Why do bad things happen to good people?

Sorry this took so long to write and post, college finals always keep things interesting in life, you know? Before reading this post, I think it would be a good idea to read the previous two posts I have written on bad things happening (forget about the photo contest one). If you’ve already done that, well then you’re in the right place and hopefully they gave you reason to at least believe there is a chance God could exist. Now, as to the question of bad things happening to good people, I have no real business answering this question. Sometimes I think I do, but I really don’t. This blog is probably not the best organized and most compelling argument in the case for God’s existence during bad events. Instead, it is simply a collection of thoughts on the subject I have that may help us understand or acknowledge that God could exist and be in control during bad times.

In beginning to answer this question we must first ask, what is the cause of evil? I argue that people: me, you, our country, and every other person in the world are the cause of evil. Many have tried to incriminate specific groups of people for causing evil, but with every group of evildoers there is also an opposite group of people who are evildoers. For example, I have heard many atheists claim one of the reasons they are atheists is because of all the evils religion has caused. And they are right, Christians, for example, have killed millions since Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. However, I do not think Christian killings occurred because of Christianity, I think they happened because of the people who were in charge of Christianity in the times and places of those terrible murders. Why? Look at what Atheism, the “rational solution” to religious crimes, has done in the past couple hundred years. Both the Chinese and the Soviet governments, two atheistic countries, are responsible for 20-40 million deaths. Some may argue that they did not kill to promote atheism like religious people kill to promote religion (this is highly debatable in many cases I think), but the fact still stands that atheists are responsible for killing 40 million people in the twentieth century alone. It is not a specific people group, then, that causes evil. It is simply people. Religious preference, race, ethnic group, country, none of those things matter. Some groups may be more prone to violence than others, but I think this is a result of who the leader(s) of the group of the people are, not the actual group of people themselves.

So bad things are a result of the actions of people. But do all bad actions stem from bad people? Or could good people cause bad things? What even defines a good person versus a bad person? What about the bad stuff that has nothing to do with people. These are important questions indeed! If there is no one who is good, than the question of bad things happening to good people is a mute point. But I think there are good people, or at least better people. Being a good person, however, should never be confused with being a perfect person. Since no one is perfect, everyone is capable and guilty of doing some bad things. Perhaps a better question than, “why do bad things happen to good people?” would be something like, “how can a loving husband and wife, who desperately want to have children, never be able to have children, but at the same time totally irresponsible and immature people can get pregnant?”

This is where things get really tricky. I suppose the best thing to say is, I don’t know why bad stuff like that happens, but I do believe that God is in control and working for the greater good. Rather than giving an argument, how about a story (and a true one at that)? A couple of friends of mine had been married for several years and really wanted to have kids. For various reasons, they could not get pregnant. This really frustrated them for a couple years, and finally they decided to adopt. They traveled all the way to the Ukraine and found a 3 year old boy and chose him to be there son. Since adopting, he has brought them exceeding joy and they have completely changed his life in a positive way. If they had been able to get pregnant, they never would have had the joy of their adopted son, and he would have grown up the rest of his life in an orphanage. But through a bad thing, a very good thing happened.

Obviously, there are countless bad things happening in the world. Some of them simply cannot be explained and there is no apparent good reason for them. Even if some good comes of it, the good does not always outweigh the bad. But as people with limited site, we cannot always see everything that happens, or the reasons why those things happen. I know this is kind of a cop out, but it is true. We simply cannot always understand why bad things happen.

So the big question: If we cannot always know why bad things happen, what should our response to God be? Should we decide he does not exist? Should we become angry with Him and avoid Him as much as possible? Or should we do both, as C.S. Lewis did in his youth, and be angry at God for not existing? These are all possible answers, but none of them will really help. Rather than being angry about the bad things in the world, we should work to see what we can do to prevent the bad things from happening and turn the bad things that already exist into good things.

This is certainly a huge task. Ridding the world of problems is beyond any of us. I know it is Christmas time and everyone talks about world peace and blah bluh blah, but it is not happening anytime soon. Sorry, but it just isn’t. That does not mean, however, that we cannot make a difference on some level. Every moment of joy we give another person is something, and those moments are always worth fighting for. (Shameless plug: If you are looking for ideas on how to bring joy to people, visit the “Do Your Part” section of the website.

