Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Problem of Evil
Commentary
for the February 15, 2025, Sabbath School Lesson
"For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the
wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are
free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills. Therefore
pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. From their
callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits. They
scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. Their
mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.
Therefore their people turn to them...This is what the wicked are like--always
free of care, they go on amassing wealth." Psalm 73:3-10,12, NIV
For anyone who has ever been to
war, the problem of evil is a difficult one to write about. It is as old as the
biblical book of Job, and it is as modern as today's headlines. Those with wealth
and power to do so have covered the earth with oceans of blood from time
immemorial. The powerless do their best to eke out an existence in a world that
sees them as little more than chattel to be used up and cast aside when no
longer useful. Often their poverty alone dispossesses them of any lasting
foothold on the land. Their only usefulness defined by whether they can either be
deployed as fodder for the weapons of war as the wealthy, safely ensconced
behind multiple layers of security, send their legions into the meat grinder
they themselves will rarely experience, or they can be enslaved to produce the
food, the clothing, and all the necessities to provide for an army goose
stepping into battle.
It is wealth that feeds the war machine,
and the accumulation of further wealth is its goal. Wealth that can be transformed
into military might is coveted by governments, corporations, churches, and even
the poor covet it in the vain hope that they can overthrow those who rule. I
say vain hope because even when successful, the downtrodden simply become the
new oppressors. They have not learned any other way to live. Those who lived
under the last of the Tsars in imperial Russia saw this when the eventual
outcome of the revolution brought Lenin and then Stalin to power. Despite
losing millions in the existential battle for survival in World War II, Stalin
continued to slaughter over six million more whom he deemed political enemies.
The vanity of that can be seen when he joined his horde of victims as the grim
reaper swung his sickle in his direction. What irony that a part of the hammer
and sickle emblem of Soviet communism should be the only equality that exists,
the equality of the grave.
There is too much bloodshed in
this world, too much forced fear, too much insecurity all to feed the gluttonous
few who have never learned that the idea of security in a world of haves and have
nots is ephemeral. Rulers amassing arsenals worth trillions of dollars have ended
up losing their lives to bullets that cost only a few dollars. But even then, it
is only hastening the already inevitable, for we all die, some sooner, some
later. No matter whether we cannot even rub two coins together or if we can swim
through rivers of gold, the longer we live, the more aware we are of how short
our lives are, and for some of us, we wonder what lies
beyond.
Some look at all the evil in
this world and declare there is no God. If there were, he is either impotent or
uncaring and even evil himself. How else could he abide such widespread
oppression and destruction if he had any empathy or compassion? The wealthy
have little use for religion beyond using it as a tool for manipulation through
fear. They love passages like (Romans
13:1-7) where the people are told to be submissive and pay their taxes lest
God use the wealthy and powerful to punish them. This is vastly different from
the teachings of Jesus, who encouraged empathy, compassion, and even love for
those who would be our enemies. To this end, even though I was in a war, I was
a medic and did not carry a gun or seek to take life, but to preserve it. This
used to be a widespread belief within the Seventh-day Adventist denomination,
but it is no longer the case. It appears that as we have become a wealthy
denomination with many millions of members, we have discovered that continued
growth and prosperity of our denomination in this life is dependent upon
denying access to that wealth and property to those who challenge our right to
possess either. This is vanity. While it may discourage petty thieves and
criminals, were we ever to be seen as an obstacle to the wealthiest and most
powerful, we would lose it all, and we would fade back into the masses we had artificially
elevated ourselves above with the phony religious empire we created. As Jesus
pointed out about the temple in Jerusalem, there is nothing enduring in this
world. All will be eventually consigned to the flames. How foolish then to set our
hearts upon such things. Even more so when they make any ability to see beyond
the misery as though all was opaque and this pain, this darkness was the only
truth to humanity's existence. What a miserable lot ours would be if that were
true.
While there are those who deny
that God exists or cares, he has actively intervened to provide hope for the
future and a better life here and now. This intervention is
referred to as light sent from God by the Apostle John. He tells us that
light shone into the darkness of our world, but we had lived so long in
darkness we did not see it for the freedom it represented and rejected and hid
from it. It seems strange that given the misery of the world, people would
nonetheless find security in that misery. But they do. Like a continually
abused pet cat or dog, they have been conditioned to live in fear, distrusting
anything new or different like love and compassion. Hope has been torn from them
so many times, they do not believe that it can ever be trusted. They have been
kept in fear for so long because those who keep them there can easily manipulate
them through their fears, often to do things, even horrible things they would
never do otherwise. When I went through basic training in the Army, the instructors
had the goal of making the recruits fear their leaders more than the enemy,
else they would not charge into battle because their fear of death would
override their willingness to engage. The abuse by the drill instructors would
never be tolerated by the parents in a normal family home, but in the military,
it was intentionally part of the program. Even religion was bent to this
purpose when in the base chapel on Sunday, we were encouraged to kill Commies
for Christ. With the perversion of religion bent to such a sickening purpose,
it becomes clear why so many want nothing to do with religion.
Religion fixates on building
empires here on earth. Those empires are defined by numbers of converts, buildings,
and billions of dollars of wealth. But God has already provided for us. We have
been conditioned by this world to believe that our worth is only determined by
what value we can provide to the wealthy and powerful, so we figure we must
prove our worth by building a kingdom for God here and now. Then God will have
to accept us as his and return to rule his kingdom. We cannot envision that God
would provide for us simply because he loves us even though we are living in
opposition to him because of our fear of doing otherwise. But he demonstrated exactly
that on the cross. (Romans
5:8) Some feel that God is uninvolved with the problem of evil on the earth,
but how much greater involvement can one give than to lose their life to offer
something better. If a mother gave up her life so that her child might live,
would we say that mother was indifferent or uncaring for her child? But we say
that about God, despite the bloodstained pieces of wood that stood on a hill
outside of Jerusalem that testified otherwise.
Living a life of fear is living
a life in slavery because those with evil intent will use that fear to
manipulate us to do their bidding. It is the reason that billions have been
spent on guns in the United States for fear that someone or something is coming
to get us. Ironically, we cry out against taxation that provides us all with
services we benefit from, but we willingly submit to this voluntary taxation
that we think will free us from fear. Sadly, for some if asked how many guns
they think would make them feel safe and no longer fearful, the answer is, "One
more than I have now." Once we succumb to fear, it never seems to leave us. But
God promises to set us free, not to be manipulated by self-aggrandizing religious
leaders and the fear of punishment they impose, but free indeed in the glorious
liberty of the gospel. (John
8:36)