It's not an easy subject when we deal with the fact that we see suffering all through the world constantly. As Christians we believe God is capable of preventing evil, and God wants to rid the universe of evil. Right?
After all, we know God is just (Deuteronomy 32:4), and we know by His sovereignty He can do anything He wishes (Daniel 4:17-25).
Then why does God allow evil? If He has the power to prevent evil, and wants to prevent evil, why doesn't He do it?
As we dig deeper into this subject let's realize that we are talking about the ways and workings of God, not another human. This is God-thinking, not human-thinking, and at that point it immediately puts rationality into another plane.
Let me explain.
Let's put down some of the reasons that humans might suggest as alternatives:
1) God should have created the race of people that so that they could not sin. Realize, though, that free will just went out the window; people then become “programmed” and robotic - only able to do right. God could have created Adam and Eve with no response but only good, but then the relationship wold be wooden and unfeeling; there is no choice in the matter. In their innocence - in an incredibly positive environment, no less - they were given the ability to choose good or evil. This made it a special decision to react to to His love and rely on Him ... or go in the other direction... which they did.
And so do we. We make our decisions (not necessarily the consequences) and often the decision is selfish. However, the joy I see whenever a person comes to me and has decided to follow Christ is priceless. They've made a choice to embrace Him and He is responding in love to their decision. There is nothing robotic about it.
So, God forcing us to do good, or forcing us to love Him doesn't make sense.
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