THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Vincent Cheung
Taken from The Light of Our Minds.
Copyright © 2004 by Vincent Cheung
PO Box 15662, Boston, MA 02215, USA
http://www.vincentcheung.com
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GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY
Many professing Christians are uncomfortable with the biblical teaching that man has no free will, since it appears to make God “responsible” for the existence and continuation of evil. So in this section, we will provide a brief exposition on what Scripture teaches on the topic, showing that to affirm Scripture is to reject free will.
Scripture teaches that God’s will determines everything. Nothing exists or happens without God, not merely permitting, but actively willing it to exist or happen:
I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. (Isaiah 46:10)
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. (Matthew 10:29)
God controls not only natural events, but he also controls all human affairs and decisions:
Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple. (Psalm 65:4)
The LORD works out everything for his own ends – even the wicked for a day of disaster. (Proverbs 16:4)
In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)
A man’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way? (Proverbs 20:24)
The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases. (Proverbs 21:1)
Man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed. (Job 14:5)
All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35)
But as he left, he promised, “I will come back if it is God’s will.” Then he set sail from Ephesus. (Acts 18:21)
For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Philippians 2:13)
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15)
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Revelation 4:11)
If God indeed determines all natural events and human affairs, then it follows that he has also decreed the existence of evil. This is what the Bible explicitly teaches:
The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Exodus 4:11)
Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come? (Lamentations 3:37-38)
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)
When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it? (Amos 3:6)
The greatest act of moral evil and injustice in human history is said to have been actively performed by God through secondary agents:
Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. (Isaiah 53:10)
Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. (Acts 4:27-28)
In any case, God decreed the death of Christ for a good reason, namely, the redemption of his elect. Likewise, his decree for the existence of evil is for the worthy purpose of his glory. The elect and reprobates are both created for this reason:
I will say to the north, “Give them up!” and to the south, “Do not hold them back.” Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth – everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. (Isaiah 43:6-7)
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:11-12)
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD… (Exodus 14:4)
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath – prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory… (Romans 9:17, 22-23)
Based on the above passages, we come to the following conclusion. God controls everything that is and everything that happens. There is not one thing that happens that he has not actively decreed – not even a single thought in the mind of man. Since this is true, it follows that God has decreed the existence of evil, he has not merely permitted it, as if anything can originate and happen apart from his will and power. Since we have shown that no creature can make completely independent decisions, evil could never have started without God’s active decree, and it cannot continue for one moment longer apart from God’s will. God decreed evil ultimately for his own glory, although it is not necessary to know or to state this reason to defend Christianity from the problem of evil.
Those who see that it is impossible to altogether disassociate God from the origination and continuation of evil nevertheless try to distance God from evil by saying that God merely “permits” evil, and that he does not cause any of it. However, since Scripture itself states that God actively decrees everything, and that nothing can happen apart from his will and power, it makes no sense to say that he merely permits something – nothing happens by God’s mere permission.
Since “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), on a metaphysical level, it is impossible to do anything at all in independence from God. Without him, a person cannot even think or move. How, then, can evil be devised and committed in total independence from him? How can one even think evil apart from God’s will and purpose? Instead of trying to “protect” God from something that he does not need protection from, we should happily acknowledge with the Bible that God has actively decreed evil, and then deal with the topic on this basis.
The census of Israel taken by David provides an example of evil decreed by God and performed through secondary agents:
Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.” (2 Samuel 24:1)
Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. (1 Chronicles 21:1)
The two verses refer to the same incident. There is no contradiction if the view being presented here is true. God decreed that David would sin by taking the census, but he caused Satan to perform the temptation as a secondary agent.3
Afterward, God punished David for committing this sin:
David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O LORD, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.” Before David got up the next morning, the word of the LORD had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the LORD says: I David’s seer: “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’” So Gad went to David and said to him, “Shall there come upon you three years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.” David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let us fall into the hands of the LORD, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.” (2 Samuel 24:10-14)
Although the evil we are speaking of is indeed negative, the ultimate end, which is the glory of God, is positive. God is the only one who possesses intrinsic worth, and if he decides that the existence of evil will ultimately serve to glorify him, then the decree is by definition good and justified. One who thinks that God’s glory is not worth the death and suffering of billions of people has too high an opinion of himself and humanity. A creature’s worth can only be derived from and given by his creator, and in light of the purpose for which the creator made him. Since God is the sole standard of measurement, if he thinks something is justified, then it is by definition justified. Christians should have no trouble affirming all of this, and those who find it difficult to accept what Scripture explicitly teaches should reconsider their spiritual commitment, to see if they are truly in the faith.
