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Why Does God Allow Evil?: Compelling Answers for Life’s Toughest Questions
Grasping this truth will change your view of God forever.
If God is good and all-powerful, why doesn't He put a stop to the evil in this world? Christians and non-Christians alike struggle with the concept of a loving God who allows widespread suffering in this life and never-ending punishment in hell. We wrestle with questions such as....
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why should we have to pay for Adam's sin? How can eternal judgment be fair? But what if the real problem doesn't start with God...but with us?
Clay Jones, an associate professor of Christian apologetics at Biola University, examines what Scripture truly says about the nature of evil and why God allows it. Along the way, he'll help you discover the contrasting abundance of God's grace, the overwhelming joy of heaven, and the extraordinary destiny of believers.
If God is good and all-powerful, why doesn't He put a stop to the evil in this world? Christians and non-Christians alike struggle with the concept of a loving God who allows widespread suffering in this life and never-ending punishment in hell. We wrestle with questions such as....
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why should we have to pay for Adam's sin? How can eternal judgment be fair? But what if the real problem doesn't start with God...but with us?
Clay Jones, an associate professor of Christian apologetics at Biola University, examines what Scripture truly says about the nature of evil and why God allows it. Along the way, he'll help you discover the contrasting abundance of God's grace, the overwhelming joy of heaven, and the extraordinary destiny of believers.
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Published June 23, 2022
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Clay Jones
10 books31 followersLibrarian Note: This profile contains more than one author. Those listed below have multiple books listed on GoodReads.
Clay Jones (2 spaces): political cartoonist
Clay Jones (3 spaces): gardening
Clay Jones (2 spaces): political cartoonist
Clay Jones (3 spaces): gardening
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February 17, 2026
A COMPREHENSIVE CASE FOR WHY GOD ALLOWS EVIL, ETC.
Clay Jones was a professor of apologetics at the Talbot School of Theology (of Biola University) for 16 years; he was also the executive director of the Simon Greenleaf University (Now Trinity Law School). He was also the chairman of Ratio Christi, an apologetics ministry. He has also been an apologetics radio talk show host, and staff member of two different churches.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2017 book, “In 1994 I started writing a book on the problem of evil, and now, ‘only’ 23 years later, that book has come to fruition… This book is written primarily to explain to reflective Christians some of the most difficult theological concepts regarding evil and to encourage them in God’s grand plan… the principles [are] applicable to skeptics… [but] I present them with the Christian in mind… Our goal is to present a theodicy that is biblically based and coherent. If we succeed in that, the fact that the skeptic doesn’t like our answer is irrelevant. We are not trying to defend a god that the skeptic would worship… We are explaining what the Bible says about the Lord’s reasons for allowing evil.” (Pg. 11-12)
He explains, “in 1981 I became a young associate pastor at a large church. It was then that I began to glimpse the glory of what it means to be a Christian now, and the glory that awaits the Christian forever. To say this changed my life is an understatement…. I examined the depraved nature into which we were all born and contrasted that with what God is doing in the Christian now and what he will do for the Christian forever. Seeing God work good in my life THROUGH suffering, understanding the horror of human sin, and reveling in the greatness of our salvation had a strange effect … when it came to hearing people talk about the problem of evil---I just didn’t see the problem.” (Pg. 16) He adds, “What I seek to do, then, is … illlustrate… the horrors of evil, the glories of heaven, and the glories of Him who reigns over all things.” (Pg. 18)
He notes, “some people attempt to solve the problem of evil by making God less than all-powerful… Rabbi Harold Kushner takes this tack in his book ‘When Bad Things Happen to Good People.’ … Another way people try to solve the problem… is offered by Gregory A. Boyd in his book ‘Satan and the Problem of Evil’… Boyd is an open theist, and open theists hold that God doesn’t know the future decisions of free beings.. Frankly, I really like Boyd’s work, except that I … believe … Scripture reveals that God does, in fact, know the future decisions of free beings…. Another way… [is to] change the definition of ‘good’… This was the tack taken by … Gordon H. Clark, who wrote... ‘God causing a man to sin is not sin… God is not responsible for the sin he causes because … no greater being can hold him accountable…' But what, then, does it mean for us to call God ‘good’?… another [approach is to] Ignore Scripture that contradicts what you want to believe… [And thus] John Hick … embraces universalism…” (Pg. 26-27)
He argues, “when Adam sinned, God cursed the ground, thus enabling all kinds of pestilence… Several explanations about how we relate to Adam have merit. First, Adam is our federal, or representative, head… Second, we all have a realistic, or seminal, union with Adam, so we really were ‘present in Adam when Adam sinned.’ … Third… there is a more compelling answer to why we suffer for Adam and Eve’s sin: They are our first parents… and we are them… once Adam and Eve sinned… they could only reproduce their own fallenness. They couldn’t reproduce something better than themselves. We got our souls from Adam and Eve… This concept… is called ‘traducianism.’” (Pg. 36-39) He summarizes, “if these facts are still horrible to you… [then] Hate sin!… it should lead you to trust in… Jesus, who alone is able to save you from your sin.” (Pg. 46)
