fundamental question must be posed and that is if there is a God why does he allow any evil and suffering to exist? Why do children die of starvation, why are there natural disasters such as earthquakes, why are there plane crashes, and why is there even death at all? I believe the answer can be summed up in the one word – relationship.
Before we even had a universe, God existed. Since God is complete and perfect he clearly wasn’t lonely but I believe he wanted to share his awesome love and goodness with others and that’s why he created humans – he wanted relationship. So, the logical question is how could God have a relationship with us that would be two-sided where he loves us and we can love him? The only way is to make us moral agents that can exercise free will. For without free will there can be no real relationship. Loving someone is always a choice and that is exactly what God gave us – the choice to either love him or to go our own way.
And here is the dilemma God was faced with. It is not logically possible to have free will and no possibility of moral evil. And here is the keep point – God is not the creator of evil. He created the possibility of evil – people actualized that potentiality. And it is important to note that God’s permission is not the same as God’s approval. Thus, God’s desire for relationship had to allow the possibility of evil. But praise God even though we know that God’s justice demand payment for evil and sin, his love offers pardon through Jesus Christ. Thus, the wonderful news – we broke relationship with God and he restored it through Jesus Christ! For the Christian, good ultimately will trump evil.