Reason #22: Not understanding everything

Let’s delve a little deep in the part of the Qur’an where God announced to the angels that He will place man on Earth:

“And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, “Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successor.” They said, “Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we exalt You with praise and declare Your perfection?” He [Allah] said, “Indeed, I know that which you do not know.”

[Qur’an 2:30]

When the angels asked God the question, did God give a fancy answer? Did He say, “Well, for this person, he suffered that calamity because of this reason and if it didn’t happen, this would’ve happened. And if something else happened, it would’ve been worse for him”? Nope.

All He said was, “Indeed, I know that which you do not know.” It’s hard to accept such an answer, but there’s a profound lesson in that. We may understand why some things happened to a certain person. Maybe your friend didn’t get that job because he was lazy in school. Maybe your uncle got into a car accident because he was a reckless driver. Maybe for a more complicated situation, after contemplating it for some time, we can see some reasoning behind it. However, at the end of the day, we don’t have the answers for everything. We don’t know why a five-year old girl would get leukemia. We don’t know why millions of innocent people have died in wars throughout human history they weren’t a part of. We also don’t know why certain “random” things have happened in our lives. But all this does not mean God doesn’t exist.

I heard a speaker once explain: if you go to a physics library and don’t understand some of the books, are you going to say, “Forget this! Physics doesn’t exist”?

At the end of the day, perhaps there are reasons, but so complex with many intricate parts to them, that our minds just cannot comprehend them all. Regardless, if we have the foundation and know that God has to exist and that He’s the All-Knowing, we sometimes just have to humbly accept that we don’t have all the answers.

Reason #21: Evil in the world

The million dollar question – if there’s a God, why is there evil? As soon as we hear that question, each of us has some kind of answer. Now whether you are an atheist or a theist, there are several key points you need to be aware of. First – every single person in the world has probably asked him or herself that question. So frankly, if you think you’re the only one who truly, truly has contemplated over it in every single angle, sorry, but you aren’t. Since the beginning of human creation, that question has been asked. As mentioned in the Qur’an:

And [mention, O Muḥammad], when your Lord said to the angels, “Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successor.” They said, “Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we exalt You with praise and declare Your perfection?” He [Allah] said, “Indeed, I know that which you do not know.”

[Qur’an 2:30]

And since then, human beings have asked that question. Great philosophers have spoken about it and countless books have been written about it. If you think that a certain aspect of the question has not been addressed and that theists are just clueless to your high level of thinking, think again.

Two – a painful fact one has to accept is that the presence of evil does not disprove God. There’s no correlation. You can say what you want about the nature of God. You can ask, “God is supposed to be all merciful and all powerful, so why is there evil?” You can try to disprove a quality of God, but it does not disprove His existence.

Related article: Reason #45: Explanations for Evil in the World

Related article: Reason #22: Not understanding everything