John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Throughout the scriptures there seems to be two prevailing ideas around evil and suffering; the first is that they will both remain in the world until Jesus returns and establishes a new heaven and new earth and second, He has overcome them already. The fact that Jesus states that He has overcome the world, implies that we too have overcome the world. The complexity comes when we have to explore what He means by “the world” and what He means by “overcome”. Nevertheless, in this statement there is still the sound of victory and dominion over certain things, despite the inevitability of “trouble”. That is also something for us to unpack, what is “trouble”? There are two major types of evil and suffering in this world; natural and human. The natural kind is associated with earthquakes and other natural disasters. The human kind of evil is to do with armed robberies, wars, abuse and the list is endless. It is important to note that one could argue that some natural disasters are caused by human behaviour.
Key questions people ask today, “If God is Good, why does He allow evil and suffering in the world? If God is all powerful, why does He not stop it?” People seem to use the lack of clear answers to these questions as a reason for rejecting God and the Christian faith. It is important that apologists articulate a coherent Biblical theology with regards to this topic. A key word in this theme is theodicy. Theodicy is an argument that seeks to vindicate God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence despite the evil and suffering in the world. Over the next few weeks, when I explain what every believer should know about evil and suffering, I will be using expository apologetics in a series of theodicies.
