If there is a God, then why is there so much evil in the world?

As we continue to move away from being a God-fearing society, the presence of evil is becoming more prevalent and therefore unrestrained. We live in a fallen world and the many tragedies, murders and disasters taking place are a result of that.

I believe this question is also associated with hell because many think God is the one responsible for the disasters and thereby mean enough to send people to hell. Their thought is, “If He didn’t cause the tragedy, then why didn’t He stop it?” This reasoning leads them to conclude that God is unloving and arbitrarily sends whomever He wants to hell. This is completely erroneous—furthermore, the evil that occurs is, for the most part, not caused by God.

Evil exists for many reasons, and here are just five:

Satan is the god of this world. He brings the death and destruction, not God (2 Cor. 4:4; John 10:10; 1 John 3:8).
Man chooses to harm his fellow man. We all have a free will to obey God and be blessed or to reject God and be cursed. It’s our choice (Deut. 30:19; Matt. 13:15; Job 36:11; 1 John 3:22).
What a man sows he will reap (Gal. 6:7; Pr. 12:14; Pr. 22:8).
There is a law of sin and death, and it operates just like the law of gravity (Rom. 8:2; Rom. 7:23-25; James 1:15; Pr. 13:21).
The earth itself rebels against sin (Ps. 68:6; Lev. 18:25; 1 Chron. 16:30; Ps. 67:5-6; Rom. 8:22).

Something else to consider is if there is no God, then why is there so much good in the world? Where does the “good” come from? (Ps. 33:5; Luke 6:35; 12:32; Heb. 6:5; James 1:17; 3 John 11).

To sum it up, many blame God for the disasters that take place, yet in the good times, they deny His very existence. Man has a freewill and therefore he has the freedom to sin. Perhaps, there is a connection with all the terrible things that take place upon the earth and our blatant rejection of God and His Word. Rather than take responsibility, man chooses to believe that God is the author of evil. That way, we can question God’s love and fairness. If we travel this path, we will eventually reject God and, along with that, we most certainly will reject the reality of hell.

Excerpt from Bill’s book, 23 Questions About Hell