He asks, “if we had been born in a.. different time, could we have been a guard in Auschwitz?… for those who answer no… I would ask them on what … basis could they possibly conclude that they were somehow born innately better than the millions… who committed these atrocities or… condoned those who committed them… we were all born Auschwitz-enabled.” (Pg. 62)
He observes, “Many people bring up specific examples of ‘good’ humans… [But] doing a good deed---or even a lot of good deeds---doesn’t make someone a good person… I’m often asked about heroic acts that appear to be examples of human goodness, but… doing… even many good acts doesn’t make one a good person. It just makes one the doer of some good acts. But… Ernest Becker, in… ‘The Denial of Death’… writes that a fellow who may ‘throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades’ … is ‘a screaming for glory as uncritical and reflexive as the howling of a dog.’” (Pg. 68-69)
He states, “people object that it isn’t fair that we should all be born with an Auschwitz-enabled sinfulness. But remember that we don’t have to stay that way!… We can be born again into a new family through the death of Jesus…” (Pg. 77) He adds, “skeptics have another objection… 'what about those who, through no fault of their own, have never heard the news that saves?' We’ll examine that next.” (Pg. 77)
He asserts, “When I hear people complain about others not hearing the gospel, I think: The gospel message IS getting out, but many cultures are killing the messengers.” (Pg. 83) Later, he adds, “John Feinberg in… ‘The Many Faces of Evil’ writes, ‘everyone has enough revelation to know that there is a God… and a sense of right and wrong… Those who don’t get … the gospel… fail to get it because they reject the truth they have and don’t seek further truth about God.’ ...[U]nless one realizes that all people are profoundly sinful… it is almost impossible to convince them that God isn’t being unfair to the lost unless everyone hears the gospel.” (Pg. 88-89)
He also acknowledges, “It’s true that no scripture unambiguously guarantees that children will be saved, but it they are, God would have good reason for not unambiguously making that clear, for then abortion and infanticide would guarantee a child’s salvation!… In sum, God will make sure that those who would repent will have the opportunity. Therefore, no one will go to hell … because they didn’t hear the gospel.” (Pg. 91)
He recalls a conversation he had with an unbeliever about hell, and he said, “now we were only disagreeing about how much pain there might be, not whether some sort of forever punishment might be fitting for the eternally unrepentant… What could be more fitting than eternally punishing the eternally unrepentant? Although this isn’t indisputably taught in Scripture, it is compatible with all we know about the wicked and hell’s occupants.” (Pg. 99) Of the rich man in Luke 16, he asserts, “The rich man expressed not the slightest remorse… for the way he treated Lazarus… the rich man’s suggestion that his brothers needed to be warned betrays a lack of repentance because it implies that he ended up in hell because God didn’t provide him with sufficient warning.” (Pg. 100)
More controversially, he argues, “Could any enjoy heaven knowing that their loved ones are [in hell]? But when our loved ones’ rejection of God is plain… no Christian will wish they could spend eternity with such a person…” (Pg. 103) He continues, “would we consider God more loving or more just if fewer went to hell? I suspect not. When would we be satisfied? Would … .millions fewer do it? Let’s face it: If we think hell unfair, then no one should go there. Not even one… On the other hand, if hell is the fair destiny of rebellious people, why argue that fewer should go there?” (Pg. 106)
He explains, “I hold to incompatibilist freedom for several reasons. First, I don’t think that never being able to do other than you do is ‘free’ just because God made you want to do what you did. In other words, I’m … [a] libertarian… the statement ‘You could never do other than you do’ in INCOMPATIBLE with the statement ‘You have free will… The ‘philosophical’ arguments, pro and con… are too complicated to develop here.” (Pg. 128)
He contends, “if God constantly worked through providences, then He would still have to interfere constantly with free will… How wold God providentially keep all children everywhere … from the fatal occurrences that might afflict other family members?… He couldn’t do ALL these things unless he were to make His existence unmistakably apparent to even the most hardened skeptic.” (Pg. 142)
He notes the objection, “If God would keep evil from happening for all eternity by changing our natures … it’s difficult to explain why God couldn’t keep evil from happening now… I suggest seven reasons that we will be able to have free will in heaven yet not sin. 1. This world will cease… 2. There will be no more flesh… 3. The Devil … and rebellious humans can’t tempt us… 4. Hell will be an eternal reminder… 5. Here we learn the folly of rebellion… 6. The Judgment will further educate us... 7. We will live by sight… it would be logically possible, but the saints will never choose to sin.” (Pg. 146-156)
This book (which deals quite frankly with more objections than a lot of other apologetics books do, even though his answers may not exactly be ‘compelling’ to some, or to many) will be of great interest to those studying Christian apologetics.
