As the war rages in Ukraine, babies’ bodies are discovered in DC, deaths of despair abound unabated, gas prices rise unchecked, savings vanish through inflation, and myriad other events unfold we’re forced to face a perennial unpleasant reality: the innocent suffer.
It’s a simple, and well-established, fact of life that the innocent suffer, and it’s probably fair to say that the innocent suffer more, in this world, than the guilty. Job and Asaph in the Bible point this out, so it isn’t as though saying that the wicked seem to spread suffering without themselves suffering is some kind of heresy. It’s a simple truth, available to anyone willing to look life in the eyes.
And agnostics and atheists, particularly the militant kind, have made hay of this reality. They suggest, sometimes formally and logically, and sometimes through implication, that since evil exists in the world it is impossible for God to be both good and all powerful. You can look it up, there are many iterations of this question. And the problem of evil is a problem – but it’s a problem EVERYONE has to answer, not just Christians…a problem that atheists either blithely ignore or invalidate by claiming that moral evil isn’t a category!
But I’d like us to look evil and its consequences straight in the face and take it seriously. And particularly I want us to consider the question of why the innocent suffer. Now, there are many directions that we could go in attempting to answer this problem – none of them is perfect – but I want to focus on what I call the “Image of God” response.
Without getting too much into the weeds, let me give you a crash course in theological anthropology and I think you’ll get it. In theological anthropology, one of the keys (at least in my system it is!) is locating the basis of all human traits and tendencies and characteristics in the Nature of the Trinity. We reflect God – and everything about us reflects God. And therefore, all human (anthropological) phenomena have to have their root in the Triune God, either by being like Him or (because of sin) by being distorted from Him.
So, I think you can see where I’m going, the fact that evil harms the innocent has to have its basis in the Nature of God, honored either in the observance or the breach. So – does it? Well, yes. You see, many people wish that the evil acts of evil people would only harm themselves – as if sin could occur in a vacuum. And they believe that it’s a great tragedy that evil harms the innocent. And I agree. But God is not unjust in allowing these tragedies to unfold. Why? Because God has ordered the universe such that people’s actions have a real impact on others. Why? Well, for one, it makes our actions truly consequential, and by extension real (but that’s another essay for another day). More than that, our actions have to impact others because that’s how the Persons of the Trinity relate to One Another. God the Father’s actions NECESSARILY impact God the Son. They can’t not! They are Triune, after all!
Because God made man in His image, we, like Him, impact others by our actions – for good or for evil. Wishing this weren’t so would make life unlivable. Making it so that only good could impact others would make morality a sham. The only way to make human life a meaningful expression of the Image of God, is to make it risky. But, you gotta risk it to get the biscuit! God did. You may not like this. But it’s the only way we can be like Him. And He determined that that’s a price worth paying…let us live in agreement with Him.