Vugt: The Mystery of Good and Evil

Monday, January 30, 2012

ONE of the most intriguing questions that can be asked of us Christians is: just look around at all the misery that is happening in the world, if God exists, why does He not do anything about it? If God is all good and almighty, how is it possible that there is evil in the world, in the first place?

Think of the victims of a natural disaster like Tropical Storm Sendong that struck our city last year. Many people, including our mayor, say this is an act of God, we can’t do anything about it. We now know that this is not true. This is in fact, a man-made disaster mainly caused by illegal logging and mining and government officials who have miserably failed to serve the people under their care.

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We now know also that ultimately, it is a failure on the part of all of us, who are called to take responsibility for our environment and the welfare of our fellowmen. And then there are so many invisible victims of other man-made disasters, like the innumerable victims of the extra-judicial killings caused by a bastard like Palparan who is now in hiding in order to escape the judicial authorities.

Think also of all those innocent people who were denied justice because of the inaction of a criminal like Chief Justice Corona, who now finally may be kicked out forever from the highest court of the land.

Today, there is in the news that case of Janelle Manahan, who now turns out to have been a battered woman of Ramgen and against whom the whole Revilla clan conspired to liquidate her, and of course there is that ‘honorable’ ex-senator Don Ramon Revilla, who conspicuously stays out of the picture but did he not father more than eighty children out of wedlock and is he not ultimately responsible for that whole mess in his family?

In the face of all this misery and evil, people are asking now: where is God in all this? A God who allows so much grief and suffering to happen seems to be a contradiction. Either God permits the suffering, in which case He is not all-loving; or He cannot prevent it, in which case he is not all-powerful.

A Dutch theologian, Prof. Dingemans, has tried to explain this mystery of good and evil in the world. He wrote a book with the title: ‘The experiment world.’

Of course, if you try to explain a mystery, it is not a mystery anymore. But that image of an experiment may still help us to understand something of the mystery. Like with an experiment in physics you are testing something and you don’t know what will be the outcome. There is a risk involved. When God created the world He took that risk. He created man and He gave him a free will so that he can choose between good and evil. That is a great challenge to man. If we follow that image of the ‘experiment world’ of Prof. Dingemans, he says that God has ‘restricted’ Himself in order to give a playing field to men, to animals, and to things and events in this world. When man chooses evil, God does not punish him. God is always there to call man back, to give him a new chance. Man can still repent. That is what the Bible says. When Jesus was crucified, there were two criminals at his side. One repented, the other one did not. One was given eternal life instantly. The other one, we don’t know what happened to him when he died. Neither do we know what happened to Judas after he betrayed the Lord and hanged himself.

To the first brother-killer, God said: ‘Cain, where is your brother?’ God does not condemn, He invites the sinner to repent. God acts in the world through the enticing call of his love. God is always looking for us again in order to bring His ‘experiment world’ to a good ending. Whether God will succeed is a matter of faith.

We believe and we hope that the power of God’s love in the end will be strong enough to conquer evil. This is the message we Christians must preach.

Those so-called Born Again Christians who staged a silent protest against those who participated in the Black Nazarene procession here in Cagayan de Oro last Jan. 9, should heed that message also. They have no right in accusing those devotees of idolatry. They better examine themselves whether they are really born again Christians, as they claim.

(For your comments, email nolvanvugt@gmail.com)