The last thing we should do in the face of bad things is reject and hide from God. This is foolish if God is good, or even if God is evil. If He is good, than we are turning our backs on the only hope we have for peace, true bona fide peace, in our lives. If He is evil, well then, we are screwed either way. But I don’t think God is evil, He has given us far too many good things to be evil. An evil God would not give us love, freedom, creativity, or art. Sure there are bad things in the world, but like I said, those are not from God. They are from people! And if we turn our backs on God when a terrible event happens in our lives, we turn our backs on the only real hope we can have in this world.

I believe there is a day coming when all the bad things will be made right. I have no idea when, but there is a verse from the Bible that always encourages me and gives me hope in times of struggle. It is in Revelation, the book of the Bible that predicts the end times. In Chapter 21:4-5, it says in reference to God, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’”

Someday, everything will be made new, and it will be made right. Now we can sit here and worry about why He hasn’t done these things already, or wonder why He didn’t make everything perfect in the beginning. And there are answers to those questions if you really want them and are willing to accept them. But I think the best thing to do is not ask cynical questions or hold grudges against God, the best thing we can do is hope in Him. And if we do, someday, maybe someday, He will wipe every tear from our eyes.

That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

The Proof of God in the Bad

This is part 2 of a blog entry on bad things happening under the rule of a good God. If you have not already, go back to the previous post and read that one first. Oh, and thanks for checking my blog out!

Outline of part two:
- Problem: Bad things are in the world, therefore a good God cannot exist.
- Response:
1) For something to be bad, it must have value
2) True value can only come from God
3) If God does not exist, than there is no value to anything. People, things, and events are all just a collection of atoms interacting in random way.
4) If we say that God does not exist, than we must also say that bad things are not bad, they are simply things. Any value given to something is imagined and misplaced.
5) The pain and sorrow we feel when bad things happen is to deep and real to be the result of imagined or misplaced value, it must be innate
6) Innate value can only come from one thing: A Creator (God)
Therefore, God must exist.

I argue that the very fact that there are bad things in this world is proof that God does exist. I know, this argument sounds paradoxical, but keep tracking with me here and maybe I can make it sound sensible.

Anytime an evil event or a bad thing happens, it hurts us. This pain is usually not physical, although it certainly could be, but the pain is felt much deeper than just the surface. We know that bad things are not right and should never have happened. We know that they are wrong and we can feel it in our bones.

For something to be wrong, however, there must be some kind of value to it. A negative thing, just like a positive, has some worth. If it had no value, it could be neither positive nor negative. It would simply be neutral. Since we claim there are negative events that happen, we must ponder where the value in life comes from.

Take, for example, a male high school student who dies in a car accident. Unfortunately, this is a problem far more common than anyone would hope for, and an event that happened several times when I was in school. The student’s death is so tragic because his life had such immense value. He still had much to live for, he had family and friends who cared deeply for him, and he was a human being.
It is during times like this when people most frequently ask, how could there be a God? Let’s suppose, for a moment, that there is no God. What then? The student’s death has absolutely no meaning or significance. Before he died, the student was nothing but a bunch of atoms piled up together. His death may cause a shift in their structure, but they are still only atoms (and therefore, he is mostly space). Without a God who created and gave all things meaning, his death is, quite frankly, 100% meaningless. His death was not a bad thing; it was only a thing.

Are we really prepared to accept this? No one can deny the sorrow they have felt at the loss of a loved one or the sight of social injustice. We can pretend to turn our emotions off, but deep down we (everyone) weep at the evils of this world. If this is our response, than is it not at all likely there is some inherent value to the things we are weeping for? There must be some deeper reason for our lamenting when bad things happen in the world.

This reason, I think, can only be God. If God does not exist, bad things simply do not happen. They have no value to them. The atheist may get upset at this argument because he or she undoubtedly values their family and other things and would feel sorrow for the bad things that happen to them. But, if there is no God, any value given to members of the human race is entirely made up, misplaced, and just plain false. The high school student has no greater significance or meaning in the world than a bush or a duck, he is simply a collection of atoms. People may choose to give him value, but if there is no God, that value is simply wrong.

