God and Evil

Dealing with the statements and questioning of an anonymous philosopher

In this section we continue to look at why God allows evil to exist in the world today. Please look at the questions and see if you can answer them:

1.If God were omnipotent, there would be no evil in the world therefore as evil and suffering exist, God doesn't?
2. Did God do a bad job at distributing wealth, when some live in fertile areas while others live in poverty and deserts? Who wants to believe in this sort of God, let alone worship Him?
3. What sort of perverse God is it who allows such seemingly gratuitous pain and suffering in the first place?
4. Why didn't God (if He exists) create man in such a way that a simple lowering of the pleasure experience would be enough to show man he is going the wrong way?
5. Can we trust a God (if He exists) that allows all the pain and suffering to continue?

If there were a God who is both omnipotent (all-powerful) and wholly good then there would be no evil in the world. Since evil exists, God cannot exist.

• Those who think the presence of evil rules out the existence of God are already presenting us with rather a strange picture. What they have done is build their own picture of God (despite believing God does not exist) and then said this God doesn't exist because if he or she did then evil would not exist. Think about it!
• After watching a performance of Sartre's (an atheist) play, 'The Flies' one writer makes the following comment

In it the author's atheism is given free reign, and I am sure that it will trouble many of the audience, but the god whom Sartre presents to us is so mediocre and so limited that we have no difficult in understanding the author's atheism in relation to a God of this kind. If God were Sartre's God, I would be an atheist twenty times over. I would be a fanatical atheist as far as that God was concerned. But as it happens, he has the wrong person.
Dominique Morin in 'How to Understand God', p61

• Just because evil does exist does not rule out the existence of God.
• Apart from this where does our concept of evil come from? In his book 'Miracles' C.S. Lewis states that his own argument against the existence of God was that the world was cruel and unjust. However he then began to think about how he got his ideas of just and unjust.
• A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. In realising this C.S. Lewis recognised that his act of trying to prove God did not exist was actually bringing him to realise that God probably did exist. . Stating that God does not exist because evil does exist fails to take into consideration the fact that some evil may be necessary for some greater good. In this view the world is then going to be the best of possible worlds because of this greater good. Some would say, the end justifies the means.

Omnipotence

• Omnipotence is the idea that a being can do all things that it is possible to do

Can God literally do anything? Could be make a square circle, for instance, or a person who was not a person? Most Christians agree that the answer to these questions must be no. A square circle is not a real possibility at all; it is not a possible object that could or could not be made. A person who is not a person is nothing at all. God could not create such things, but this is no real limitation on God's power, for the simple reason that these things are not really possible 'things' at all.
Prof C.S. Evans in, Why Believe, p 98

God's Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. There is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, 'God can.' It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities.
C.S. Lewis, 'The Problem of Pain' in 'Selected Books (12 of his books in one volume) page 482

• But why can God do what is logically impossible?
• God did not create laws of logic in the same way as he created human beings.
• Laws of logic are rooted in God's manner of thinking, which is not created but is eternal. There was no time before which the laws of logic did not exist. So, for example:

God could not create free beings and guarantee that they would always use their freedom wisely. Inherent in the idea that a human person is free to perform an act is that the person be free to perform that act. A human person who is free and yet cannot choose wrongly is a person who is both free and not free. Not even God could create such a 'round square'
Prof C.S. Evans in, Why Believe, p 99

What sort of God is it who needs evil in his universe in order to achieve his objectives - the best possible world? This sort of God cannot be omnipotent, yet Christians believe their God is. Therefore their God does not exist!

• We must not assume that just because evil exists it is necessary. After all televisions exist in virtually ever home in this country, yet this does not mean a house is not regarded as being a home if it does not have a television.
• The existence of God can be seen in such things as the design and purpose of this universe, man's desire to worship, and events in history that logically point to the existence of an all-powerful, all knowing God. Just because evil is in the universe does not mean that God cannot exist, or that He is not all-powerful.
• Scripture reveals on many occasions that good can exist without evil in God's universe. For example, in the following verses we see that it is possible to have both an individual and a world without sin - without evil.

Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? John 8:46

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelation 21:4

Although some philosophers would object arguments from scripture they cannot logically do so since they explore what they would call all possible worldviews, and the Bible is a possible worldview.

