Free Will and the Problem of Evil (Special Podcast Highlight)
The Patrick Madrid Show
Relevant Radio
4.8 • 588 Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You know the age-old question: "Why do bad things happen to good people?" If you've gone through suffering, heartache, or hurt and you question God's goodness, Patrick Madrid wants to help you make sense of it.
He addresses a thought-provoking question from Jennifer in Auburn, Indiana. She wonders why, if God is omnipotent and perfect, does evil exist.
The crux of the answer lies in the concept of free will. Patrick explains that evil stems from the choices of angels and humans to act against God's design for happiness. God never wanted it this way, but He allowed it. These bad choices that we make ripple through the world, causing unintended harm to innocent people, much like a drunk driver causing an accident. Horrible things happen that don't add up. But why?
The essence of Patrick's argument revolves around the purpose of free will: it enables genuine love and moral responsibility. Without it, we'd be like robots, not capable of true love or moral fault. Patrick goes on to explain that the existence of hell and the capacity for guilt affirm the reality of free will. God loves us and doesn't want to control us.
Also, Patrick touches on the mystery of iniquity, suggesting that, despite the presence of evil, God's providence works towards the ultimate happiness and fulfillment of those who love Him. He recommends Dr. Peter Kreeft's book, "Making Sense Out of Suffering," for a deeper exploration of the topic.
Addressing Jennifer's confusion about God's perfection, sparked by troubling views from Harold Kushner's "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," Patrick reassures her of God's flawless nature and is quick to critique Kushner's limited, flawed portrayal of God.
God can bring good into your situation, no matter how hard it may seem in the moment. Trust and be assured that He is with you and will bring you to ultimate joy that you can't even begin to imagine.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Let's go to Jennifer now in Auburn, Indiana. Good morning, Jennifer. If God is all-powerful, and if he's |
| 0:06.9 | perfect, why is there still, for salvation to happen, there has to be free will of humans, and |
| 0:14.3 | humans are still free to hurt each other and have all the suffering, and I don't't know I'm just trying to make sense of it |
| 0:22.3 | all no it's a good question in which you're raising is what's known as the problem of evil |
| 0:27.6 | if god exists and he is in fact all powerful and all loving then how can evil exist because it |
| 0:34.3 | would seem that because evil exists that either either God is not all-powerful, |
| 0:39.9 | meaning that he can't stop evil, or he's not all loving because he won't stop evil, |
| 0:45.2 | or some would say he doesn't exist at all because evil exists. |
| 0:49.6 | So this is the age-old problem of evil. |
| 0:52.1 | And ultimately, the answer ties in with what you alluded to, and that |
| 0:55.5 | is free will. So evil as such is caused by angelic and human free will choices to choose against |
| 1:02.6 | God's plan for our happiness. And as you know from experience, I certainly know from experience, |
| 1:08.2 | whenever you choose something against God's plan for your life, |
| 1:12.7 | something that he says, you know, do this, you'll be happy. Don't do that. You won't be happy. |
| 1:18.1 | When we choose against God's will, inevitably, we, like throwing a pebble into a pond, we send out ripples. |
| 1:26.8 | And the ripple effect can harm other people who are |
| 1:30.9 | entirely innocent. So take a drunk driver who crashes into a bunch of people and kills them. |
| 1:37.3 | They were minding their own business. They weren't doing anything wrong. It was that person, |
| 1:40.9 | the drunk driver's free will choice to do something wrong that caused evil |
| 1:46.3 | in the lives of these other people, and the suffering and pain for the people who survive, |
| 1:50.1 | etc. |
| 1:51.5 | So it's, in a way, kind of a rather complicated topic if we're going to take all these different |
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