The Problem of Evil..With the Help of Batman

I love Batman. I always have. It was mostly because while Superman had super powers but could be hurt by a rock (A ROCK!), Batman was a normal dude who still whooped the bad guys. That was awesome to me a normal guy could do that, even with a technical upperhand. Until I was much older I didn't really understand the idea of why he fought against evil. Not just bad people, but people who were purely evil and depraved. Bruce Wayne was driven to fight this evil because of a bigger reason than just being a good guy. He did it because his parents had been killed by a person who he saw as evil. A question that could be asked is this; what would happen if his parents had never been killed?

Now this may seem like a silly hypothetical question, especially since he is a fictional character, but I think its a good one. For one, he would have never had the motivation to become Batman at all. This may seem like a generalization, but most billionaires would not just decide to jump off of buildings and fight bad guys if there was no greater motivation (though the thought of Bill Gates dressed up as a superhero is hilarious to me). This would lead to the city of Gotham being thoroughly engulfed in crime. The Joker would probably reign free and be killing people left and right. It would be twice as bad as this fictional world was. The city of Gotham was dependent upon a necessary evil, the death of Bruce Wayne's parents, for the future safety they would recieve.

Now the point I will make is this: like with Bruce Wayne being forced to his role as Batman by his parents dying, God can use short term evils for long term good. I will be the first to admit that allowing any bad at all does not sound enjoyable. I would much rather skip to the good parts in life and not have to endure the bad that comes with it. For mothers, they can see how good can come out of pain. A mother who loves their child knows that to have that child they love so much they must endure months of pregnancy and then birth pains. Disclaimer: I am not a woman (shocker right??) but I'm quite sure that childbirth is quite painful. I know that many mothers would rather go through that pain than never have had the children they love so much.

An even better sign of how a short term evil can lead to a long term good is Jesus. Cop out answer right? Not really. Jesus had to endure a horrific death upon the cross. His primary cause of death was suffocation, but he endured so much more. He was whipped, had nails ran through his hands and feet, and felt stress so immense that he sweat blood. And to top it all off, he had the pain of the sins of the world on him. All sins, of all time. Ever. Now the benefits were CRAZY good! With the death of Jesus we could be saved from our sins without sacrifices or priestly intercession. Without those two things before Christ's death there was no way to salvation. Now with Jesus there is a free gift of salvation. This short term pain that Jesus felt, in comparison to the eternity of pain that people would endure without salvation, is a great trade off. This is like tossing a couple nickles at the CEO of Apple and becoming the sole stockholder of the entire company. It is huge what Jesus did!

Now I will be the first to admit that this is only one facet of the problem of evil, but it does answer some of the questions we have as to why bad things happen to people. And while Batman is not a perfect way of showing how we need evil sometimes for good to happen, it does give us a glimpse of it. Like Joseph said to his brothers who sold him into slavery " you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today" (Genesis 50:20). Understanding how God uses what men mean for evil helps us see our circumstances in a much different light.