God Can’t Prevent Evil Singlehandedly
Where is God when… ? - Part 2
Sunday, November 12, 2023
1 John 4:7-16, John 4:24, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them.
- 1 John 4:16 (CEB)
God is Spirit, and it is necessary to worship God in spirit and in truth.- John 4:24 (CEB)
Love doesn’t force itself on others.
- 1 Corinthians 13:5a (The Message)
Listen to this Week’s Sermon here:
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In his book, God Can’t: How to believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse & Other Evils, Tom Oord tells the story of his friend Jayne, who endured sexual abuse at an early age, followed by years of trauma and destructive patterns that nearly led to her taking her own life. Jayne describes her long and painful process toward healing, which began, she says, on “the day I realized I had choices.”
“God did not control me on the cliff;” she writes. “I chose to turn and live. But so did all those who hurt me. We all had free will. And I don’t need to say nonsensical things such as, ‘God allowed my abuse to build my character.’”
Far too many people suffer deep emotional, mental, and spiritual scars from the idea that God’s predetermined plan included their abuse or other traumatic event in their lives for some greater mysterious purpose. In recognizing her own free will and the free will of her abusers, Jayne came to see God not as an all-powerful overseer who watched the evil happen to her, but as a loving God who is never coercive or manipulative and who by nature, cannot take away someone’s freedom even if they use their freedom for evil.
“The God who controls could not be my anchor,” she says, “but the God who loves me, comforts me, brings me support by prompting the good actions of others, and guides my choices most certainly can.”
It is difficult to imagine that there are things beyond God’s control, but Jayne realized that a truly loving God who has the power to prevent evil and harm but chooses not to is not very loving at all, at least not in any sense of the word “love” we could comprehend.
Michael Fortier, who served prison time after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, was not directly involved in the attack, but he was convicted because he knew of the plans ahead of time and did not alert the authorities. In other words, even our imperfect human justice system acknowledges that all people have a responsibility to prevent evil and harm to whatever degree they are able. If we say God is in absolute control of everything and has the ability to prevent evil but chooses not to, surely God would be just as culpable if not more so than any human who fails to do what they can to prevent such a horrendous tragedy.
This does not make God weak or powerless, and we will see in the coming weeks how God uses the persuasive power of love to work in cooperation with humanity to squeeze the most possible good out of every situation. God moves people to act with compassion and boldness to help prevent evil, but the power of Love cannot be coercive or forced. Jesus shows us a God who is fully present in our suffering, not a God who sits by and allows otherwise preventable evil to go unchecked.
God is Love and Love never fails.
For a more in depth reflection on the questions around God’s goodness and love in the midst of suffering and evil, check out God Can’t: How to believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse & Other Evils.