Clay Jones was a professor of apologetics at the Talbot School of Theology (of Biola University) for 16 years; he was also the executive director of the Simon Greenleaf University (Now Trinity Law School). He was also the chairman of Ratio Christi, an apologetics ministry. He has also been an apologetics radio talk show host, and staff member of two different churches.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2017 book, “In 1994 I started writing a book on the problem of evil, and now, ‘only’ 23 years later, that book has come to fruition… This book is written primarily to explain to reflective Christians some of the most difficult theological concepts regarding evil and to encourage them in God’s grand plan… the principles [are] applicable to skeptics… [but] I present them with the Christian in mind… Our goal is to present a theodicy that is biblically based and coherent. If we succeed in that, the fact that the skeptic doesn’t like our answer is irrelevant. We are not trying to defend a god that the skeptic would worship… We are explaining what the Bible says about the Lord’s reasons for allowing evil.” (Pg. 11-12)
He explains, “in 1981 I became a young associate pastor at a large church. It was then that I began to glimpse the glory of what it means to be a Christian now, and the glory that awaits the Christian forever. To say this changed my life is an understatement…. I examined the depraved nature into which we were all born and contrasted that with what God is doing in the Christian now and what he will do for the Christian forever. Seeing God work good in my life THROUGH suffering, understanding the horror of human sin, and reveling in the greatness of our salvation had a strange effect … when it came to hearing people talk about the problem of evil---I just didn’t see the problem.” (Pg. 16) He adds, “What I seek to do, then, is … illlustrate… the horrors of evil, the glories of heaven, and the glories of Him who reigns over all things.” (Pg. 18)
He notes, “some people attempt to solve the problem of evil by making God less than all-powerful… Rabbi Harold Kushner takes this tack in his book ‘When Bad Things Happen to Good People.’ … Another way people try to solve the problem… is offered by Gregory A. Boyd in his book ‘Satan and the Problem of Evil’… Boyd is an open theist, and open theists hold that God doesn’t know the future decisions of free beings.. Frankly, I really like Boyd’s work, except that I … believe … Scripture reveals that God does, in fact, know the future decisions of free beings…. Another way… [is to] change the definition of ‘good’… This was the tack taken by … Gordon H. Clark, who wrote... ‘God causing a man to sin is not sin… God is not responsible for the sin he causes because … no greater being can hold him accountable…' But what, then, does it mean for us to call God ‘good’?… another [approach is to] Ignore Scripture that contradicts what you want to believe… [And thus] John Hick … embraces universalism…” (Pg. 26-27)
He argues, “when Adam sinned, God cursed the ground, thus enabling all kinds of pestilence… Several explanations about how we relate to Adam have merit. First, Adam is our federal, or representative, head… Second, we all have a realistic, or seminal, union with Adam, so we really were ‘present in Adam when Adam sinned.’ … Third… there is a more compelling answer to why we suffer for Adam and Eve’s sin: They are our first parents… and we are them… once Adam and Eve sinned… they could only reproduce their own fallenness. They couldn’t reproduce something better than themselves. We got our souls from Adam and Eve… This concept… is called ‘traducianism.’” (Pg. 36-39) He summarizes, “if these facts are still horrible to you… [then] Hate sin!… it should lead you to trust in… Jesus, who alone is able to save you from your sin.” (Pg. 46)
He asks, “if we had been born in a.. different time, could we have been a guard in Auschwitz?… for those who answer no… I would ask them on what … basis could they possibly conclude that they were somehow born innately better than the millions… who committed these atrocities or… condoned those who committed them… we were all born Auschwitz-enabled.” (Pg. 62)
He observes, “Many people bring up specific examples of ‘good’ humans… [But] doing a good deed---or even a lot of good deeds---doesn’t make someone a good person… I’m often asked about heroic acts that appear to be examples of human goodness, but… doing… even many good acts doesn’t make one a good person. It just makes one the doer of some good acts. But… Ernest Becker, in… ‘The Denial of Death’… writes that a fellow who may ‘throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades’ … is ‘a screaming for glory as uncritical and reflexive as the howling of a dog.’” (Pg. 68-69)