• Evil and sin are never seen as a necessary part of the universe, neither are they treated as such by God.

Evil is defined by its opposition to God and its utter dissimilarity to him; God shows no compliance whatsoever with evil. When set against ancient or modern pagan ideas, the 'ethical vision' of evil and related doctrines display invaluable clarity.
Dr Henri Blotcher in, Evil and the Cross, p 59

Sin is always a departure from the norm and is assessed accordingly. Sin is deviant and perverse, an injustice or iniquity accordingly. Sin in the Exodus literature is disorder and disobedience. Sin is faithlessness, lawlessness, godlessness. Sin is both the overstepping of a line and the failure to reach it - both transgression and shortcoming. Sin is a missing of the mark, a spoiling of goods, a staining of garments, a hitch in one's gait, a wandering from the path, a fragmenting of the whole. Sin is what culpably disturbs shalom
Proff A. Plantinga in his essay, 'God, Evil and the Metaphysics of Freedom' p88 of 'The Problem of Evil.'

• In seeing how God views and deals with sin and evil, wherever it is found, makes it rather strange if we are then going to say it must be necessary.

The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors. Psalm 5:5-6

• Scripture reveals that freedom of choice was a necessity if man was to be able to respond to God in love. But...
• The act of sin was not a necessary counterpart to this freedom being given.
• This can be seen from Jesus (the second Adam) who always chose to follow the right path, without any evil existing in, or having a hold on Him in any way.
• As a priest, living under His own laws, Jesus made the office of priesthood perfect by taking the office into Himself (Hebrews 2:10). In doing so He opens the door of life to those who deserve nothing but judgement.

Such a high priest meets our need - one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Hebrews 7:26

• The worldview that the Bible offers is that of a God who has absolute mastery over all events. He is seen as the all-powerful one who will not tolerate sin. He works in such a way (often at great cost to self as the life, death and resurrection of Christ reveals) that sin will finally be dealt with and removed completely.
  The Biblical View
• The biblical picture does not see evil as a necessary means to the best possible good, but as an intruder.
• Evil is a corruption of something which was originally good.
• Since evil is a corruption, a perversion of good, it cannot have existed before that which was good since there would have been nothing to pervert.
• God can exist without evil in a particular world, yet this is not the case in this world.
• God can bring us to the best possible world regardless of whether there is evil in the world or no evil at all.
• Scripture reveals that this world was never intended to be seen as an end in itself, and does not represent the beginning and end of all that God was or is going to do.

Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. Gen 5:24

Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. Isaiah 65:17

• It is possible to view this world rather like a bus ride, which takes us to the best possible world. Evil is not a necessary part of this bus ride as can be seen from the life of Jesus. In Christ the pre-incarnate Son came to live as man apart from sin.
• Jesus shows us the best way to life and that it was possible for sinless man to live that way no matter the opposition that he faced.
• This is seen (in part) in that Jesus never used His power for His own personal benefit. For example, although he healed the sick and raised the dead, he still needed someone to carry the cross-beam of his crucifixion cross to Calvary.
• Neither did Jesus reach out from under His own law and do what He wanted to. If He had done so Jesus would no longer have been able to stand as man's representative.
• In all of this we begin to see a much bigger picture - a God who masters sin whilst in the weakness of the flesh; a world where sin was not present, and one in which it will not be present.
• We also begin to see a God who is so overwhelmingly different from us, yet 'meets' us through words that limit Him, yet at the same time reveal something of who He is in ways that we can understand.
• From all of this we see that the presence of evil does not deny the existence of God, but causes us to think a little wider and deeper.
• Aside from this there are many thousands, if not millions, of people who have experienced the most horrific of evils, yet do not deny the existence of God. Take, for example, the following quote, from a Jewish man

Another holy figure of the camps was Rabbi Shalom Eliezer, the Ratzfister Rebbe. Defiantly an SS officer approached him and said: 'I see your lips are moving in prayer. Do you still believe that your God will help you? Don't you realise in what situations Jews find themselves? They are all being led to die and no-one will help them? Do you still believe in divine providence?' In reply the Rabbi stated: 'With all my heart and all my soul I believe that there is a creator and that there is a supreme providence.'
Rabbi D. Cohm-Sherbok, Holocaust Theology, p 64

Surely the Universe is better with some evil in it than it could be if there were no evil? Therefore God cannot be holy and perfect because He requires some sort of evil to be present. Since this view is not consistent with the Christian view of God, God does not exist.

