The Problem of Evil

There is a very interesting BYU devotional talk entitled “Joseph Smith and the problem of evil” by David Paulsen that I listed to recently.  The “problem of evil” that he referred to is the oft-debated question of how evil can exist if there is really an all-powerful and perfectly loving God.  The traditional Christian view is that God created all things ex nihilo or out of nothing.  Brother Paulsen pointed out that this view makes it very difficult for Christians to resolve the problem of evil.  

For if God created everything out of nothing and has all knowledge and all power, then He must have had perfect foresight as to what would become of those creations.  Therefore if His creations chose to do evil, He would be “an accessory before the fact and ultimately responsible for every moral and nonmoral defect in the universe.”  And with all power and all love, God should be able to stop all suffering and all evil.  But the teachings of Joseph Smith and the Restoration give us a different view of the creation and the attributes of God.  He said this, “The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and reorganized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 350–52).  In other words, as Abraham 4 tells us, “the Gods organized the earth” but the earth was not created out of nothing.  This extends as well to us who were, according to D&C 93:29, “in the beginning with God.  Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.”  So again with our “creation” by God it was really an organizing event and not a creation out of nothing.  While it seems at first a subtle difference, the idea that God only organized us into spirit beings and then into bodies changes everything in terms of what He is responsible for.  If God only enabled our progression but did not create the core of who we are, then He is not responsible for evil choices made by us just because He helped in our obtaining spiritual and physical bodies.  The other teaching from Joseph that is different from mainstream Christianity and which helps further to resolve this problem of evil relates to the assumption of God’s omnipotence.  Simple reasoning would state that if God is omnipotent then He can stop all of the evil, hardship, and suffering in the world and He should since He loves us.  But the Book of Mormon teaches that there are in fact things that God cannot do.  Alma put it this way to his son Corianton, “Do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice?  I say unto you, Nay; not one whit.  If so, God would cease to be God” (Alma 42:25).  In other words, God cannot violate laws of existence that are apparently coeternal with Him.  So to the question, “Can God do anything?”  the answer is no.  God can only do those things that are in line with eternal principles.  Both of these truths found in the Restoration help us to understand that a belief in God is indeed compatible with a fallen, wicked world.