There is need to look at things that make sense and wonder if they really do, to call out thoughts that are so reasonable, and ask are they not very finite answers to eternal questions. It is an uncomfortable but necessary process, and I am forced to ask if what I want as a new part of belief will fit in a framework that was comfortable. The framework, or the question it supported, is that old enigma: why does evil occur when God is so good?
I had reached an acceptable answer. I was content thinking God neither wished evil, nor could he alter its presence. Having created the world and human condition, he encouraged its being itself in a fullness that includes both evil and good. He is author and sustainer, but that was by and large the limit. Evil, like good, occurs for no particular reason, and even less so for a personal one. What is, is, since nature is capricious. Its laws are less than absolute, allowing no shortage of exceptions. There is no meriting, penalizing, or castigation. We act in ways that are fulfilling of our nature, and God is free to love us and to lament with us when evil occurs. He shares as a parent our losses and grief, not needing to tell us it had to be. Illness or catastrophe simply is. We may wish they would not be and can turn to science in an effort to make them stop, and so perfect another aspect of creation, seeking God's guidance in the process.
The advantage in such a view is there is no blaming of God, no saying his world or his design are in error. It is as it is, as it has to be: a universal plan, an element of which is the notion that humanity, or earthfulness (if such be the term applicable to all that is), is subject to tragedy, which may occur in nature, in people, or in events. This had been a satisfactory scheme, even with a hole in it or two.
It freed God from responsibility for what ought not be, but took from him power to alter evil or bring on good; and it is this that I would now like to include. I want him to have a capacity to intervene, to break in on what ordinarily is. It is asking: can God heal, can he respond to prayer, can he stop evil and in its place effect good? I would like to say he can and that he does, though in the saying there returns the question put to rest by the old formula: why does he do it only sometimes, or only in answer to some prayers? While that old response had flaws, it freed God from what seemed a fickleness. The randomness we assigned to nature now is a personal responsibility, and I felt better when it had not been so. I don't want a selective God, even if his selection is intervening to effect good. It opens too many options, too many questions, but if it is in fact so, what is to be done but accept it?
If good and evil exist, a contradiction not at variance with nature, there should be no contradiction in a rule saying that God can suspend the rule. He can break into our world, turning evil to good, though when and why are beyond understanding. It might be seen as his returning order to the world, the setting of it, even if only for a time, on a course where evil need not win and where the goodness that ought to be actually is. It is, I suppose, a move backward in our wanting to think we can really understand God's ways. I had, in the earlier answer, an advance toward equality, not so much in terms of personality as in our capacity to communicate in a respectful way. We and God were, it seemed, bound by the same rules and might share the same delights and tears, but maybe that is not so. At least not on this issue.
The next part of the question, or maybe the question behind the question, is: if God can end evil, is he responsible for it? Is he, rather than the earthfulness of earth, the reason evil is? By not saying "stop," is he saying the tragedy should be and be compounded?
Perhaps it is not our responsibility to protect his integrity, but it seems that it is at stake. It is the definition of God we wish to complete that is lessened by inclusion of this power. God may be made less loving by becoming more able. Could I say he loved me less if he could have ended my pain but didn't? Would it be less accurate than saying he loved me but let me hurt without reason? We are back to the mystery of the Cross, the enigma of his tolerating suffering that need not have been, but more so. It is not the same as the Cross, not really.
With the Cross, pain and dying were the consequence and expression of belief. They were the price paid in the face of unbelief, and embody a faith ratified in resurrection. Where is ratification of pain not caused by belief, pain not a choice made in the name of what one cannot but believe? Where in the flood or earthquake, in the cancer or deformity of mind or body, is the belief? And where is the resurrection to give it value? Maybe it is nowhere unless we add it to our own. Maybe the task is to believe we suffer not because of belief, but in spite of it; that we are saved or raised not as ratification of faith, but in spite of unbelief. Belief is then not the cause of pain, but what sustains us in it. Like so much, this may fit a world where faith makes sense because reason cannot.
But it falters as we move from generality and look into the face of very specific pain. Why, God, is this main hurting and why is that child to do; why was that village lost and how come bombs fell on this part of town? Salvation is hard enough to find in the presence of goodness and maybe only faith can place it inside what is evil. Maybe there is not equality in this equation - no "if this, then that." No saying if Noah is saved, it is because there was a flood; no questioning the willingness to kill, so long as Isaac is saved. Maybe instead the message is simply salvation. The exception is the rule. God cares, loves, and saves. This is his will and when he acts, when he breaks in, it is for that reason. To save, raise up, and make new. Where then do we put the Cross? Where in a world of resurrection do we put the pain that went before? More important is the question of where to put the suffering intruding into my life. What do I answer myself when I ask about pain and the terrible sadness standing at the edge of so much? It is there and at times more alive than thoughts of God's love, more tangible too than prayer for healing or the faith that causes prayer to be.
Were I to believe more, would the evil go away? And had I believed more in anticipation of this day, would it ever have come? If the lack is in my faith, where then is the lack in Jesus' faith or in the faith of so many whose prayer joins with mine? It is impossible to think we are the cause of our suffering, nor am I anxious to see in the suffering of those about me a payment for what others may have done, but in the end there are more questions than answers. The facts, if facts they are, are those with which we began: God is good and loves us; he grieves in our grief and wishes no evil. Evil does happen and is frightfully real, but it is perhaps salvific in a manner beyond our understanding. God can and does enter in a salvific way and may do so in ways that may save us from pain and sickness, and so he affirms the evil of evil. It is never beyond his will to free us from it.
Can we go beyond where we began, adding reason to faith? Perhaps not, but it is important to try, and sometimes - like now - what I put back together is more askew than the framework with which I began. Not everything fits. Not everything can, despite our wishes or need to know as much as we believe.
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