Journal #6 Why Does Evil Exist?: A Child of God's Temper Tantrum

Today I am thinking about the topic of theodicy, or "Why does evil exist?"  This is a question which people everywhere, Christians and non-Christians alike, have attempted to answer since the beginning of time.  Before I get accused of using natural theology, or of claiming to know all the answers, my usual response to this question is to say that evil should not exist, that discrimination and discord are not productive, that violence is wrong, the tragedy should not happen, and that we should honor our individual vocations, abilities, ideas, and contributions as creative creatures who were created good.  I don't have the answer, but I found a reasonably understandable start that Barth made, beginning on page 695:

On the one side there is the good creation of God, which is not in any sense robbed of its goodness, which does not lose it, which is not broken or defaced, which is just as glorious as it was on the very first day.  And this creation of God includes not only man himself, who in respect of all that makes and marks him as creature-whatever may have to be said of his action-is good and not bad.  It also includes the surrounding cosmos, created as the theatrum glorae Dei, in all its explored and unexplored dimensions, with all its known and as yet unknown or only suspected possibilities and powers, with the nature which God Himself has given no less than in the case of man, and which can neither shift nor change.  Creation does not cease to extol its Creator, and it is therefore far more sensible to extol creation itself in respect of its Creator than to deplore its puzzling and difficult features.... on the other side however-and it is here that we may seriously think of the devil-there is the reality and operation of the absurd, of nothingness , grounded in no possibility given by God, neither elected nor willed by the Creator... how can this be?

Barth has an answer for this, too.  That we have confused two parts of our nature which are incompatible, and therefore, we have brought evil, which is not created, and should not exist upon ourselves and the world.
This is confusing for ministry, because even this is not a simple answer, that I still have not fully comprehended.  How is it our fault, and how do we fix it?  One thing I do know is that we're not supposed to be okay with that answer.  If when the kingdom of God actually does come there's not going to be evil, we've got to work on it.  Because our ultimate vocation as Christians is to bring in the kingdom of God.  It is not our finitude that is the problem, it is the fact that we keep falling into our sins, when we should be falling for Him!  We were created good, and in Jesus we still are, we just have to get there.  But we have to get there without beating each other up for sinning.  We have to lift each other up, as we are lifted up by, in, and with Jesus.  We have to be for each other, not against.  We have to do the kinds of things he did, things that were people centered, not self-centered.  The kind of ministry that met people where they were, but encouraged them to be the best people they could be.  People that were in right relationship with each other and with him.  The people they were created to be.