Our minds and hearts go many different places when tragedy strikes. We feel fear, anger, and intense grief. We also often feel doubt. We want answers to the "why" question. Any time senseless and tragic death occurs, we are quick to seek out a reason, a motive. We want to make sense of it. While uncovering the motive will not undo the evil done, it at least enables us to wrap our heads around what happened.
Even if we are able to attribute a clear motive, as Christians, the question that still lingers for us is why God would allow such things to happen. Belief in a sovereign God can, at times, torment our consciences. If God could have prevented this from happening, why didn’t he?
The Unknown
We find one such puzzling example of this in John 11. We know two things clearly from this passage: 1) Jesus loved Lazarus (John 11:3, 36); 2) Jesus allowed Lazarus to die. In fact, John tells us plainly that “when [Jesus] heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (John 11:6).
John offers no explanation to try and reconcile these two things; he simply writes that both were true. But how could this be? How can God be loving when he allows such bad things to happen? This is often a point used by skeptics to claim that there is no God, or if there is, he cannot be good. When we are faced with tragedy, we ask the same questions.
However, as one author has helpfully pointed out, “Christians aren’t in a position to give a comprehensive explanation of evil.” Instead,
[we must] be willing to admit that evil raises certain questions that remain a mystery within the Christian story. But does this mean the logical problem of evil is an insurmountable problem for Christians? No. Not unless you suggest that God has promised to tell us everything we’d like to know about everything. But the Bible never offers this. In fact, it promises the exact opposite. Many times, we will not know why. [1]
Moreover, the problem of evil is not just a problem for Christians. It is a problem for everyone. If the skeptic is going to call something evil, they have no basis for doing so without admitting the existence of good. They are then in the position of having to account for the origin of good.
Every religion tries to answer the mystery of the coexistence of good and evil. Only Christianity teaches that God himself suffered to end evil. Who can deny the original goodness of a God who loved us so much he would sacrifice himself to save us and ultimately drive all evil out of the world? “When looking at the cross, no believer can wonder, Does God care?”[2]
The Known
When we find ourselves doubting, we must admit that there are certain things for which we do not have an answer. Neither does anyone else. In response, we must press in more deeply to the thing we do know. God has not revealed everything to us, but in Christ he has revealed enough to warrant our trust.
Consider with me some of the things God has clearly revealed in scripture:
- God created the universe good (Genesis 1:31).
- God permits evil (Job 1:12).
- God is not the author of evil (James 1:13; 1 John 1:5).
- The problem of evil is a problem for everyone, because sin resides in the heart of every person (Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 1:18-2:11, 3:23).
- Jesus did not let us stay in our sin. He came to earth and got involved to save us (Philippians 2:1-11; 2 Corinthians 5:21).
- Jesus experienced all the suffering we experience, even death (Hebrews 4:15).
- In Christ, God allows us to express our fears, doubts, anger, and grief to him without judgment (see the Psalms and Lamentations 3).
- Jesus rose from the dead to prove that sin and the devil have been defeated and that we will one day be raised, too (1 Corinthians 15).
- The evil we face now is because of the battle between the spiritual forces of darkness and God’s coming kingdom (Ephesians 6:12).
- Jesus has sufficiently equipped us to persevere in the battle (Ephesians 6:10-20).
- Jesus has promised to be with us always (Matthew 28:20).
- God will not always permit evil. There will come a day when Jesus will come again to put all things right (John 5:25-29; Acts 17:31; 1 Peter 4:5; Revelation 20:11-15, 21:1-8, 22:20).
This is why we continue to repeat the words of statements of our faith like the ancient Apostles’ Creed, because they anchor us back to these truths we must rest on when we doubt:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
In Lamentations 3, Jeremiah finds himself doubting as well. He remembers the horror and the trauma of the Israelites’ exile and captivity in Babylon, and he rails against God in his doubt and disillusionment. He calls God a liar, a murderer, a joke. He says God has abandoned him and made his “teeth grind on gravel” (Lam. 3:16). Jeremiah was not only doubting God’s goodness; he had decided that God was not good.
Yet in the midst of this deep doubt and disillusionment, the Spirit enabled Jeremiah to eventually return to what he knew by faith to be true of God. He returned to God’s character:
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him. (Lamentations 3:21–25)
Jeremiah was not just able to hope in God amid the tragedy of his people; he was able to call God good.
While we may at times be tormented by God’s sovereignty because we cannot see the reason for his providence, in Christ, God’s sovereignty is tempered by his love. Therefore, we are able to look at a savior who is by no means remote from our suffering and say, “I do not know how they fit together right now, but I know that God is sovereign, and God is good.”
We are not called to have a stoic faith in the face of tragedy. God allows us to cry out, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). And he assures us that though our faith be as small as a mustard seed (Matthew 17:20-21), if its object is Jesus Christ, it will never ultimately be shaken. He will work by his Word and Spirit to enable you to continue to trust in Christ through tragedy.
[1] Joshua Chatraw, Telling A Better Story: How to Talk about God in a Skeptical Age(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2020), 191.
[2] Ibid., 192. Emphasis original.