In examining the problem of evil, I have noticed a trend (which, by the way, is purely a subjective observation): It seems that the victims of tragedies do not tend to lose belief in God because certain tragedies have befallen them. A few cases-in-point:
Author and speaker Imaculee Ilibagiza, a Hutu woman, who survived the Rwandan genocide in 1994. She witnessed women and children being slaughtered, including her family. She survived by hiding in the bathroom of a pastor’s house with three other women for about 3 months on end. She had every right to abandon belief in God.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who spent decades in a Soviet gulag, chopping wood barefoot in the snow. Despite all that, he never felt bitter towards his captors, and believed in God to his death.
The youth minister I help at one parish sends money every month to a little girl in Mexico. This girl lives in abject poverty, but is always sending happy, uplifting letters back to her.
It seems that if the problem of evil were true, then impoverished villages in Africa and small towns in the Midwest and Deep South that have been leveled by tornadoes would be becoming atheist hand-over-fist. But they’re not. If you want my opinion, the problem of evil is a trump-card used by secular-minded, sophisticated white people who are looking to turn their nose up at the religious people in their own country (the former sees the latter as knaves and plebians, which makes them the butt of their mockery).
There are many victims of tragedies who sincerely believe a loving God wouldn’t allow them to suffer pointlessly. They can see no reason for their misfortunes - and very often there isn’t one…
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