Why Must Humanity Experience Life Without God?

The Problem of Evil May Be Part of the Answer

A.E. Knoch made a profound statement in the preface to The Problem of Evil:

“All of mankind must learn to realize what God is to them by an actual experience of what it means to be without Him. Then they will be able to give Him the unforced outflow of their hearts. Then they will appreciate it when His judgments permanently right all wrongs and eliminate all evil, through the suffering sacrifice He has provided.”

End comment.

Think deeply about what Knoch is saying.

What if humanity’s experience of evil is not evidence that God’s plan has failed?

What if it is part of the very process through which creation will eventually understand God?

What if God allows humanity to experience darkness so that humanity can finally comprehend light?

What if death teaches the value of life?

What if hatred teaches the value of love?

What if loneliness teaches the value of fellowship?

What if suffering teaches the value of peace?

And what if God’s apparent absence teaches creation what it actually means to have God become all in all?

That completely changes the problem of evil.

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How Can Humanity Appreciate God Without Knowing His Opposite?

People frequently ask:

Why would a loving God allow suffering?

It is one of the greatest questions humanity has ever asked.

Why cancer?

Why war?

Why betrayal?

Why poverty?

Why depression?

Why children suffering?

Why broken families?

Why natural disasters?

Why death?

Religion frequently responds by blaming humanity.

God wanted everything perfect, the argument goes, but humanity’s free will ruined God’s plan.

Now God is desperately trying to rescue whoever will allow Him.

But that explanation creates an even larger problem.

If God knew everything before creation, then He knew exactly what would happen.

If God created humanity knowing billions would suffer, then suffering cannot simply be an unexpected accident that entered His universe.

Scripture presents God as far greater than that.

Paul says God:

“worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.”

Ephesians 1:11

Not some things.

All things.

That means history is going somewhere.

Even the darkness has a destination.

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Humanity Is Learning Something It Could Never Learn From a Definition

Imagine trying to explain warmth to someone who had never experienced cold.

You could define warmth.

You could write books about warmth.

You could explain the molecular movement involved.

But put that person outside during a freezing winter night and then bring him into a warm house.

Suddenly warmth means something.

It has been experienced through contrast.

The same principle appears throughout human life.

A person often appreciates health differently after being sick.

Food means something different after hunger.

Rest means something different after exhaustion.

Peace means something different after conflict.

Reconciliation means something different after estrangement.

Home means something different after being lost.

Life means something different after confronting death.

Perhaps humanity could never fully understand what God is without experiencing what existence appears to be like without Him.

That is the power of Knoch’s statement.

Humanity is not merely being told what God is.

Humanity is experiencing the contrast.

We Experience the Depths So We Can Understand the Heights

Perhaps this is ultimately why humanity must experience evil so deeply.

Scripture speaks of “the depths of Satan” in Revelation 2:24. Human history has certainly revealed just how deep darkness can go. War, murder, hatred, disease, betrayal, cruelty, suffering, corruption, and death show humanity what existence becomes when evil is allowed to run its course.

We look at some of the horrors of this world and ask, “How could God possibly allow this?”

But perhaps the answer cannot be completely understood until the story is finished.

Humanity is experiencing the depths before experiencing the heights.

We learn what hatred is so that we can understand love.

We experience injustice so that we can appreciate perfect righteousness.

We experience weakness so that we can understand power.

We experience loneliness so that we can appreciate perfect fellowship.

We experience corruption so that we can understand incorruption.

We experience death so that we can understand immortality.

And we experience what appears to be God’s absence so that one day we can understand the unimaginable fullness of God being all in all.

The depths are terrible precisely because they reveal what God ultimately intends to remove.

This does not make evil good. Satan is not good. Suffering is not good. Death is not good. Scripture calls death an enemy. But an all-powerful God can use an enemy temporarily and then destroy it permanently when its purpose has been fulfilled.

Humanity could be told that God is good, but experiencing evil teaches what goodness means by contrast.

Humanity could be told that God is love, but experiencing hatred teaches the value of love.

Humanity could be told that God is life, but experiencing death reveals how utterly dependent creation is upon Him for existence itself.

This may help explain why the horrors of this world are sometimes almost beyond comprehension. Humanity is not receiving a shallow education in evil. Creation is learning just how far existence can descend when confronted with everything that is contrary to God’s ultimate purpose.

But the depths of Satan are not the destination.

The height of God is.

Imagine resurrection after having known death.

Imagine perfect love after having known hatred.

Imagine incorruption after watching bodies decay.

Imagine perfect justice after witnessing centuries of injustice.

Imagine peace after humanity has exhausted itself through war.

Imagine God filling every creature after humanity has spent its entire history wondering why He seemed so far away.

Only then will the contrast be complete.

And perhaps only then will humanity understand why God permitted creation to travel through such darkness before bringing it permanently into light.

Paul tells us where everything is heading:

“That God may be all in all.”
—1 Corinthians 15:28

That is the destination.

Not Satan all in some.

Not evil existing alongside God forever.

Not death preserved somewhere eternally.

Not billions of God’s creatures permanently separated from Him.

God all in all.

The depths of evil will have been experienced.

Judgment will have corrected what was wrong.

Christ will have reconciled what was estranged.

Death will have been abolished.

And evil will have exhausted its purpose and disappeared.

Then humanity will possess something it could never have possessed at the beginning: the knowledge of God through contrast and experience.

Creation will know what darkness was because it lived through it.

Creation will know what death was because it experienced mortality.

Creation will know what God’s apparent absence felt like because it endured it.

And when God finally becomes all in all, humanity will understand the difference.

The creature will not merely know that God is good.

It will know how good.

It will not merely know that God is life.

It will understand what life means because it knew death.

It will not merely know that God is everything.

It will understand what having everything means because it experienced what seemed like having Him absent.

Perhaps that is when the suffering sacrifice of Christ, the judgments of God, the temporary reign of evil, and the long painful history of humanity will finally be understood from the perspective of the finished story.

We have experienced the depths.

So that one day, when God is all in all, creation can finally comprehend the heights.