With all the evil in the world why doesn’t God do something? How can you believe in a God who does nothing in the face of starvation, war and abject poverty? How can God stand by while the innocent suffer?
Could it be that we are we missing something? Maybe it’s not about God standing by doing nothing. Perhaps the problem is: God is much more involved than we would like God to be.
The suffering of the innocent that angers us always has a human cause, even “natural disasters.” Earthquakes that devastate because of poorly constructed buildings: adding extra sand to cement to save money or because they can’t afford higher quality construction. Or floods happening more often due to climate change. Or disease that spreads in poor countries faster than in rich countries due to lack of hygiene and medical care. Famine caused by economic injustice fueled by greed.
Then there are the events like war and genocide. The images of innocent children suffering because of racial and tribal genocide tear at us.
Is God the one not doing anything? Or are we? Is God the convenient scapegoat for what we refuse to do?
God does not stand by while the innocent suffer.
God does not intervene with a supernatural suspension of physical laws, but God does intervene. The intervention happens long before the catastrophe is in full force. God sends women and men who see what is happening, who are alert to the potential harm our behaviors will bring if we don’t change direction. These are modern prophets. Make a list of all disasters or genocides or wars or famines and do some research and in every case you will find prophetic voices who were promptly ignored. The threat of a Hitler, the danger of economic imbalance, the slow degradation of the climate all were voiced by courageous persons and all were disregarded. What is God to do at that point? God continuously inspires more prophets to speak, to show a way to avoid the suffering of the innocent and, even after ignoring those voices, even after the disasters and tragedies are underway, God sends more voices to show us the way out and the way back.
The original sin, the sin the ancients Hebrews saw clearly, are humans listening to the voices telling them: “you will be like God”. The original sin is rivalry with God in evidence each time we ignore the voices telling us what we don’t want to hear but what we know deep inside is true: that we may be wrong and there may be a better way.
God is much more involved than we want God to be. Consider the women and men who bring aid and relief to those suffering only to have their efforts thwarted. Prophets don’t gaze at the stars and predict the future, they look at what we are doing now and warn us of the future if we continue, which is why we’d rather they just go away.
God never abandons the suffering innocent which is why God suffers when God’s efforts to comfort them are blocked by human beings. We know God suffers because Jesus, who many believe was God among us, suffered with them. Jesus did all he could to relieve the suffering of the innocent but was stopped. Yet he wasn’t stopped. The Holy Spirit is behind all the grace that pours into the world 24–7. It takes great effort and great arrogance to subvert that grace, which is why the only unforgivable sin is the sin again the Holy Spirit, the sin of thwarting the grace of God.
Some examples of disregarded prophets:
“In 1924, [Dorothy] Thompson’s newspaper began to share foreign coverage with the New York Evening Post, exposing Thompson’s stories to many more readers. She wrote sharply insightful articles about the volatile political situation on the continent, especially the rise of an emerging agitator of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party named Adolf Hitler.” United States Memorial Holocaust Museum website
“Edgar Mowrer, the Chicago Daily News correspondent, kept frantically trying to warn readers and the world, “What he’s saying about the Jews is serious. Don’t underestimate him.” Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, The Atlantic, March 13, 2012
“It’s often assumed that most people in the 1950s were blissfully unaware of climate change, but in fact there were already alarm bells ringing. In 1953, the Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass talked to a scientific meeting about the dangers of carbon dioxide pollution. ‘The large increase in industrial activity during the present century is discharging so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that the average temperature is rising at the rate of 1.5 degrees [Fahrenheit] per century,’ he announced in a sensational statement that became headline news around the world.” Jeremy Plester, The Guardian, June 22, 2023
If what God is doing to stop the suffering of the innocent isn’t enough for you, if you want God to intervene directly, supernaturally, then you are appealing to a god that isn’t Love. You want a god who is a parent attempting to control their children long into adulthood, children who will grow to hate their parents not love them.
The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus has made God’s children free, so free that they can and do disregard God’s messengers. Yet the messengers keep coming.
The argument “with all the evil in the world why doesn’t God do something” is a worn out, tired attempt to shift responsibility from where it squarely belongs: on the ones who made this mess, not the One trying to get us out of it.
