Basic Beliefs: The Problem of Evil - AFC 1997

Radical Evil

Job 5:17; 8:20: 11:7; Ps. 13; , Lamentations

Lament the brokeness of life; cry for help.

Radical evil is the force of chaos that assaults the beauty and order of God's beloved creation.

Lament is the appropriate human response to a suffering that can only be abhorred.

how to understand evil?

• "It's not real. This is the best of all possible worlds."
• "No one is innocent, so we should "buck up" and accept our lot." - Eliphaz
• "Sin is the source of suffering, so be blameless. That's the best you can do." - Bildad
• "This is beyond our knowing. God is surely just; we simply cannot know how." - Zophar

There is no way to justify evil. It simply does not fit.

Scripture does not portray humans accepting stoically the ways of an inscrutable God.

Lament allows us to be honest
Lament is complaint that springs up from the painful depths of human existence. It dares to challenge God to be faithful to God's own promise.!
Lament is a prayer; the sufferer demands not an answer, but a connection, a relation. As terrible as suffering is, the sufferer cannot live without God. We need less a God whose ways can be rationally described than a God with whom we can enter a trustful relation.

Lament is not a theological answer to the problem of evil, but a human cry for an Answerer.

• Is there such a thing as evil that is creative or "evil creativity"?
• How easy is it to point to the sin that causes particular suffering?
• Is the reality of evil a strong argument against the reality of a good and powerful God?
• Is Rev. 6:9-11 a lament? What is the evil?
• How does the media portray evil? Do we experience it differently?
• Does an Answerer appear?

Sometimes life is in the pits, and it stinks intolerably.
Lord have mercy and hear our cry.