In this sort of reasoning there are two points put forward by the philosopher:

Point One
A muddy car standing next to a clean car shows just how clean the clean car really is. From this we see that contrasts heighten beauty. Therefore in a not dissimilar way evil is present in order to contrast light and allow more virtues such as compassion and so forth, which may not exist in a perfect world.

Point Two
The gradual overcoming of evil by good is surely a finer thing than just having the eternal unchallenged supremacy of good? In light of this God is happy to have evil around and is not concerned to minimise it but only use it to show how good, good really is. But if good is really good, and evil is really evil, then an omnipotent God would eliminate the evil anyway. This has not happened which points to the conclusion that God is not really there in the first place.

Answering point one (contrast)
Contrasts can heighten beauty, but evil is not a necessary presence in order for this to be so. The distance that exists between the Creator and created, even before the fall, is so great that we already have the most amazing contrast (if one dare to make comparison in the first place). The descriptions of God (which are limitations in themselves, yet allowed in His grace) show such a huge gulf between man and God that it becomes ridiculous to suggest that evil makes good look even better.

Then there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.
Ezekiel 1:25-28

God knows the stars by name (Psalm 147:4) and is aware of every hair on our heads (Mat 10:30). He sees a glass of water given in His name, even if the person who gives it is in a crowd of millions (Mark 9:41).

All of this is more than enough to reveal such contrast between creature and creator that evil cannot be seen as relevant in this sense. God has always had it in his power to reveal far more good than man does, evil if man were perfect.

For example, man can give God a bunch of flowers, yet in doing so is only returning to God that which God had already provided in the first place for man's benefit.

God, on the other hand, created a beautiful world and placed man within it with no thought of gain to self. God gave man what man could not have provided for self in any way.

Man does not add to God's greatness in any way. God does not need us, being complete within self. So when God gives Himself to man He is giving self to those who can give nothing of additional worth in return.

God's world reveals the great contrast between God and man, and His ability to give out is far greater than ours. Therefore, yet again, we see that evil does not have to be viewed as a necessary contrast to heighten one's perception of good.

Answering point two (movement)
This argument states that the gradual overcoming of evil by good is a finer thing than would be the eternal unchallenged supremacy of good. But whoever said that an eternal unchallenged supremacy of good is simply a static good - a continuous consistent? For example, a small baby grows into an infant and then a toddler who learns to walk. He or she then develops into a young child who is able to use language, then moving on to become an adolescent who is able to articulate and think.
As the child (in an ideal setting) grows from innocence to righteousness (the conscious informed way of dealing with things in the best way possible according to God's will) the young child gains a greater appreciation of the goodness of God.
In every step of our lives there are choices to be made as we are presented with the opportunity of going different ways. I can take a different route when walking home one day, which is shorter and does not contain so much beauty along the way - but that does not make it evil.
Apart from this there is no such thing as reaching that ultimate ceiling in the world whereby everything is absolutely static. This world is not a closed system.

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know - God knows. And I know that this man - whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows- was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.
Cor 12:2-4

• A pear falls to the ground and rots into the soil, then aiding the feeding of the tree in the cycle of life. This is not evil, and can be used as a teaching tool to show what separation from life can be like.
• All that we have been looking at speaks of movement and progression. Evil is not a necessary part of the universe.

There are those who point out that suffering can provide the occasion for deepening our personalities. However, it has to be said that in such instances suffering is not absolutely the cause of this human and spiritual deepening; it is only the occasion for it. Everything in fact depends on the way in which suffering is received and experienced.
Dominique Morin in, How To Understand God, p 104.

Saying that evil is due to freewill is nonsense because an omnipotent God would design man in such a way that he was always irresistibly drawn to do what was right. This is obviously not the case, so God cannot exist!

