I once went to visit a friend at university. At the time she was sharing a house with four male students. I’ll never forget walking into the kitchen and being greeted by a scene of utter devastation – the sink was piled high with dirty crockery, and on every counter were plates with the remains of previous meals in various states of decay. We were hard pressed to find even one clean mug for a coffee. Given the evidence in front of me the only conclusion to draw was that either the residents of the house didn’t care about the mess, or didn’t have the ability to sort it out!
In a similar way many people look at the mess our world is in and draw the same conclusion about God. If such a being does exist, then he either doesn’t care about the mess this world is in or is impotent to do anything about it. It’s an easy conclusion to draw in the face of the evidence, but does it bear scrutiny? If it is the case that the world has always been this way, then who came up with the idea that there might be a God who is both loving and orderly and why did they do so?