This essay is an answer to the following comment:
"Don't talk to me about God; the reality of the Holocaust during WWII is enough to show me that He does not exist."The horror of the Holocaust of WWII, the terror attack of 9/11 are heart wrenching, large scale examples of human free will used for an evil purpose. The nightmare of rape, the tragedy of a child's death brought on by her own parent are mind boggling examples of what human beings can do to one another right in our own neighborhoods. Truly, our justice system can't provide us with enough solace or peace to cope with these events. No punishment really fits the crime for the murder of over six-million people or the murder of one child. Human justice doesn't give us any meaning or purpose to these events. God however, provides us with the best coping mechanism in the world. When human beings look beyond one another and look to God, they are provided with peace and can learn to forgive.
It seems that God allows for these kinds of evils in our lives. He does not cruelly inflict it upon us, but He has permitted the possibility of tragedy to occur in our lives. Perhaps it's for the purpose of the growth of our own souls, so that we human beings would learn anguish, heartbreak and sorrow brought on by human evil. Perhaps it's to inspire us to take action to prevent or even cure these social evils. One thing is certain, we are changed after personal experience with tragedy.
God, being omniscient and all powerful and good, could create our world so that it's a blissful, happy place where everybody lives a safe life in gentle peace and harmony. If He did that, we would have no free will. Human beings have free will to do evil, we also have the free will to do good. The choice is ours. That's how God planned our social system.
In planning our social system our Creator also gave some basic instructions for living happily with one another which would lead to a good and kind world. He gave us the Ten Commandments and His words, through Jesus, to love one another. When on of these very simple rules is broken it opens the door for a great deal of evil to overtake us. The senseless atrocities committed in prison camps and among terrorists won't occur if our whole world would obey these commands. We fall very short of perfection in obedience to God. We need His grace.
Human beings experience difficulty obeying God because we have sinful natures. There is help and hope for us. God sent Himself here as Jesus to help us. He is our perfect example of loving behavior to one another. Through Jesus, we can be forgiven of our sins, start fresh and try again. Even the most notorious criminal could ask for forgiveness. Though he'd be judged for his deeds, Hitler himself could ask to be forgiven.
Evil does exist in the world. God allows it for His own reasons. Without free will, good and evil choices would not exist. God allows us the free will to choose between them. He also provided us with the freedom to choose His grace and love. Forgiveness through Jesus is an excellent psychological tool to get rid of guilt or hurt and start over. God exists and so does evil. He's provided us with plenty of instruction, information and free will to choose a right course of action, accept His love and change for the better.