The Parable of the Weeds

Matthew 13:24-30

I've been reading through an introduction to philosophy textbook. One of the areas I found interesting was the argument that God can't exist because of the problem of evil. The argument goes that:

1) If God is all-good, He will destroy evil.

2) If God is all-powerful, He can destroy evil

3) But evil is not destroyed,

4) Therefore there is no all-good, all-powerful God.

I think that the Parable of the Weeds speaks to this idea. In the parable, there is evil spread into the good that God has made. God won't destroy the bad, because the good might been harmed at the same time. Now, someone trying to argue the point will say, "See, God isn't all-powerful, because it wouldn't matter, He's limited by these circumstances". I suppose he could have had the servants go and pluck out the weeds one by one or something, that may be reading too much into the parable, wanting it to say something that Jesus isn't trying to illustrate (he explains it all at the end of the chapter anyway as being about good and bad people). We can't know His purpose in allowing evil. Evil isn't something in and of itself, anyway, it's always a perversion or privation of something that is itself good, like rust or rot. The above argument assumes that evil has to be disposed of now, but in the parable, evil will get it's day, God is just choosing to wait until the right time. So, evil will be destroyed, because there is an all-good, all powerful God". Jesus isn't getting into the details of why evil exists or how it will be dealt with, He's just trying to tell us that in the end, it will be dealt with.