Many people will challenge God’s right and justice in decreeing the existence of evil for his own glory and purpose. In discussing divine election, in which God chooses some for salvation and condemns all others, Paul anticipates a similar objection, and writes:
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? (Romans 9:19-21)
In effect, Paul is saying, “Of course the creator has the right to do whatever he wants with his creatures. And who are you to make such an objection in the first place?” Some people object that man is greater than a “lump of clay”; I have even seen one professing Christian writer make this futile objection. First, this is a biblical analogy, and a true Christian will not challenge it. But if one challenges it, then the debate becomes one of biblical infallibility, which must be settled first before returning to this analogy. Since I have established biblical infallibility elsewhere, denying biblical infallibility is not an option here. Second, if man is more than a lump of clay, then God is also more than a potter – he is infinitely greater than a potter. The analogy is proper when we understand it to say what it means, that is, God as creator has the right to do whatever he wishes with his creatures. “Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden” (Romans 9:18).
For a person to have difficulty accepting that God would decree the existence of evil implies that he finds something “wrong” with God making such a decree. However, what is the standard of right and wrong by which this person judges God’s actions? If there is a moral standard superior to God, to which God himself is accountable and by which God himself is judged, then this “God” is not God at all; rather, this higher standard would be God. However, the Christian concept of God refers to the highest being and standard, so there is by definition nothing higher. In other words, if there is something higher than the “God” that a person is arguing against, then this person is not really referring to the Christian God. Since this is the case, there is no standard higher than God to which God himself is accountable and by which God himself is judged. Therefore, it is logically impossible to accuse God of doing anything morally wrong.
Jesus says that only God is good (Luke 18:19), so that all “goodness” in other things can only be derivative. God’s nature defines goodness itself, and since he “does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17), he is the sole and constant standard of goodness. No matter how moral I am, one cannot consider me the objective standard of goodness, since even the word “moral” is meaningless unless it is used relative to God’s character. That is, how “moral” a person is refers to the degree of conformity of his character to God’s character. To the degree that a person thinks and acts in accordance with God’s nature and commands, he is moral. Otherwise, there is no moral difference between altruism and selfishness; virtue and vice are meaningless concepts; rape and murder are not crimes, but amoral events.
However, since God calls himself good, and since God has defined goodness for us by revealing his nature and commands, evil is thus defined as anything that is contrary to his nature and commands. Since God is good, and since he is the only definition of goodness, it is also good that he decreed the existence of evil. There is no standard of good and evil by which we can denounce his decree as wrong or evil. We are not affirming that evil is good – that would be a contradiction – but we are saying that God’s decree for the existence of evil is good.
Hebrews 6:13 says, “When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself.” In other words, there is no one to hold God accountable, and there is no court to which one may drag him in order to press charges against him. No one judges God; rather, every person is judged by him. Other relevant biblical passages include the following:
Though one wished to dispute with him, he could not answer him one time out of a thousand. His wisdom is profound, his power is vast. Who has resisted him and come out unscathed? He moves mountains without their knowing it and overturns them in his anger. He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble. He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars. He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. When he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him. If he snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to him, “What are you doing?” (Job 9:3-12)
“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!” Then Job answered the LORD: “I am unworthy – how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer – twice, but I will say no more.” Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm: “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” (Job 40:2-8)
Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, “What are you making?” Does your work say, “He has no hands?” Woe to him who says to his father, “What have you begotten?” or to his mother, “What have you brought to birth?”
This is what the LORD says – the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands? (Isaiah 45:9-11)
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)
Since we derive our very concept and definition of goodness from God, to accuse him of evil would be like saying that good is evil, which is a contradiction.
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3. Satan himself is a creature, and thus has no free will. All his actions and decisions are controlled by God.
