Relevant Verses: 2 Sam 6; 2 Kings 2; Exod 32; Gen 18; Ps 10, 22, 73; Matt 27; Mark 15; Hab 1, Mal 4, Job 30, 38; Jer 12, 13

Theme: “The Problem of Evil”

Leading Question: Is there a happy solution to the problem of evil?

One of the most enduring issues in our world is the problem of evil. If there is no over-all solution, there are at least four partial solutions, several of which are hinted at in the official study guide.

1. Partial Solution #1: Liberation from the stories of Uzzah and the two she-bears that mauled the 42 boys. This reflects my own personal experience. As a young Christian, I was fearful of being too honest and open with God because of the haunting images of two Old Testament stories: the story of Uzzah and the ark and the story of the two she bears that mauled 42 boys. Here are the biblical references:

2 Sam. 6:1-11: David again brought together all the able young men of Israel—thirty thousand. 2 He and all his men went to Baalah in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim on the ark. 3 They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart 4 with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. 5 David and all Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with castanets, harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals.
6 When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. 7 The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.
8 Then David was angry because the Lord’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah.
9 David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?” 10 He was not willing to take the ark of the Lord to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. 11 The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed him and his entire household.

For starters, I was troubled by the story because it appears that Uzzah was just trying to be helpful. “For the oxen stumbled” is the crucial phrase. There are all kinds of disasters sent by God in the Old Testament. But somehow this one stood out because of Uzzah’s apparent desire to be helpful.

That was one of the stories that taught me to be very careful in my prayer life. The other one was the story of the two she-bears at the time of the prophet Elisha.

2 Kings 2:23-24: 3 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then the two bears [KJV has she-bears!] came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.

Putting those two stories together, I learned to be very careful when dealing with sacred objects or people. The result was a very impoverished prayer life. But just as the problem arose from two Old Testament stories, the solution came from two other Old Testament stories that helped me realize that God’s friends are skeptics: Abraham’s conversation with God over Sodom, and Moses’ conversation with God over the fate of Israel.

2. Partial Solution #2: Discovering that God’s friends are skeptics.
As I recall, the first real break came when I was reading the story Abraham’s conversation with God over the fate of Sodom. Without hesitation, Abraham confronted God over the possibility of Sodom’s destruction. Here is the kernel of the story from Genesis 18:

Genesis 18:22-26. The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

When I got to the story of Israel’s rebellion at Sinai, the second story fell into place. Here is the biblical narrative from Exodus 32:

Exodus 32:7-14 The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” 9 The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”
11 But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14 And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Question: Does this very personal story resonate at all with your experience or with other believers of your acquaintance? For me, I was now liberated to confront the God of the universe!

After putting the two troubling stories in their place (Uzzah and the Bears) and finding liberation through the discovery of the two stories that liberate skeptics (Abraham and Moses), allowing them to confront God, I returned to the official study guide for our third partial solution.

3. Partial Solution #3: Misery Loves Company. The official study guide helps to compile a fairly long list of believers who had tussled with the theodicy question and introduces a term that is useful as a heading: “the skeptical theist.” How can a good God be master of a world where there is so much discord and pain? “ The official study guide defines the “skeptical theist” as follows: “The skeptical theist is one who believes God has good reasons for acting as He does, but given our limited knowledge, we should not expect to be in a position to know just what those reasons are. The skeptical theist is skeptical regarding the human capacity to be aware of or to understand fully God’s reasons relative to the evil in this world.”

All my “skeptic” examples except one are from the Old Testament. But the one from the New Testament is crucial: Jesus’ cry from the cross: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Recorded in two of the Gospels, Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34, it must be noted that Jesus is quoting Psalm 22 from the Old Testament. It is as if Jesus’ death, was and is the solution to the theodicy question!

So here is the rest of my list. Some of the passages are tangential, but they are part of the picture.

Job 30:26 But when I looked for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came.
Job 38:2 (CEV) Why do you talk so much when you know so little?
Psalm 10:1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
Psalm 73:1-3 Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. 2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped. 3 For I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Jeremiah 12:1 You will be in the right, O Lord, when I lay charges against you, but let me put my case to you. Why does the way of the guilty prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?
Jeremiah 13:2 Do you know why your clothes were torn off and you were abused? It was because of your terrible sins. (CEV) – this verse doesn’t really belong on this list for it does not blame God, but humans for our dilemma.
Habakkuk 1:2-4 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4 So the law becomes slack, and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous; therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
Malachi 4:17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

4. Partial Solution #4: The Free Will Defense. The official study guide adds one more argument, the “free will defense,” to augment the argument for the “skeptical theist” and may enable an agitated believer to sleep nights in light of the chaos in our world.

The free will defense makes love possible, for it enables us to freely choose to love God.

Question: This lesson concludes with two arguments that may combine to be helpful to the thoughtful believer: 1) the skeptical theist; 2) the “free-will” argument. Is the combination of these two arguments likely to help you and your believing friends?