In the Christian religion you are told that God is all-good and sin and evil is a void, the lack of a good that is not there. So sin and evil are words not for a force but for a failure. They amount to good being abused. This is a scheme to fit the doctrine that God only makes good. This all presupposes that nothing has the slightest say in making itself and it is all down to God.
People seek divine intervention as in miracles. Some want intervention in their own lives. Others want the intervention to have really happened to somebody else such as Jesus so that they can see it as an invitation to faith and a validation of faith. Most want both.
Some argue that divine intervention is the wrong wording for intervention suggests God is not there and has to move and be there. He has to enter into a situation he was not in. I argue that we should clarify that it means not that God is out and coming in but that God is clearly acting and doing something. This however says that we think the world looks like something that runs itself and works like a clock until God does some stunning thing such as raising a dead man to life. It is admitting that no matter how much faith you have there is another side that suspects there is nothing only the universe. This is telling. It is easy to dress up having little or no faith while saying, "There is something inside. Maybe I do believe".
Another problem is how can you say God is good and is the only real power and say that evil pushes him out? That it is a lack of good and therefore God?
How sincere is the lack teaching? It clearly says WE THINK WE ARE DOING WRONG. Thinking it does not mean you are doing it at all. And it gets worse. The real reason why we do "wrong" is because we aim for good and think everybody else despite doing bad things gets on reasonably well after. Many of us do evil and suffer short-term results and then start to rationalise when things get better that it was all worth it. We repent and that can be reversed by nightfall. We forgive in the morning and that can be reversed by noon. The flip flopping happens without us even noticing.
Nobody really relates to the lack teaching. We tend to think of what something will result in. Yet the teaching says morality or immorality are not about the results. An act is just bad or it is good, we are told. The lack teaching is too abstract and nobody really thinks that giving somebody drugs to depress them is "making an absence of happiness". It is degrading and harming them.
If God lets evil and suffering take place though he hates them, this is for good
to come of evil. The good may be just a prevention of some evil. Or it may be
provision of a new good. Or both.
The problem is there is no real connection, no organic relationship. The good
has to be done around and after the evil. It is all aimed from the outside. It
is a response to the evil and does not rise from it.
For that reason whatever evil is, even if it is powerless compared to God it is not powerless in its patch. The powerful sun does not mean that the grain of sand cannot cast a tiny shadow. The shadow is not nothing. It is nothing in comparison to the sun but it is not nothing.
The doctrine that evil is nothing compared to God has no impact on us for it
matters enough to us. Yet that teaching is deceptively put out there as a
deterrent to doing evil. It does the opposite.
If God lets evil happen so that we may learn to soul make, ie become kinder,
more loving, more just and so on, then what if you feel that he wants you to let
harm come to others for that reason or just hurt them? He can delegate his power and authority to
improve the human heart with suffering and pain. Some say we are already doing
that. What do they mean? Well if you are kind to Joan you know that everything
you do for her is good but also bad. Her cakes, her tablets, her trips in
the car - there is a problem side. You are already ready to harm her in the name
of what you think is best.
Religion says that "Our intellect cannot see what God is doing and why he is permitting evil to
happen though he opposes it. This is in general but in any specific
happenstance we cannot see what he is doing either. Maybe we just see a
bit. It depends." Notice that this is denying God the power to use
what you see to teach you about his purpose and what it is. It denies the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So now we have religion trying to protect
its God ideology by denying God. God is not really respected as much by
religion as it wants you to presume. So no surprise there! This is
taking advantage of how we know only a little of anything. It is clearly
about manipulation.
CS
Lewis assumes that nature is irrational so if we are made of atoms and there is
no God then we must be irrational. He thinks we need a rational God to be
rational and need to believe in him to realise we are rational. This is rubbish.
Nature is just nature and if it is not about being rational it is not about
being irrational either. So it might get it right. Change the argument to this.
Dogs need a God who gets sick from eating chocolate. If there is no such
God then dogs do not get sick from eating chocolate.
Lewis links rationality to morality. Actually he has severed that link with his incoherent and incorrect nonsense about God and rationality.
From that we see that trying to make out God and faith help in an evil world
is just wishful thinking.
In conclusion I will say this.
There is evil and there is suffering. If you believe in a good God that may make no sense when evil happens in his care. And if you reject the concept of evil but prefer to talk about opposing suffering then you are in the camp where wrongdoing is really down to mistakes or psychological disorders rather than sin or evil. So now you worry about how suffering can be tolerated by a kindly God.
There may be a straight contradiction. There may be a contradiction between God and evil. Even if there is not there might still be one between God and suffering.
Russell argued that God might see good in tolerating evil or even letting it run riot so he said that though God was extremely unlikely no logical contradiction could be identified.
Suffering is on a scale. It is the experience of a worthless existence. It is not like pain where pain warns. This is out to dehumanise you. How can we talk about a scale when you either think your existence is useless or you do not? Yes but experience-wise the suffering is deeper and more ingrained for some. The depth differs but the lack of meaning is the same. So it is possible in theory for somebody's suffering not to disprove God while somebody else's does. X's suffering may describe a category and we may call it suffering 1. Y's may describe another and we may call it suffering 2. We are not saying the volume of agony gives a logical disproof of God. We are saying that a kind of agony may give a logical disproof of God.
You need experience to define evil and suffering for you. Not theory. For that reason, there are individuals who may know what evil and suffering means in a way that disproves God.
If you deny a logical contradiction between God and evil you should still affirm that there are indications such a disproof of God MAY exist. So keep searching and don't let anybody say, "There is certainly no necessary contradiction between a good God and his letting evil happen." Don't let anybody say, "A God letting evil happen does not mean he is a God who does evil as well so let us trust him." Letting evil happen can be done out of an evil malignant motive. So that is inconclusive. A person has only the right to suggest trust not require it or encourage it.