If this point seems cold and callused, well then good. Because it is. There are few people who will admit that their son’s death is not a bad thing. The value we give to people is too strong, it cannot be made up and it cannot be a lie. Our sorrows at their loss is simply too deep. The pain cannot be denied or turned off and it can even be debilitating. Our sorrows are an innate quality and we cannot escape them. We come into the world with tears, and we will leave people in tears when we go out of the world.

So, if you must, ask how God could exist in a world that is full of broken things. There is nothing wrong with questioning, in fact I think it is a great thing to do. If you do not buy my “proof” that sorrows are innate and a result of God giving mankind value, well then fine. I am OK with that. But beware, if you decide to believe that there is no God, you must also admit that the terrible events that caused you to question His existence in the first place are not really terrible at all. They are simply events composed of atoms and relationships.

Some people are content with this worldview. They think the idea of a world without meaning is a good one and an excuse to never feel deep pain. If this is your ideal, well then go for it. But, I doubt very seriously that you will ever find a mother who has lost a child who will say there is no meaning and bad things do not happen. The pain is too deep and the sorrows are too real to ever be caused by a made-up and misplaced value.

Could our innate aversion and repulsion for the bad things in life be a sign that God gave all things value when He created the world and still holds them in esteem? Is it not possible, or even likely, that the reason we feel such pain when bad things happen is because God is weeping along side of us? Not because He lacks control, but because He loves us and has given us value?

Bad things happen. And the reason we can know they are bad and say they are bad is because we have such a good God who gives meaning and value to all things. If we deny God’s existence, we deny any legitimate reason to feel sorrows for the loss of anything. And now the big question, if God exists, than why does he let bad things happen? . If He can cause some good things to happen, then why does He not just make everything good? Since He does not stop all bad things from happening, does this mean He is not fully good or completely in control? After all, if God is inadequate, then He is no God at all. This question is another heavy one, so I think I will work on it more next time. Until then, have a great week and remember that despite all the bad in the world, there are still things in the world that are not yet broken.

How do we justify broken things?

There is a question and conclusion that everyone has either said, heard, or thought to themselves. The question people have often asked is, “How could there be a God with all of the bad things that happen in the world? The conclusion some people have given to the question is, “Because there are bad things in the world, there must be no God.” They are powerful thoughts and certainly merit some investigation.

I have two different answers to the challenge of a Divine being in the world. The first one I will give here, and the second will be in my next blog entry. I am not very creative so I need to squeeze as many posts out of one topic as I can. They are fairly deep answers so I have also included an outline version to each response that may be easier to follow and beneficial for the Cliff Notes/Digg/StumbleUpon crowds. So if you have issues with the outline or think it is interesting, make sure you read the whole article before arguing with my points or writing me off as a nutjob.

The Outline version of argument one:
Problem: Bad things are in the world, therefore a good God cannot exist.
Response:
1) But good things are in the world, so therefore a good God must exist.
2) God cannot both exist and not exist.
3) Since there are both good and bad things in the world, and since God cannot both exist and not exist, than the presence of bad things cannot disprove God's existence, nor can good things prove his existence.
4) Bad things actually prove God's existence. This will be covered in the next entry!

My first response to this is fairly simple. If someone were to ask me the question I would respond by saying, “Well, could you not also argue that because there are good things in the world, there must be a God?” If bad things are enough to disprove His existence, than you must also say that good things are enough to prove His existence. People can be really screwed up, and we have seen what evils our species is capable of doing. If we did not have a good God, than things could be far worse! Perhaps the only reason there are still things in the world that are not yet broken is because there is a God.

This first response should get people thinking, but I admit it is not a strong enough argument to convince the skeptic that God exists. There is good stuff and bad stuff, and what happens in your life is just luck of the draw. Just because there are good things in the world will not prove to most people that there is a God. There are plenty of other explanations they could give you. Proving God’s existence, however, is not the point of my first argument. It is simply to show that the existence of bad things is not enough to disprove God’s existence. For bad things to disprove His existence, good things would have to be allowed to prove his existence. God cannot both exist and not exist, so we simply cannot argue that God does not exist because of the bad things in the world, nor can we say that God exists because there are good things in the world. In my next entry, I will go in a different direction and attempt to show that it is actually the existence of bad things that prove God’s existence. So I hope you will check back in after a few days and see why.