But Deliver Us from Evil

Some people fixate on evil as a reason to doubt God’s existence. A recent conversation on an internet discussion forum came to the conclusion that people don’t really know why evil exists. But, the issue did seem to present a stumbling block. Many people did not want to worship a God who would allow evil in the world. This was a perplexing point of view to me because my own journey toward God began when I recognized that there was evil.

It happened like this: When I was a teenager, it was a common thing among my peers to dabble in the experimentation of substances that were not legal. And, unlike a certain past president of my country, I confess that on occasion, I did indeed inhale. One night I went to a drive-in movie with friends (Blazing Saddles, if you must know). Parts of the movie were really funny. As the story unfolded, I laughed, but it wasn’t actually me laughing. It was something else, a chemical in my brain. I felt the true me shunted to the side as something else took over. It wasn’t scary or threatening, and it wasn’t even making me do something I didn’t want to do. I actively wanted to laugh at the movie, but something else was laughing for me. I was pushed to the back of my own mind. That night, I determined that I would never again surrender the control of my own brain to a chemical.

Perhaps that experience was just a drug-induced oddity that had nothing to do with spirituality, but it started me thinking about all the times I had seen people do things that seemed out of character. A friend act in an unfriendly, hurtful way. A gentle person lash out violently in anger. A seemingly typical young man commit suicide. And I wondered what influence, apparently just as strong as tetrahydrocannabinol, could be pushing their normal selves aside in those painful moments.

But the perplexity of human behavior extended beyond the bounds of my peers. I saw parental actions that defied any logical explanation. Alcoholism. Neglect. Prejudice. The people affected were not ones who would have chosen to be bad parents or harmful role models. I felt that if I interviewed them and asked, “Do you want to be this way?” the answers would have been unanimous. They would have been bewildered and replied, “No. We wanted to be virtuous. How did this happen?”

News headlines from my formative years increased my puzzlement. These things marked my adolescence: War and rumors of war. Kent State. Israeli athletes killed at the Olympics in Munich. Racial unrest. A growing roster of nations able to annihilate global civilization. Nixon was impeached and resigned. The Khmer Rouge, with Pol Pot at the helm, seized Cambodia and ushered in an era of forced labor, genocide, and famine. All of this was wrought on the world by people who probably didn’t start out with nefarious intentions. How did the world come to this?

Evil.

There is a difference between evil and tragic. The scope of what one might consider tragic ranges from the merely unfortunate, to the bad, to the devastatingly disastrous. Sometimes things just don’t work out as hoped. Two examples: An article I wrote was accepted for publication in a magazine, and it went out of business before the article was printed. I didn’t buy gas yesterday, and today the price is ten cents per gallon higher. Disappointing. Frustrating. Annoying. These are minor nuisances.

Yet sometimes terrible things happen. Flood waters destroy lives and property. Earthquakes. Drought. Tornadoes. Catastrophic. Heartbreaking. Grievous. These are sufferings of everyday life in a world where things don’t always go the way I wish they would. When tragic events occur, they demand a response. They require that I learn to serve and cooperate with others to bring help wherever it is needed.

Evil is different. Evil is the thirst to control. The lust for power. The hunger for domination. Manipulation. Oppression. Exploitation.

Evil intention, acting on a global scale, plays out in international politics. Evil infiltrates families, sowing discord and destroying relationships. Evil whispers in ears, creating jealousy, bolstering pride, and planting contempt. Evil laughs on my behalf, suppressing my self-determination.

Evil. I experienced its reality and saw it at work in the world around me. This realization ultimately drove me to consider the possibility of God.

The Christian version of the story made sense to me. God created and then evil vandalized creation. As when an artist creates and someone or something else despoils.

The Genesis account tells that God planted in the Garden of Eden a tree that bestowed knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9–3:7). Good and evil. Apparently, humanity doesn’t get access to one without the other. Eve didn’t choose to select evil. She wanted good. She was deceived into thinking that one could be pilfered without the other.

People ask if the good is worth the evil that comes with it. Why did God plant the tree in the first place? Why did God create the serpent? Couldn’t things have been different?

I wonder if I would be willing to give up all the good if it meant obliterating all the evil. Sometimes I think I would be willing, but God doesn’t offer this choice. For reasons I don’t understand, the good and the evil seem inextricably intertwined.

My recourse is to ask God to deliver me from the evil that exists. To deliver us, all of us. Everyone who is a child of Our Father.

We are God’s hands and feet. God has already conquered evil in eternity, but here where we experience the flow of time, he chooses to use us in the battle. Instead of asking why doesn’t God do something about the evil, I ask God, “What can I do?”