Why is it that we are most tempted to doubt that God exists whenever evil comes into our own lives or in other’s lives? I cannot help but think that one reason we are most tempted to doubt that God exists whenever we see evil in the world is due, somehow, to our misconception as to who God is. Whenever evil comes we tend to doubt the character of God and that, in turn, can make us doubt the existence of God. So, our doubt about God’s existence is tied to the fact that we think, “There’s no way that God would do or allow THAT evil event to happen!” Or our doubts could be fueled to think that God, “Doesn’t work THAT way!” We would, then, be tempted to question God’s existence because we assume that God only works in the world a particular way, and that way, which involves evil, is not the way He works. But what if our thoughts about God’s character are mistaken? What if we are mistaken about the way God works in the world? One part of the answer here is to discover from where we are getting our information about God. What, or who, is fueling what we believe about God and who He is and how He works in the world? It very well could be that we are completely mistaken as to who God is and how He works in the world and, therefore, our doubts about Him are profoundly misplaced. So, before we doubt God’s existence because of the evil we see in the world (or because of the evil we see happening to us in our individual lives), we must first ask this question, “Are there false assumptions I am believing about God that are, unnecessarily, causing me to doubt His existence?”
Since my aim is to help Christians who are doubting, I want to affirm, for Christians, that our source of accurate information about God must come from the Bible alone. If a Christian claims to be a Christian, then he/she should be allowing the Bible to dictate what he/she believes about God. So, for the Christian who begins to doubt God’s existence, I’d want to ask, “Tell me what you believe about God that is now in doubt as a result of experiencing/seeing evil in the world?” I am certain that, as this Christian describes to me what God is like, that he/she will begin to spout off ideas about God that are as far from the Bible as the east is from the west. So, going through evil can be good because it will refine what we believe about God and can help to discard those thoughts about God that are foreign to the Bible.