If God is truly a God of love and mercy, why does He not intervene?

Some have concluded that God simply doesn’t exist. The answer, however, is much more complex. What does the Bible reveal about the causes of suffering?

British author and historian Paul Johnson writes of one of mankind’s greatest theological dilemmas in his book The Quest for God, stating, “I suspect that the problem of evil drives more thoughtful people away from religion than any other difficulty” (1996, p. 61).

Many people believe that if God is truly the God of love and mercy, He would be bound by His own character and principles to prevent suffering in the world. This brings up a good question. Why doesn’t God intervene to prevent suffering?

The evil that God allows, and the tragedies He chooses not to prevent, leads many to question the wisdom, goodness and even existence of God. Some atheists cite the reality of evil as their trump card in the argument about the existence of God. Julian Huxley, one of the 20th century’s leading proponents of evolution, opined that the existence of evil “is a challenge to God’s moral character” ( Religion Without Revelation, 1957, p. 109).

Why does God allow evil? Anyone who has ever felt pain or experienced tragedy wonders about this. Theologians, philosophers, historians and scientists have mused over the issue. Let’s consider some of their conclusions.

Many assume God angrily intervenes to punish us whenever we step out of line, when in reality He generally allows us to suffer the consequences of our own selfish, short sighted behaviour  (see Jeremiah 2:19; 10:23). Most people fail to recognize that God doesn’t have to directly intervene every time we sin; the spiritual laws He set in motion are self-enforcing, bringing their own punishment in the form of painful consequences when we break them.

Is this God’s handiwork?

Physicist Paul Davies reflects on this side of the good-vs.-evil argument. He considers the issue of why God, if He truly is all-powerful, does not simply intervene and stop all evil. “Is God free to prevent evil?” Davies wonders. “If he is omnipotent, yes. Why then does He fail to do so?” (God and the New Physics, 1983, p. 143).

Davies’ questions are reasonable. Is God powerless in the face of suffering? If He exists, why doesn’t He act to remove evil and pain from the face of the earth? The questions are troubling, though not because they are hard to understand. They are unsettling because the answers are not what we would want them to be.

The truth of the matter forces us to reconsider our ideas about God and His plan and purpose for us. When we understand those, we understand that God has His reasons for not acting now.

Why doesn’t God simply ban evil?

To understand the answer, we must consider the consequences such an action would bring.

Understanding why God allows evil and its resultant suffering requires a fundamental understanding of one of God’s greatest gifts—as well as how man has continually abused that gift.

The gift is free will —or, as it is more popularly called, freedom of choice. God granted this freedom to our first human parents, Adam and Eve, at creation. But over the millennia we have proven ourselves to be woefully inept stewards of this precious gift and its far-reaching responsibility.

As God explained to ancient Israel, the freedom to make choices is essential to developing righteous character (Deuteronomy 30:15-19 [15] See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; [16] In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.[17] But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;[18] I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.[19] I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live:

Without freedom to choose, we would be little more than robots, with our behaviour either preprogramed and unchangeable or dictated in all its details by an outside force such as God Himself.

But that is not God’s intent. He has different expectations of us because of His much higher purpose for us. He wants us to choose to obey Him from the heart. He wants us to enthusiastically love and cherish His values and standards, which are based on two overriding principles —loving Him with all our hearts and loving others as much as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:35-40 [35] Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,  [36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law?[37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.[38] This is the first and great commandment.[39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.[40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

As we will see, choosing to obey God and learning to love others when we have the freedom to do otherwise is vital for the future God has planned for us.

God designed human beings to make choices. Yet we have never learned how to make consistently wise and properly informed choices. Nor have we learned how to effectively manage our emotions, motives and desires and their influence on our decisions.

The first exercise of man’s freedom of choice

Our freedom to decide what we want to do can result in acts of good or evil. God gave us freedom both to reach out and help our fellow man and freedom to act self-servingly and in ways that harm ourselves and others.

We frequently exercise our freedom of choice in wrong ways, and we reap the consequences—which take the form of often-unexpected penalties. This is nothing new; it occurred in the Garden of Eden with the first human beings, Adam and Eve.

Adam’s full realization of his actions made him all the more guilty for what happened; God held him responsible even more so than Eve. Nevertheless, acting together they chose to listen to and follow the serpent (Genesis 3:1-6)

Adam and Eve reaped the consequences of their sin. God told them they would die—and eventually they did—but the immediate consequence was that God expelled them from the garden and cut them off from the tree of life.

Like Adam and Eve a great deal of our suffering and human suffering in general is directly related to the decisions that we make or decisions that others make that impact in our lives.

God inspired the recording of the lessons in the Old Testament so that we might learn from the experiences of others (1 Corinthians 10:6, 11; Romans 15:4). Although the New Testament includes similar lessons for us, its focus is mostly on the message of the Kingdom of God and the good news that God sent His Son to save us from our sins (John 3:16). It also reveals how suffering and sorrow will eventually cease.

The conclusion should be obvious. Much suffering is caused by wrong choices. The Bible offers guidance as to how we should live.

With this argument I have but touched on one idea regarding the aspect of the existence of  evil and suffering in the world.  This argument is not the be all and end all arguments relating to the topic. It is but an attempt to give a simplistic biblical explanation from a single perspective.