I recently saw a video clip of Stephen Fry decrying the existence of a god that allows evil and suffering. In the video, Stephen Fry brings up one of the most common arguments of atheists. That is, if God exists, then why does He allow evil and suffering in the world?
The short answer is this: God did not create a world with evil and suffering. He created a world that was perfect, without evil and suffering, for His glory, honor, and pleasure (Isaiah 43:7; Revelation 411) and He called it "very good" (Genesis 1:31). God choose to populate His creation with beings that would be able to enjoy and appreciate His creation and to love Him freely. In order to do so, God created both human beings (Adam and Eve) and angels with a free will. However, since free will involves the ability to choose between two legitimate choices, God gave both humans and angels the ability to choose between loving Him and not loving Him. Choosing to love Him would allow us to experience His presence and provision. Choosing not to love Him would separate us from His presence and provision. To make the choices legitimate, God not only allowed us to make the choice, but also promised us that He would abide by the consequences of our choice.
Lucifer is an example of an angel who chose to love himself rather than God. Consequently, Lucifer lost his exalted position as "the anointed cherub that covereth" (Ezekiel 28:14) that walked in the very presence of God and was perfect in all his ways from the day he was created (Ezekiel 28:15). Deprived of God's presence and provision, Lucifer became the twisted, perverse, and evil being we now know as the Devil and Satan. And, because God is allowing him to live out the consequences of choosing to love himself rather than God, the Devil hates God and desires to hurt and destroy that which God loves. Therefore, it was no surprise to see Satan turn up in the Garden of Eden, in the guise of a serpent, temping Eve to disobey God.
You see, God had placed a tree in the center of the garden, called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and told Adam and Eve, "thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). God placed the tree there and gave the command so that Adam and Eve could have a legitimate choice to love God or not to love God. Choosing to love God meant choosing to trust and obey God by not eating from the tree, with the consequence of continuing to experience His presence and provision. Choosing not to love God meant choosing to disobey God by eating from the tree, with the consequence of death, both spiritual (immediate) and physical (eventual), resulting from the loss of God's presence and provision.
When the Devil tempted Eve in the garden, he deceived her into thinking that God was withholding something desirable from her and got her to focus on her own wants and desires rather than God (Genesis 3:4-6). In effect, the devil tricked Eve into choosing to love herself rather God. Adam, on the other had, was not deceived. He knew that Eve had disobeyed God but he choose to love her more than He loved God and, in doing so, he disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit as well.
The immediate consequence of loving themselves rather than loving God was spiritual death, separating them immediately from God's presence. The separation from God's provision was pronounced in the curse that was placed on the world so that man would now have to struggle and sweat for his daily bread until his body would eventually wear out, die, and return to the dust from which it was created (Genesis 3:17-19). The long-term consequence was that all of Adam and Eve's children would be born into a world suffering from the curse as well. Now, as a result, we are all born into a world that has suffered under the curse for thousands of years. Deprived from the presence and protection of God, evil and suffering flourish and people like Stephen Fry blame the God they do not believe in for consequences of their own actions.
Although Adam and Eve chose to love themselves rather than God, God did not choose to stop loving them. However, in spite of His love for Adam and Eve, because God is just, He could not go back on His word and had to allow them to suffer the consequences of their bad choices. Fortunately, though, God provided a way to satisfy both His justness and His love. He decided to pay the wages of sin, which is death (Romans 6:23), Himself. He revealed His plan to Adam and Eve when He shed the blood of an innocent animal in order to take its skin to provide a covering for the result of their sin (Genesis 3:21) and established the principle found throughout the Bible that the shedding of innocent blood can atone for the sin of the guilty.
The blood of innocent animals was only temporary though. It merely served as a picture of the coming sacrifice of God Himself in the person of the Messiah. Those who chose to love God willingly obeyed God in offering these animal sacrifices in anticipation of the coming sacrifice of the Messiah. Then, when God incarnated Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, He willingly went to the cross where He offered up Himself as the final sacrifice. There, He suffered and died as He shed His innocent blood to pay for our sin, was buried, and then rose again, victorious over sin and death.
Now, we have a choice to make. Since we are born into a cursed world, lost and condemned by our own sin, and have not chosen to love Him, we are on our way to what the Bible calls the Lake of Fire, where we will be eternally separated from the presence and provision of God. Not making a choice is not an option because we have all sinned (Romans 3:23) and are under the curse already (John 3:18). If we do not choose to love God by being obedient to His command, we are, by default, making a choice not to love God. We must, therefore, actively and freely choose to love God by being obedient to His command to confess our sin and believe that Jesus Christ paid for our sin through His death, burial, and resurrection. Then, and only then, can we experience God's presence and provision and escape the curse of death.
Unfortunately, many, like Stephen Fry, refuse to love God. Instead, they rage against God for not sparing them from the consequences of their own sin, while rejecting very means of escape from those consequences that the God who loves them has provided. They are like a man standing outside the house during a heavy rainstorm shaking his fist at the house saying, "How dare you let me get wet! What kind of a house are you that you won't protect me from this storm?" The man rages against the house for his suffering when all he has to do is walk through the open door that the house has already provided.
God did not create us to be non-thinking, non-choosing beings programed to always love and obey Him. He created us, instead, to have a relationship with Him based on our own free will. Consequently, though God is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)", He will not force you. If you are standing out in the rain, why not admit your sin, love God, and accept His offer of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and come into the shelter of God's love today. The choice is yours.