The Existence of Evil means there is no God?

The suffering of a child in this world, for what sin that he/she was punished? If God is all loving and caring, why is there such suffering in this world?

This is a good question, that philosophers have been struggling to answer. But to think about it, the very fact that this question was asked means that the questioners have feelings of empathy, that something was not right. In Islam, that is called fitrah, which cannot happen if we exist into being by fluke or by random distribution of matters.

We tend to view evil from our perspective as human being, and it is more difficult to comprehend the existence of evil in this world without a belief in afterlife. Only in the afterlife that every wrong will be made right. The suffering of a person in this world will be his/her reward in the afterlife.

We also believe in a world without suffering and pain, only that, we call that world 'paradise' or jannah. And we live in this world to combat injustice and spread good, and it is a stepping stone for us. It is arrogant to view this world as 'paradise' when in fact, we are being tested.

Having evil gives us opportunity to connect with God. It is of human nature that when difficulties come, we return to the Creator of this world. It gives us a reminder that this is not the end, that we will never achieve complete peace and satisfaction in this world.

And the fact that this world is a test for us, it can be argued that 'evil' is necessary to sift the good from the bad. A teacher knows which students are better by giving them test.

What is good, without knowing what is evil? How are we going to show compassion to the poor, help the needy if everything in this world is all nice and beautiful? As to the poor and needy person, we believe that they will be rewarded and compensated by God appropriately in the world after.

We believe that there is no pure evil. When an evil happens, the sum of that will be good. Now, we may not know as our view is limited, but we put our trust in God, the All-Knowing that there will be a greater good.

For Muslim, God gives us some glance of how some evil bring about some good, in the Quran through the 3 stories of Musa and Khidr. We believe that when a door is shut, another door opens. Anything that happens is an opportunity for us to be closer to God.

Finally, denying the EXISTENCE of God by blaming the existence of evil is phillosophically flawed. One technically may question the WISDOM of God (why certain things happen the way it is), but not actually His existence. And to God we put our trust that it is in His ultimate wisdom thing happens the way it is.

A note from Dr Yasir Qadhi's lecture.