Why doesn't God simply ban evil? To undestand the answer, we must consider the consequences such action would bring. Understanding why God allows evil and its resultant suffering requires a fundamental understanding of one of God's greatest gifts—as well as how man has continually abused that gift.
The gift is free will—or, as it is more popularly called, freedom of choice. God granted this freedom to our first human parents, Adam and Eve, at creation. But over the millennia we have proven ourselves to be woefully inept stewards of this precious gift and its far-reaching responsibility.
As God explained to ancient Israel, the freedom to make choices is essential to developing righteous character (Deuteronomy 30:15-19). Without freedom to choose, we would be little more than robots, with our behavior either preprogrammed and unchangeable or dictated in all its details by an outside force such as God Himself.
But that is not God's intent. He has different expectations of us because of His much higher purpose for us. He wants us to choose to obey Him from the heart. He wants us to enthusiastically love and cherish His values and standards, which are based on two overriding principles —loving Him with all our hearts and loving others as much as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:35-40).
As we will see, choosing to obey God and learning to love others when we have the freedom to do otherwise is vital for the future God has planned for us.
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