To answer the above, if a person is created to always do what is good then there is no real choice in the first place. In some ways such a person would be no higher than a lower form of life that automatically has to grow towards the light in order to survive.
Being irresistibly drawn to something does not speak of freedom of choice. It relegates man to the level of a lower life form, not allowing him to taste true freedom, which is far more desirable, allowing, for example, love to exist.
Such implied 'freedom' (being irresistibly drawn) cannot lead one from innocence to righteousness, as the following illustration reveals:

Imagine a small boy who habitually played in the middle of the road outside his house. His mother was worried about this, yet always had a large bag of sweets to hand, and made sure that her son was always hungry when he went out to play.
If her son wandered into the road she only had to stand at the window, hold up her arm and shake the bag of sweets in order to 'irresistibly' draw him to her. Consequently the child knew nothing of the dangers of the road, and did not make any conscious choice to come away from playing in the road.
Freedom of choice is not really present, the child being more like a magnet that has to be drawn to another magnet.

In the same way neither is righteousness present - instead there is ignorance; yet, when looking at scripture we see that it constantly speaks out against ignorance in the way it encourages man to gain wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

For the Lord gives wisdom and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 2:6

For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Prov 2:10

God cannot be Omnipotent (all powerful) if He has given people freedom of choice. This is because people who don't go God's way are no longer under His control. Such a God is no longer omnipotent. In fact God does not exist!

God creates man with freedom of choice yet within the confines of a much larger framework. At no time is God not in control of what is going on. This can be seen clearly in the life of Christ who, in the weakness of the flesh, showed himself to be the absolute master of every situation. All the prophecies that were spoken about His life were fulfilled despite the heavy and oppressive presence of evil that threatened to wash over everyone in its way at the slightest provocation. Despite all the oppression Jesus remained the same in nature and character. For example, he went through great agony and humiliation yet even amidst his suffering could give out to a 'nobody' next to him at Calvary.

Then he (a thief) said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' Jesus answered him, 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise' Luke 23:42-43

We also see that Jesus had such absolute control over His life that His life was only given at the exact moment He wanted it to be given. No-one could wrench it from Him.

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. Matthew 27:50

But what about those who ignore God and do not accept the offer of life?

In the story that is often called the parable of the prodigal son we see that the son thought that living under his father's will was bondage, whilst living under his own would bring freedom.
On leaving his father and living in his own freedom the young man began to realise that he was worse off than before - he was in slavery.
When a man chooses to go away from God he does not so much live as he does exist under his own choices: he becomes a slave to them (Rom 6)
In going his own way man becomes a slave to things that are much lower and smaller than him - such as drink for example.
What the individual has done in this case (in seeking to be autonomous) is elect to have no real freedom, even though it may not seem this way.
In electing to have no freedom he is allowing anything and everything to have control over his life. Fallen man is not free from the consequences of his choices now, and neither is fallen man, on his own, going to be free from them in the future.
In this situation God can legitimately exercise control without having moved against man's freedom, which has already been negated.
Scripture reveals that God created man as a morally upright being with freedom of choice. A sovereign act of God bestowed on man does not negate God's sovereignty.
God is both sovereign in what he permits and what he does not permit. His sovereignty could only be compromised if a created being forced on God something He had not ordained to allow, so that He had no choice in the matter.
God's deliberate restricted use of his power is not something that can really question either omnipotence or God's goodness. In fact, quite the opposite is true. But how is this so?
Most of us have heard that 'might is not necessarily right.' For example, just because Mike Tyson beat Frank Bruno in the boxing ring does not mean that Mike is right about everything he does.
Squashing evil instantly, and destroying the devil in a millionth of a second does not necessarily prove anything more than God is stronger than evil.
God could do this, but if He did so then we would all be destroyed before the sin became an actuality in our lives. Without the possibility of evil (transgression of God's will and way) there is no freedom of choice and, as said, we become little more than a lower life form having to work a certain way like a robot.
If man falls the immediate destruction of man reveals that God is stronger than evil, but not able to overcome it and fulfil his plan.
Instead of this we find something that is awesome and breathtaking to behold. In love and mercy God makes a way whereby, despite evil being present through our choices, He can bring us to glory through His work.
This reveals that God is the master of all situations and circumstances.
No matter how far man has removed Himself from God, God can still snatch a man from any given situation and restore him to true freedom.
God works through history to provide us with the opportunity of freedom yet does not make the choice for us. In allowing evil to remain God shows us the fruit of our own choices, yet in his mastery over evil shows that life does not have to be lived this way.

