So God is holy, perfect, without blemish, and He is totally in control of all things. The bible teaches that He created everything and that nothing transpires without His ordination; that is, He ultimately allows all things to come to pass. We must first recognize that God Himself did not create evil, but the potential for evil. This may seem like a fine line, but it isn’t. It is the same line that separates the Creator from the created. Just as He created angels with the ability to choose good or evil, He gave us this choice in the person of Adam, mankind’s representitive. We are by definition volitional beings who make choices constantly. Unfortunately Adam’s choice to sin created in us a curse, which is the sin nature we all bear.

God uses evil for good. For instance, look at the story of Joseph and his brothers: Joseph’s father loved him, gave him a multicolored coat, his brothers sold him into slavery, but ultimately Joseph became the second in charge in Egypt, during the famine his brothers came to Egypt to buy food, and Joseph revealed himself as their brother, Joseph forgave his brothers immediately even though he could have had them killed. Do you remember what Joseph said to his brothers? “What you meant for evil God meant for good.” God used the sin of Joseph’s brothers to eventually save Joseph’s family from famine. There are countless circumstances in life that we can look back and see God using evil to complete His good purpose. He always does this without ever condoning it, after all He is perfect.

So why does God allow evil to exist? Well look at it this way: Those who have given their life to Christ, have repented of their sin, and have openly confessed to follow Him, have been saved. Jesus says that “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one can get to the Father but by me.” These individuals, called Christians, have been given eternal life, free from the penalty of God’s just wrath; the penalty that all people deserve. Christians will experience the grace and mercy of God in its fullness in heaven. To understand this, let me pose to you a metaphor:
Lets say you were driving at 100mph on the highway. There are no speed limit signs anywhere and no one has ever given you any inclination that going over 65 mph is illegal. Would you understand that what you were doing is wrong? Now look at the law of God, the ten commandments. If we didn’t have the ten commandments would we know that idolatry is wrong? Probably not. In the same way, Christians, the true believers, would not be able to appreciate the extent of God’s grace and mercy if they were not intimately acquainted with the reality of evil. We live through it daily, the suffering, anguish, and pain are the converse of the grace, peace, and infinite love that God has for people. God has chosen to demonstrate His grace on this earth through the reality of evil. God chose to allow His son to be killed, and not only that, but while on the cross, God poured out His wrath on Him, the wrath that belonged to Christians. The Romans crucified Him, the Jews called for His blood, the people cheered, but what man meant for evil, God meant for good.

While I think it could be argued that if God allows any bad he could do better I don’t think a persuasive case could be made along those lines. The more disturbing case is when there are significant evils that it seems quite reasonable to believe God could easily solve. That is the problem I look to. As I said in the above I think one can make a lot of headway towards solving that problem. I don’t think we’ve solved it yet. I do think we’re close enough to a solution to plausibly believe there is a solution.

Your minimum requirements seem very much like your bald man paradox. I like exaggerations to make a point, so here is one: Lets say that God has designed this world so that only one thousand bad things happen per month throughout the whole earth. I would think that would be a whole lot better than what we have today.

Now lets say that one of those bad things happens to your wife. How is the world any less evil for you in this case? Making it one bad thing per month does not change anything if that one thing happens to your wife/daughter/son/mother/father…

It could be argued if God allows any bad/evil that He could do better.

I ask this question because I do not know the answer. Is it possible to be good if we are not faced with evil?

To claim, as you do, that God couldn’t have created a world in which there weren’t fewer earthquakes, fewer pests, or so forth just seems implausible on its face. If God is that limited then he is so limited that it seems hard to call him God. Surely at a minimum God could have done the equivalent of our anti-malaria programs and so forth. If God is weaker than even our civilization and our technology then that’s a pretty compelling case for atheism.

I think I have come to see this as more of a discussion of free will. If we are not free in making our own decisions, then I do not see how we can be accountable for anything we do. Hence, no evil. At least man made evil. I think to ascribe evil to God defeats the concept of what God is suppose to be. Natural disasters are just that, something caused by nature, or the natural state of things. Could God create a world in which such things do not occur without showing his hand? I must believe if He could, He would have done so here.

Could God have done a better job of some things? From my minuscule perspective, I can think of one particular instance of something I think, as an older man with an enlarged prostate, that God could have designed differently. :)

I read your post about how we can be responsible without free will, but I guess I just did not understand it.

It is interesting that what we have in D&C 19 which we often talk about actually does line up in many ways with the Hebrew use. I admit I often bring that text up as an example of scripture having unexpected senses. But that’s more in the 19th century setting. In an early Judaic setting it’s much less “surprising.”

While it is true that our scriptures come forth in a period when Greek thought dominates I also think you can see a lot, if not most, of Joseph’s restoration as reversing this movement. Thus we move from Greek absolutist conceptions of God into a finitist conception much more in keeping with early Judaism. Blake’s book, which I unfortunately had no time to write about while in San Francisco, does a nice job discussing this – the best of the texts he references on the subject in Levenson’s Creation and the Persistence of Evil. It also interestingly ties these earlier Judaic senses of God and creation to the problem of evil and the issue of a theodicy. So it is tied to the topic at hand.

Anyway, I’d do a google as there are a lot of discussions of the term in various contexts. (Not all that well done, I should caution)

I will say this may make a good future post though. (Assuming I have time any time soon – it’s going to be a very busy week and I was hoping to spend last week writing ahead and instead wrote nothing.)

CEF, I confess that while I can see love offering a motivation to solving evil I’m not sure how it would resolve evil.

It is obvious that the main theme is the battle of good against evil, but I did not think to frame it in a context of theodicy until this discussion. It is a fascinating take on that theme. I think the writers are trying to explore some of the same questions we have here, and IMO are doing a decent job.

For instance, the character played by Richard Roundtree says to Peter shortly before he (Roundtree) dies, something like, “the only thing that really matters is love.”

You see people doing extraordinary things because of love. I am curious, is there a more motivating force in this world than love? Do all religions have love defeating evil in the end, or is it just Christianity?

I am not sure what any of this has to do with the discussion, but thought I would ask