I have always been fascinated by the argument of "If God is truly all good, then why is there anything evil within this world?" I have thought about this question since I was just a child. I believe I first wrote about it when I was in fifth grade, during a Wenesday evening service. At that point, I didn't have an answer, hypothetical or otherwise, but rather went back and fowarth on the topic, attempting to analyse it from both sides. I'm 23 years old now, and I still contemplate this question due to the answers posed to me being unsatisfactory for both my heart and mind.
Yesterday was a rougher day than most for me, due to an ongoing battle within my own heart and mind, and yet, my mind was clear enough to bring this subject back up for contemplation. As I sat on my roommate's couch, sipping on my Earl Grey, I saw a conundrum within this question. It is my belief that growth only happens via a action/reaction relationship. Thusly so, all the lessons of life that craft us into what we are today follow the same rule. We understand the quality of a refreshing drink of water because we have experienced thirst. We understand the comfort of a warm first because we have felt the bite of a cold winter wind. We have respect for life because we understand the tragedy of death. We know the value of truth because we have known the betrayal of a lie. We understand the joy of love because we have felt the sting of loneliness and apathy. Thus, if thus were a perfect world, with no pain, no sickness, no loss, then we are no more valuable than stagnant water, or a stunted fruit tree. Stagnant water cannot (or should not) be consumed for fear of the bacterial growth that takes place within it, and a stunted tree will not bear fruit for it will not grow up to a point where it can.
In that case, would it be truly good to live in a world where no struggle takes place? There would be no drive to improve our condition beyond where we are. Great works of art would not take place because there is no need to inspire people who are not uninspired. There is no reason to advance technology because we would be happy where we would be at. The human spirit would decline, and it is my belief that apathy would prevail.
Now, I can hear a few people (who have even read this far) are saying. "But Paul, did not Adam and Eve live in a perfect world before the curse? Did they not strive to learn more about the world around them?"
To that I say, of course they did, but they also had their creator to walk with them. He was there to teach the lessons they needed to learn, and inspired them to want knowledge about those things around them. Let us not forget, however, that God allowed temptation to happen within the garden. Due to the omniscience of God, we cannot believe that He was unaware of what was transporting within His creation, but, within this, there was a lesson to be learned. I lean towards a modified belief of the doctrine of "free will vs. predestination," which is a talk for another time, because of this. I believe God walked with Adam and Eve, teaching them about the world and universe, and placed this perpetual fork in the road to see what they have learned. If their desire for knowledge outweighed their faithfulness to their Creator. They had the source to all knowledge right beside them. An all access pass to understanding the universe, and yet, their want for understanding in that moment caused them to overlook what stood before them.
All this to say, even in the garden, there was a cause and effect for knowledge. You would get knowledge from God, but you had to follow Him, and keep the ONE RULE that He had in place. To this effect, knowledge of anything, be it love, drinkable water, understanding of Tetrology of Fallot, there is a cost, for if there was no cost, if knowledge was free, if the world did not suffer, then we would place no value of what we have, and what we would learn. Thusly, if God is all good, how could he allow us to stay in a stagnated state, and not grow. Yes, all the suffering in this world breaks my heart on a daily basis. I will admit that there has been time that I have felt overwhelmed at the depravity of the world around me and wept to God, asking "why?" Without this though, what would we be? What would push us to improve?
Let us go back to the garden. I believe that, if Adam and Eve wouldn't have taken the forbidden fruit, someone would have. The same test would have been placed on all of us, someone would have failed, because of selfish desire.
I don't have all the answers, but I thought it worth jotting down my thoughts for the day. Maybe I'll change my views completely in the future to some other line of reasoning. This is no more than a theory of why, and a personal attempt to answer the question posed. Apologies for the grammatical errors, I allowed my mind to string thoughts together, and I thought it best to post this in its rawest form.
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