On Christmas Day 1863, two years after the gut-wrenching loss of his wife to an accidental fire, and two weeks after retrieving his son who had been severely wounded in a Civil War battle, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow put words to the anguished dissonance in his soul as he heard Christmas bells ringing out the promise of “peace on earth” in a world filled with injustice, hatred and violence that seemed to mock that promise.
“And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men.”*
During the next one hundred years, America and the world would be rocked by two world wars that would once again seem to mock the promise of “peace on earth, goodwill to men.” At the end of the second world war as Allied forces entered Germany, the world became keenly and painfully aware of the evil of which men are capable as pictures of Auschwitz and the Holocaust were broadcast into homes all around the globe. Not to be outdone by suffering caused by men, nature unleashed her fair share of tragedies in the form of a global pandemic, disease, floods and droughts. These natural and man-made tragedies claimed the lives of more than a hundred million people and created untold suffering for millions more.
In the face of such evil and suffering, the natural mind is tempted to question either the goodness or the omnipotence of God, possibly even the existence of such a divine Being.
This isn’t a new question but one asked for ages.
Is he(God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”
Epicurus, 3rd century BC philosopher
Theodicy
The academic term for such an explanation is “theodicy,” a word derived from the Greek words “theo” and “dike.” Theodicy literally means “justifying God.” In essence, it is any attempt to answer the question, “How can a good and powerful God allow evil?” For some, the existence of evil proves that God does not exist. But, for many people, God does exist but the existence of evil calls into question His goodness or His omnipotence.
There have been many attempts in the church to develop a coherent theodicy that does not minimize the problem of evil, undermine Scripture or diminish God. In his book on a post-Holocaust theology, A Guest in the House of Israel, Dr. Clark Williamson challenges any who would make such an attempt to not “make any theological assertions that could not be made in the presence of burning children.”(1) His challenge ends our philosophical pontificating about an abstract theological concept and brings it into the painful and traumatic suffering of very real individuals. In reality, the presence of suffering is rarely alleviated by theological concepts so asserting or pontificating on them in the presence of burning children or any suffering is insensitive and unhelpful. While theology asserted in the midst of suffering is rarely helpful, it can provide us with a foundation to help us understand our suffering in the long-term. With that in mind, how do predominant theodicies answer Williamson’s challenge? Do they give us what we need to understand, and possibly accept, suffering?
Maltheism is the belief that God is out to get us, that He is basically evil, malicious, and causes the suffering of humanity. He is a “deranged intergalactic Joker with a Stalinist streak.”(2) Because maltheism places the responsibility of evil squarely in God’s lap, its adherents boast that this provides the answer to the problem of evil. God did it. Unfortunately, if God did it, and God is all-powerful, we are merely pawns in a game being played by a sadistic bully.
Calvinism holds to a strong belief in the sovereignty of God that influences their theodicy. Like Maltheists, the Calvinist believes God is responsible for evil. He has absolute sovereign control over all things, including evil. John MacArthur posits that “God wills evil to exist. He willed it and ordained that it occurred. For His own glory.”(3) Unlike the Maltheist who believes God’s responsibility for the problem of evil renders Him evil in nature, the Calvinist maintains that while God does ordain evil, this does not change His nature but He is still loving, good and benevolent. In fact, His absolute control is gracious and precious beyond words.(4) Their answer to the cognitive dissonance that arises when believing that a good God wills evils such as burning children is that it is a mystery, that God’s ways are higher than ours. So, while Maltheists and Calvinists have a very different view of God’s goodness, both believe He is responsible for the evil that occurs.
While some Calvinists, or those who hold to a Calvinistic theodicy, find comfort in knowing that God is in control regardless of the evil and tragedy in the world, many find it repulsive when applied to unfathomable evils such as the Holocaust. Even more repugnant is the implication inherent to such a theodicy. This alone should cause us to seriously question any theodicy because it makes the Holocaust or any other horrific evil acceptable.
