On Wednesday, Christopher Wright spoke at St. Davids Cathedral on “The God I Don’t Understand”. (It’s worth a listen.)
Humans across all religions and disciplines desperately want to solve the problem of evil but in the end we can all only simply conclude that “evil is a problem”.
The Bible doesn’t detail for us evil’s actual origins, only it’s entering into the human experience in the Garden of Eden.
Wright’s lecture raised more questions than providing answers.
Are natural disasters evil? Or just the world doing what it does? “A tectonic plate is going to do what a tectonic plate does.”
Are accidents, disabilities or natural disasters always God’s punishment for people’s sins? Jesus was asked this very question by his friends about a blind man and others asked him what sins the people had committed when they were killed when a tower crumbled on top of them.
But more questions than answers was the point. God has not deemed it necessary for us to fully comprehend evil. What we DO know is that God is good throughout it all and that he is sovereign.
Wright himself responded to a friend who wanted answers:
“Far from having them all sorted out,” I answered, “it seems to me that the older I get the less I think I really understand God. Which is not to say that I don’t love and trust him. On the contrary, as life goes on, my love and trust grow deeper, but my struggle with what God does or allows grows deeper too.”
His book The God I Don’t Understand is readable and therapeutic for all who tear their hair out and scream “It’s not fair!”
Yes, evil is a problem. But Jesus was always the solution.
Excerpt From: Christopher J. H. Wright. “The God I Don't Understand.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-god-i-dont-understand/id398993088?mt=11