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iQuestions Faculty, June Hunt 
 
 
Question: 
 
How can a good God, a God of love, allow people to do such evil 
things?  
 
Answer: 
 
One of the major questions in life is, “Why do bad things happen to 
good people?” Phrased another way, “How could a God of love allow 
such bad things? How could a God of love allow evil?” There is an 
answer. Victims of abuse, and those who have been severely hurt by 
others, have difficulty with this; I am one of those. Before I was a 
Christian, and after I became a Christian, I thought, “How could God, 
Who’s supposed to be a God of love, allow my father to hurt my family 
so much?” I really struggled with this.  By the way, there’s something 
called theodicy, an approach that seeks to deal with the question, 
“How could a good God allow evil?” 
 
One of the issues is, “Well, God’s just not powerful. Yes, He’s good, 
but because He’s not powerful there’s evil.” Another thing you could 
say is, “Well, He’s not good. He may be all-powerful, but He’s not 
good. He’s a cosmic demon.” And, so this would explain it.  
 
But, what if He’s all good and all-powerful, and yet evil exists in the 
world? We need to be able to answer this question logically. Since God 
is all-powerful, could He have made a world where everyone does 
exactly what He wants them to do? Where He preprograms them to do 
so? The answer is, yes, an all-powerful God could do that.  God 
created a world with human beings. He only gave them one 
requirement of what not to do, but notice, He also gave them the 
ability to choose. They could choose His perfect will, or they could 
 
 
choose their own way, against God’s will—and they chose wrongly.  
So, why would a God of love allow evil and suffering? 
 
Well, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have, “God would never 
allow anything negative to happen.” If that were the case, then we 
don’t have free will. Or, He gave us free will—which He did do—and 
that means we’re not puppets, we’re not marionettes, we’re not 
robots. The good part is, in spite of the pain that we incur from others, 
in spite of being victimized by others, that’s not the end of the story. 
He lets us know that “all things work together for good to those who 
love Him, and who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 
8:28) 
 
God doesn’t waste our sorrows. He doesn’t waste the pain we have 
when someone has done something evil to us. He will use it for our 
good at times, and the good of others. He gives us a ministry of 
compassion, so that we can really identify with the hearts of others. 
Your heartaches and trials will never be wasted, when put in the hands 
of God. 
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