Drawing everything together

Adam was placed in a world of beauty and order, benefiting from that which he had not created or even helped to produce. He was allowed to eat of any fruit that he chose to, bar one. The penalty for transgression would be death - separation from God.

God's dealings with man and the serpent show Gods righteous anger concerning this transgression of His law. Transgression of God's law reveals, in one way, that we believe we can live our lives as we please.

However, as the evil in our world reveals, we fail to live by our own standards let alone God's.

At no time in our existence are we outside of God's realm of operation, whether we are in Christ, or have elected to live by our own freedom, which is actually bondage.

Scripture reveals that God is full aware of the paths that man will take. Yet this does not mean that He foreordained those paths, as indeed knowing that a child will suffer when they are bullied does not mean that He ordained the bullying.

If God had stepped in and prevented evil from the outset, this would only prove that God is the stronger party and that there was no possible way out for man should evil enter the universe.

Instead we see God's absolute mastery over evil at every possible and imaginable encounter.

Evil was not a necessary part of God's plan since man did not have to fall into sin.

Man could have learnt the consequences of wrong-doing from illustrations around Him. For example, a pear falling from the tree could be used to speak of separation that occurs through rebellion.

God is the perfect communicator and man did not have to learn through experiencing evil. Neither did evil have to be present for man to understand the consequences.

As parents we would prefer our children to learn about the dangers of drugs, for example, from our instruction. If they do not accept instruction then there is a greater change of them learning through experience, and this is not so easy to deal with.

Yet, in seeing how God deals with evil we see absolute mastery over all things.

As sinners it is impossible for us to obtain (or even help to obtain) eternal life by our own good works, as we cannot escape from the righteous condemnation of sin, even if only a 'small' amount is found in us.

Ignoring God does not negate God's omnipotence since obeying one's own sinful nature effectively means that freedom is forfeit. God has every right to speak into such a life, in ways of love, judgment, or making man aware of his consequences. In doing so God often creates an environment where freedom of choice is possible, despite our actions.

For example Moses' arrival in Egypt brought occultic priests to awareness that the all-powerful one was present, and Jonah's arrival in Nineveh brought the possibility of repentance.

In our perfect worldview, taken from scripture, we see that evil is defeated by a perfect man, showing that evil was not necessary in the first place.

This man had no advantage over pre-fall Adam, because Christ came to live as man under His own law. He could only be man's representative if He lived as man was called to live, apart from sin, and not use power as and when He wanted to, but only in accordance with His Father's will.

Evil is an intruder and contributes nothing to life whatsoever. It does not increase our awareness of good since the distance between our Creator and us (the created), is such that all necessary awareness comes about.

Neither does the actual presence of evil enable motion and testing in an otherwise static universe. For example, moving from innocence to maturity does not require the presence of evil.

The presence of evil does not cause us to question the omnipotence of God since at every single step of the way, God can master the effects of evil in whatever way He chooses.

Although there is a huge amount of evil in our world it does not have to be present since God has placed laws in position, decreed a way of life that is right, and is willing to provide it with the ability to overcome all evil.

God can even allow evil to operate and through it to bring about good as Calvary reveals. He is, and always has been the master of every situation.

We cannot blame God for what has always been of our own doing, and yet what do we find?

God stoops low in the incarnation, standing alongside man in his misery and sorrow. He works through each and every situation - whether facing impossible odds or subtle confrontations from the realms of darkness, and shows complete mastery in every case.

His way for man to live was always the right way, and its possibility is seen in the life of Jesus. He proves that His way is right in the weakness of the flesh.

Jesus then gave His life so that we could, in repentance and faith, come out from condemnation. He gives us His Spirit, writing His law on our hearts and enabling us to have power over all that holds the heart and mind in bondage. He also withholds the final judgement at present so that others may realise that in Him is the offer of life.

In view of the above, we see that despite a sinful world, that God is in complete control of all things.
Now revisit the questions and review your answers. What does this session tell you about an omnipotent God?

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