God created man and woman, giving them a beautiful garden, food, companionship with Him, and dominion over all things created. It was perfect! However, God also wanted to give them something else--free will.
It was important for God to give us free will. He did not want his creation to love, worship, and obey him because that was the only thing they could do. He was very capable of making us His puppets with no ability to reason or option to rebel. But that was not His plan. God wanted His people to have the ability to obey Him...or not.
With this in mind, the Garden of Eden had to contain an option to rebel. Without an option to rebel, there could be no free will because every option would be God's will. So, a tree was included in this paradise, just one tree (the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) from which Adam and Eve were not to eat.
We were not the only creatures that God created and gave free will. Angels were also given this opportunity to choose. The only creatures that are mentioned in the Bible as being made in God's image, however, are men and women. Just as we experience envy, it seems very likely that these other creatures with the ability to reason would feel the sting of this emotion on occasion. This probably made it especially tempting to entice us to rebel against our maker. And Satan, a fallen angel, did just that.
I am not particularly mad at Adam and Eve for doing something as stupid as eating the one fruit that God forbid them to eat. It is my belief that I would have done the same. In fact, those who would criticize the decisions of our first parents are suffering from what C.S. Lewis refers to as chronological snobbery. After all, how many choices have I made in my life that are in direct violation of the commandments of God? And I will also add that you can't blame only Eve. Read the verses for yourself to see just where Adam was. (Genesis 3:6) That's right. He was right there with her...not off gallivanting through the Garden as is often depicted when this act is recreated in artistic works.
We chose to rebel. Just as God knew we would. Yes, of course He knew we would. He knows everything.
Could God have chosen to stop Adam and Eve from eating the fruit? As I mentioned earlier, the tree was necessary to provide an option for us to exercise our free will. Stopping Eve from taking that first bite would have done likewise.
So why didn't God just kill the serpent (Satan)? Didn't Satan's interference unfairly affect Eve's ability to make a rational choice?
God will not (and cannot) contradict Himself. As Paul tells Titus, God cannot lie. (Titus 1:1-4) Since the angels have free will, God would/could not interfere with Satan's plan. Since we have free will, God would/could not interfere in Eve and Adam's decision. If He had interfered in any of the evil events that happened at that time, He would have stripped his creations of free will.
So sin entered the world. With consequences. God had to banish them from the Garden. You see, there was another tree there from which God had to save us. This was the Tree of Life. Eating from this tree would have made the consequences from the first sin eternal. Adam and Eve would have lived forever in sin. God showed them mercy by banishing them.
We all have choices to make. We are given free will to make our own choices. And we all have consequences (good and evil) from those choices. We cannot forget that other people also have free will. Just as Satan's free will affected Eve's free will, which affected Adam's free will resulting in consequences for all of us, the same cycle happens today. The sins of others have consequences for them and for us. Our sins have consequences for us and for others.
We ask things like, "Why did God allow Hitler to kill all those people?" Hitler had free will. The people that influenced Hitler had free will. This doesn't mean that God ordained these things to happen. St. Augustine's conclusion in his book On Order (386 a.d.) aligns with my view, "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil at all."
The reality of the situation when facing this evil overwhelms us as beings with limited knowledge and power. We forget when facing the evil on this earth that our time here is very short in the scheme of an eternity.
And next comes the question, "But what about disease? Why does God allow cancer (or AIDS, M.S., Alzheimer's, etc.) to kill good people?"
I have two thoughts on this; first, we live in a cursed world that is deteriorating. I have no idea where and how these diseases began, but they may be related to this deterioration...which was caused by our first sin. Without sin, humans would've lived forever in companionship with God in a perfect world. Our human lifespans were eternal! Once sin entered the world, however, we started deteriorating...aging. In early Bible recordings, the world was still "healthy" enough that humans lived very long lives. In fact, theologians estimate that it took Noah 120 years to build the ark and he was about 600 when the rain came! Was he a freak of nature? No, that's just how it was. Our lifespans got shorter and shorter until man's knowledge of science allowed us to develop medicines and easier lifestyles through technology. But the world has continued to decay and we are suffering the consequences.
My second thought is that they may be related more directly to sin itself. Some diseases may come from the sin of the sufferer or the sufferer's parents. For example, some diseases can be linked to sinful habits--overeating, sloth, drunkenness, mistreating one's body with drugs and even cigarettes, promiscuity, etc. But I have to wonder if diseases that seem to have no cause actually started through some mutation that occurred many, many years ago due to a single sinful act. Let me make it clear, I am NOT blaming the victims of disease for their own suffering. My thought is simply that this evil had to have an origin. Sin and deterioration are the only options I see.
Thankfully, as St. Augustine indicates, God uses these things for good. In fact, Paul says as much in his letter to the Romans. (Romans 8:28)
There are also philosophical reasons for the presence of evil. Could there truly be "good" without it? At what points in your life have you drawn closer to God? Really consider this. Was it during times of contentment...or times of struggle? So, is suffering necessary?
I think it is. And we need to remember that Jesus Christ suffered FOR us in the most brutal of ways without deserving it. God knows exactly what it means to physically and emotionally suffer.
Peter talks about the trials that we face here throughout his books of the Bible. He reminds the new Church (the believers--not the people in a specific building) that "Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit." (1 Peter 3:18)
We are promised in Isaiah and reminded again in Revelations, "The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth." (Isaiah 25:8, Revelations 21:4)
One day the sins will be erased and evil will be gone. I hope you are back here to enjoy it with me.
_________
Suggested Resources:
CS Lewis: The Problem of Pain. (1940)
Mars Hill Church Sermon Series: Trial
Ravi Zacharias: How Can a Good God Allow Evil in the World?
RC Sproul: The Problem with Evil
St. Augustine: The Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 2: The Anatomy of Evil, multiple translations/editors
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