Familiar questions arise when acts of horror are committed by man.  We have seen medical professionals joke with each other as they dismember a living baby while still in his mother's womb, what should be the safest place he will ever know.  We have ultrasound footage of those babies frantically trying to escape the implements that are hurting them, having no way of understanding what is happening to them or why.  We see cold-blooded murder.  In communist regimes, we see the degradation, inhuman treatment, and even the killing of those they claim to serve.  We see attempts at genocide.  We witnessed the Holocaust.  We frequently see acts of terrorism which, by definition, are committed against those who have nothing to do with the fight.  We see these occurrences and we ask how a human could be capable of such evil.  We ask how God could allow such evil.  The answers, as always, are found in the Bible. 

I will not try to oversimplify things, or to pretend that the answers will in any way diminish the reality of the suffering.  However, the knowledge of the truth can free us from the agony of the cognitive dissonance brought on by the senselessness and needlessness of such tragedies.  And we should begin with a reading of Psalm 46, which teaches us to remember that we are God's people, and He is our hope, our "very present help in trouble,"  and our promise.  He reminds us that He will bring all strife to an end, and that He will help us "just at the break of dawn."  He reminds us that, even though everything we know may be shaken, we need not fear.  He calls to us, saying:  "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"  Verse 10 is more than a proclamation of God's glory.  It is meant to remind us that He will call all creation to account, and that He alone is God.  With that understanding, we can bring our questions, the heartbreak, and grief before Him.

Many are asking how a human can commit such inhuman acts.  Do not misunderstand, those acts that we call "inhuman" are human, very human.  Human nature is utterly evil.  Absent the intervention of God, evil is all we would know.  Psalm 14:1 teaches that we are all corrupt, "there is none who does good."  Jeremiah 17:9 goes so far as to say that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"  The natural condition of man is pure evil, which we see playing itself out in those who reject the reversal of human nature brought about by our acceptance of God's law of love.  Romans 8 teaches this principle, specifically verse 13 which teaches us to be "putting to death the deeds of the body," by the Holy Spirit, so that we will live.  Even many notable and staunch atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, acknowledge that the standard of civil behavior is rooted in Christianity.  

Many ask how God, who is absolutely good, could allow such evil acts to be carried out.  There are aspects to that question that I do not claim to have answers to yet, but what I do know is that "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).  Paul, the very man to whom God gave the message of Romans 8:13, was one of those who committed horrors against his fellow man.  God spared him because He was allowing Paul time to repent, which he did.  We must be careful to remember that God does not tempt us to sin (James 1:13-15).  Sin is our natural inclination when left to ourselves, and many do insist upon being left to themselves, in spite of the call of His mercy.  When we ban the teaching of the Word of the Lord from all public discourse, and we insist upon teaching children that we are all just an accidental combination of chemicals, the most ruthless of which survive, what else can we expect, but the evil that we see around us?  We have worked hard to eliminate God from our lives, and turned around and blamed Him when things went wrong.

To ask why is to fail to see the full picture.  We should be asking "Why not?"  Why is evil not all we ever experience?  Why do we even know goodness?  We know goodness because the Lord has revealed Himself to us.  His love for us, His divine nature, sent to walk among us in Jesus, and now through His Holy Spirit, alive and at work in His church, is the reversal of the curse that we have invoked upon ourselves.  And before evil ever conceived or moved, He is.  After all of the evil has been called to account, and these heavens and this Earth and the time that both are bound to is over, He is.