He states, “people object that it isn’t fair that we should all be born with an Auschwitz-enabled sinfulness. But remember that we don’t have to stay that way!… We can be born again into a new family through the death of Jesus…” (Pg. 77) He adds, “skeptics have another objection… 'what about those who, through no fault of their own, have never heard the news that saves?' We’ll examine that next.” (Pg. 77)
He asserts, “When I hear people complain about others not hearing the gospel, I think: The gospel message IS getting out, but many cultures are killing the messengers.” (Pg. 83) Later, he adds, “John Feinberg in… ‘The Many Faces of Evil’ writes, ‘everyone has enough revelation to know that there is a God… and a sense of right and wrong… Those who don’t get … the gospel… fail to get it because they reject the truth they have and don’t seek further truth about God.’ ...[U]nless one realizes that all people are profoundly sinful… it is almost impossible to convince them that God isn’t being unfair to the lost unless everyone hears the gospel.” (Pg. 88-89)
He also acknowledges, “It’s true that no scripture unambiguously guarantees that children will be saved, but it they are, God would have good reason for not unambiguously making that clear, for then abortion and infanticide would guarantee a child’s salvation!… In sum, God will make sure that those who would repent will have the opportunity. Therefore, no one will go to hell … because they didn’t hear the gospel.” (Pg. 91)
He recalls a conversation he had with an unbeliever about hell, and he said, “now we were only disagreeing about how much pain there might be, not whether some sort of forever punishment might be fitting for the eternally unrepentant… What could be more fitting than eternally punishing the eternally unrepentant? Although this isn’t indisputably taught in Scripture, it is compatible with all we know about the wicked and hell’s occupants.” (Pg. 99) Of the rich man in Luke 16, he asserts, “The rich man expressed not the slightest remorse… for the way he treated Lazarus… the rich man’s suggestion that his brothers needed to be warned betrays a lack of repentance because it implies that he ended up in hell because God didn’t provide him with sufficient warning.” (Pg. 100)
More controversially, he argues, “Could any enjoy heaven knowing that their loved ones are [in hell]? But when our loved ones’ rejection of God is plain… no Christian will wish they could spend eternity with such a person…” (Pg. 103) He continues, “would we consider God more loving or more just if fewer went to hell? I suspect not. When would we be satisfied? Would … .millions fewer do it? Let’s face it: If we think hell unfair, then no one should go there. Not even one… On the other hand, if hell is the fair destiny of rebellious people, why argue that fewer should go there?” (Pg. 106)
He explains, “I hold to incompatibilist freedom for several reasons. First, I don’t think that never being able to do other than you do is ‘free’ just because God made you want to do what you did. In other words, I’m … [a] libertarian… the statement ‘You could never do other than you do’ in INCOMPATIBLE with the statement ‘You have free will… The ‘philosophical’ arguments, pro and con… are too complicated to develop here.” (Pg. 128)
He contends, “if God constantly worked through providences, then He would still have to interfere constantly with free will… How wold God providentially keep all children everywhere … from the fatal occurrences that might afflict other family members?… He couldn’t do ALL these things unless he were to make His existence unmistakably apparent to even the most hardened skeptic.” (Pg. 142)
He notes the objection, “If God would keep evil from happening for all eternity by changing our natures … it’s difficult to explain why God couldn’t keep evil from happening now… I suggest seven reasons that we will be able to have free will in heaven yet not sin. 1. This world will cease… 2. There will be no more flesh… 3. The Devil … and rebellious humans can’t tempt us… 4. Hell will be an eternal reminder… 5. Here we learn the folly of rebellion… 6. The Judgment will further educate us... 7. We will live by sight… it would be logically possible, but the saints will never choose to sin.” (Pg. 146-156)
This book (which deals quite frankly with more objections than a lot of other apologetics books do, even though his answers may not exactly be ‘compelling’ to some, or to many) will be of great interest to those studying Christian apologetics.
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