WHY DOES GOD PERMIT EVIL?

WHY DOES GOD PERMIT EVIL?
Monday, October 19, 2026 by Linda Wood Rondeau

How long, Lord, must I call for help,
    but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
    but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
    Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
    there is strife, and conflict abounds.

Habakkuk 1:1-3 NIV

Still another school shooting and a senseless act of driving onto a soccer field. Children were among the victims.

The age-old question of why God allows evil continues to plague us. If He is God and is all-powerful, why does he permit these horrible acts?

Here are a few who have asked this question.

1. Augustine of Hippo

Augustine argued that God created everything good, and therefore evil is not a created thing or substance. He maintained that moral evil entered the world through the misuse of free will by rational creatures.

2. Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas argued that God allows certain evils only to bring about a greater good or to avoid a worse evil. He believed that a universe with varying degrees of goodness allowed for failure, and that without suffering, the virtues of patience and martyrdom could not exist.

4. John Calvin

Calvin rejected the idea that anything happens outside of God's direct will. He argued that God orchestrates all events, including suffering, for His ultimate glory and a divine purpose. He believed that human understanding is too limited to grasp God's reasons. Evil exists as part of a divine plan that remains a mystery to humans, but Christians are called to trust in God's absolute justice and sovereignty regardless.

6. Author and apologist, C.S. Lewis

Lewis famously wrote in his book, The Problem of Pain, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." He argued that suffering shatters the illusion of human self-sufficiency and directs people back to dependence on God.

Habakkuk looked at the atrocities, idol worship, and the falling away of his people from their God.

“Why do you permit this, Lord?” he asks. God’s response was even more puzzling to comprehend. He was sending the Babylonians to conquer Judah, and this would ultimately lead to a purge. “It will happen. Wait for it!” God says.

Habakkuk, still pondering the mind of God, asks: “If you cannot tolerate evil, then why do You send evil to cure evil?”

Ultimately, Habakkuk concludes that God’s ways are beyond his comprehension. But of this he was certain (see Habakkuk 2:20). “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” God is sovereign, and that’s the crux of the matter.

Habakkuk finds peace in that truth

Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Habakkuk 3:17-18 NIV

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