The suggestion that there is some mysterious goodness in every evil action—-or that the torment of burning children is “not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed”—may get high marks for religious hyperbole but it scarcely seems like solidarity with the victims.(5)
William Hasker
Open Theism asserts that while God “initiated the world’s existence, sustains it in being, and governs its operations by general strategies, he does not, however, endorse or ensure the operation of a detailed plan that includes tragically evil events.”(6) In other words, God is ruler but is not necessarily responsible for every choice made in His realm. He created this world, delegated authority to mankind, and rarely intervenes to micromanage the choices men makes as free agents in His creation. According to open theism, God has taken real risks in creating this world and His heart is deeply grieved at the grave misuse of the freedom He has given humans. Greg Boyd writes similarly in his book, God of the Possible, that God
“must be responsible for everything that transpires in His creation. He unilaterally decided that the risk of free agents, choosing evil, breaking His heart, and bringing nightmarish suffering upon themselves and others was worth it. This doesn’t imply that it’s His fault when His agents freely choose evil courses of action.”(7)
Both Maltheism and Calvinism presuppose that God’s sovereignty overrides human free agency, but human free agency must not be underestimated in any discussion involving God’s alleged responsibility for evil. Open theists presuppose that God voluntarily limits His sovereignty, bestowing free will on His creatures. God does have the power to prevent evil, but such prevention would involve direct divine intervention in the situation by miraculous means or be stripping an individual of the power to choose. It would basically turn God into a “policeman on the beat.” The abolition of evil through the use of His power requires the stripping of another creature of the power once given them, basically turning God into the bully on the playground who can enforce his will simply because He’s the biggest and strongest.
Another important thing to note is that those things that are distinctively human pursuit—the human capacity that allows us to enjoy literature, arts, mathematics, philosophy and more—also give us the capacity to formulate and carry out evil plans. “One cannot responsibly conclude that free will ought to have been given as a power to do good, but not to do evil.”(8) It’s fairly evident that to affect the overall balance of good and evil, He would have to act on a massive scale which would influence the capacity of humans to act for good. But, that direct intervention would also strip humanity of the authority, power, and freedom He had given them.
Regardless of one’s theodicy, it is glaringly obvious that God does not simply abolish evil. But that does not mean He does nothing about evil. What does God do about the evil so prevalent in His creation? Scripture does not give us a definitive answer though we do see God’s acting to deal with evil. We see Him contain it and restrain it, preventing it from doing its worst, but do we see Him abolish it? At first glance or a cursory overview leads us to conclude that He does not, but a closer look reveals all that God is doing to abolish evil. The story of the Bible is essentially the story of the battle of God with sin and evil, and His ultimate victory over both. We see God, in Jesus, defeating evil as He heals infirmities, delivers the oppressed from the bondage of the demonic, reining in the power of nature through the calming of the winds and the seas, and ultimately breaking the power of death when He raised Lazarus, and He himself rose from the dead.
From the moment evil entered His very good creation, we see God putting a plan—a risky plan—into action that will ultimately bring about the defeat of evil. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”(Gen. 3:15) These were the words God spoke to the enemy when His image-bearers’ choice to misuse the freedom and authority He granted them allowed evil to enter His perfect and good creation. It is universally understood that this curse spoken to the serpent is the first prophetic reference to the cross. It is in the cross that we see what God does about evil. He didn’t wait until evil had run its course; He didn’t sit and twiddle His thumbs while evil had its heyday. He immediately set into motion a plan to defeat evil, redeem mankind, and bring about a new creation. This plan was risky because it utilized, as the solution to the world’s evil, people who were themselves enmeshed in that evil.
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan Fyodorovitch eventually loses his sanity as he philosophizes about the existence of God in a world of horrific evil. In a discussion with his theistic brother Alyosha, he concludes that humans are capable of more evil than beasts as he describes what he has witnessed. He says to his brother,
“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that little child beating its breast with its fist, for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect under those conditions?”
Alyosha answers that he would not be willing, but then exclaims that there is one who is willing, and this One did not send another child, but His own child…Himself.(9) In reality, God did not create a world that required the shedding of the blood of an innocent child for peace. But, when the world He created was marred by the choices made by His image-bearers, when evil entered His perfect creation through the act of His delegated authority, He was willing to enter His creation as an innocent child and shed His own blood to restore the world and humanity.
Typically, the cross is discussed within the context of the spiritual dilemma of personal sin, salvation and forgiveness and rarely, if ever, in the context of the problem of evil. Yet sin and moral evil are very strongly coextensive and
“their effect on human lives is pervasive and profound. And this means there is every reason to suppose(indeed, it would be foolish to deny) that there is something deeply disordered about the lives of human beings. This disorder was not part of the Creator’s intention and is not chargeable against the design plan of creation…we are not viewing a more-or-less faithful image of the divine intention but a badly marred and distorted version of it. There is, to be sure, the absolutely vital question as to what a loving God would and should do to counter and overcome this distortion of his creative intention; an answer to this question is the central theme of the Christian doctrine of redemption.”(10)
Furthermore, it is in the cross that God, as Jesus, “suffers the full consequences of evil, evil from the political, social, cultural, personal, moral, religious, and spiritual angles all rolled into one, evil in the downward spiral hurtling toward the pit of destruction and despair, And He does so precisely as the act of redemption, of taking that downward fall and exhausting it, so that there may be new creation, new covenant, forgiveness, freedom and hope.”(11) The work of Christ on the cross is first and foremost a definitive victory over the powers of sin, death, and the devil. He did not intervene in an autocratic style, take over control of the world from inept humanity, and abolish evil with a single stroke. But He did intervene by coming into this world as a human and struck the death blow to evil in all its forms.
Overcoming evil through the act of forgiveness
What God accomplished in and through Christ on the cross was a crushing defeat of evil on a massive scale. It is also empowers us to defeat evil on a personal level through the act of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a crucial element in the overcoming of evil. It is not the same as tolerance, nor does it minimize or condone evil.
“When we forgive someone we not only release them from the burden of our anger and its possible consequences; we release ourselves from the burden whatever it was they had done to us, and from the crippled emotional state in which we shall go on living if we don’t forgive them and instead cling to our anger and bitterness. Forgiveness, then—both God’s forgiveness of us, our forgiveness of one another and our forgiveness even of ourselves—is a central part of deliverance from evil.”(12)
Every time we forgive another person and return good for evil, we are working against evil; we are using our authority and power to bring an end to evil in our world.
What might be greater than abolishing evil?
The philosophical argument surrounding God and the problem of evil implies that abolishing of evil is the only reasonable solution. The overwhelming assumption is that if God is both powerful and benevolent, then He would put an end to evil forever. But is abolishing evil the epitome of what a powerful, benevolent being would do about the problem of evil? I would submit that there is a means of dealing with evil that is greater than simply abolishing it and can be done without stripping any creature of delegated authority and power. God could exercise unilateral authority, remove power and free agency from men, and within nanoseconds rid the world of evil. But He chooses instead to work with His image-bearers against evil, exercising both His power and His goodness by turning evil into good. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him…”(Rom 8:28, NIV) It is precisely because of His omnipotence and His benevolence that He can take any event, no matter how evil, and turn it into something good. It is this reality that causes many to believe He plans evil for our good but that is a horrible perversion of God’s power and ability to bring good from any manifestation of evil.
God does not ordain evil, nor does He plan it, but He can turn any evil event the enemy throws our way into something that benefits us. This is the greatest testimony to His power and goodness. It is also a greater victory than simply abolishing it.
Historically speaking, it may be said that any discussion on theodicy has things backward. “It is not the case that people first come up with the idea of a loving god, and then went on to ask what such a God might be expected to do about instances of terrible evil. On the contrary, the idea of a loving God was first elicited by what God was believed to have actually done, first in the history of the Hebrew people but especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.”(13)
God has acted to defeat evil and is still acting to defeat evil. Evil may not be globally eradicated until heaven, but every time one of God’s image-bearers forgives a wrong, intervenes to stop evil, speaks up for justice, evil is defeated in that place and person.
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail,
The right prevail
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”*
*I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Endnotes
- 1. Theodicy. (March 11, 2021). In Wikipedia. https://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy.
- 2. Williamson, Clark. (1993) A Guest in the House of Israel. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, p. 21
- 3. MacArthur, John. (2007, March 17). The Problem of Evil. Retrieved from https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/GTY161/the-problem-of-evil.
- 4. Piper, John. (1998. July 1). Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?. Retrieved from https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/is-god-less-glorious-because-he-ordained-that-evil-be.
- 5. Hasker, William. (2008). The Triumph of God over Evil. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- 6. Hasker, William. (2008). The Triumph of God over Evil. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- 7. Boyd, Gregory A. (n.d.). God of the Possible. Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
- 8. Hasker, William. (2008). The Triumph of God over Evil. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 10.
- 9. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. (2016 Updated 2nd ed.). The Brothers Karamazov. HMDS printing press. Kindle Edition.
- 10. Hasker, William. (2008). The Triumph of God over Evil. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- 11. Wright. N.T.;Wright, Tom. 2006. Evil and the Justice of God. SPCK. Kindle Edition, p. 92.
- 12. Wright. N.T.;Wright, Tom. 2006. Evil and the Justice of God. SPCK. Kindle Edition, p. 135.
- 13. Hasker, William. (2008). The Triumph of God over Evil. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.