The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Is God The Author Of Evil?

Theology Biblical Theology
#21

Actually, if you see this as opposing forces- Satan is trying to drag us back into chaos. Jesus is trying to drag us into the ALL IN ALL- the ultimte peace of harmony with the Creator within the creation which is in Him.

The struggle between the two forces, flesh and spirit, evil and good, love and hate, causes a purification and an increasingly sophisticated resolution of what each pole of the duality is, but only for those who stay in the struggle, which only resolves and clarifies anything through actually living in it and through it.

Well done, enter into the joy of your Lord!

God likes His meat well done. :laughing: Burnt offering. Sweet smelling aroma of Christ in the well done disciple :laughing:

#22

So, Cole, you believe that God has justifiable reasons to “permit” evil, and that every evil act is in harmony with “God’s sovereign will.” I wonder, then, why Christ taught His disciples to pray, “May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!” If your view is true, then God’s will is always being done on earth. If an evil man tortures, rapes, and kills a little girl, that’s all God’s will—fitting right into His plan! Personally, I think that view of God is the deepest blasphemy possible. And I’m not coming against you personally, Cole. I’m attacking this blasphemous view of Him who is the Personification of LOVE! (1 John 4:8,16)

#23

There are at least three aspects to God’s will. Far from blasphemous this God is infinitely holy. His love is infinitely greater and deeper than mere human love. He is infinite in wisdom and knowledge.

#24

For me, the paradox of faith means holding these two things in tension: the infinite, holy love and wisdom of God and circumstances that seem to be calling Him evil. At times it doesn’t seem possible that God could allow bad things to happen. This is where I lean into His holiness and trust in His infinite love and wisdom. An infinitely wise and holy God always has justifiable reasons for permitting suffering. I can rest assured that He works all things together for my good in my life because I love Him. In bad times I can trust that He is in control and therefore He will bring good out of the evil situation

#25

Sarah Young in her devotional "Jesus Today:

#26

As I understand it… this is a faulty construct reflected in the main question being asked – “Is God The Author Of Evil?” The problem as I see it is the term “evil” has been infused with an almost ethereal or mystical presence as though IT (evil) has a power of its own standing. IT is then personified in such language as ‘devil’ ‘Satan’ ‘Lucifer’ and all manner of dark meaning attached to it.

Again, IMO the question is slightly off-base and could be better framed along the lines of “Can God be the author of evil?” My answer to that is a definite yes, WHEN “evil” is understood in the biblical sense of “CALAMITY”.

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

God creates evil i.e., calamity. The OT is replete with texts demonstrating God’s vexations upon His disobedient people. Although the LXX is different the Hebrew of Gen 2:9 and Isa 45:7 for “evil” are one and the same word. Thus to have “knowledge of good and evil” would be to place one’s self upon God’s Seat of Authority (“I will ascend…”) in the realm of determining or passing judgment etc; such was above Adam’s pay-scale.

#27

Some additional Scriptures to wrestle with include…

Isaiah 30:28, “His breath is like a rushing torrent, rising up to the neck. He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction; he places in the jaws of the peoples a bit that leads them astray.”

Isaiah 63:17, “Why, Lord, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes that are your inheritance.”

Romans 11:32, “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”

The expression ‘author of evil’ often misdirects our focus. When someone ‘authors’ something, then that something is their final purpose. Certainly, God is not the ‘author’ of evil, for evil is not his purpose. However, just as certainly he is actively Sovereign over all evil and even our particular sinful choices. So how are we to understand this? Instead, God is the ‘author’ of grace and evil is merely a necessary supporting actor to frame the demonstration of his main actor, that is grace in us, his people. It should also be noted that even though God is actively, finally, and totally sovereign over all things, including sin, he ordains evil only indirectly through Satan and the demons, and demonstrates grace directly through his own hand in our Savior Jesus Christ. Perhaps we could compare God to a skeet shooter. He is the one who says ‘pull’ and lets evil fly through Satan as we learn from the book of Job. However, his purpose is to personally and expertly shoot the skeet. Though in the midst of our sin and pain now, we may not see it, but the Scriptures promise that Christ will shoot every skeet, 21 for 21! Perfect score! Hope in Christ!

I have written further about this here dgjc.org/zingers/isaiah-63-17-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa and
here dgjc.org/zingers/matthew-18-7-my-bodacious-father.

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#28

When someone ‘authors’ something, then that something is their final purpose. Certainly, God is not the ‘author’ of evil, for evil is not his purpose. However, just as certainly he is actively Sovereign over all evil and even our particular sinful choices. So how are we to understand this? Instead, God is the ‘author’ of grace and evil is merely a necessary supporting actor to frame the demonstration of his main actor,

Awesome post. Early in this thread i mentioned that evil seems to appear as a natural contrast to good. Where did you get this understanding that God is not the author of evil if evil is not his purpose. Why can’t he be an author regardless of the final purpose. I hope you are right but i’m not quite getting the connection between author and purpose.

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#29

Thank you and glad I could be an encouragement. God blessed me discipleship and Bible study that lead me to Romans 11:32. Then after 3 decades of wrestling with that single verse + a major crash with sin I wrote this dgjc.org/optimism. :wink:

I do believe that God is sovereign over all evil and so many of my opponents continue to complain that I teach that God is the ‘author’ of evil. So be it. However, I prefer to use the term ‘ordain’ regarding God’s role in the existence of evil. He certainly does more than ‘allow’ according to the Scriptures I quoted above. But it is most important to communicate that evil is not God’s final purpose even though he is the ultimate cause of all things, evil included, Romans 11:36. Again His final purpose is the demonstration of love and grace. Sin, evil, and brokenness is only a temporary necessity to show off God’s ability to love the unlovable. He is to be praised as the author of grace.

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#30

Jeff,

I made the point above that God is the author of evil in the sense that He permits it when He could stop it. Just as when He allowed Satan to take jobs family and make him sick. Yet Job responds by saying “the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away” and "shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?"To which the writer responds, “in all this job did not sin with His lips”. So, yes God is the author of evil in the sense that He permitted it (for morally justifiable reasons). His permission is a type of secondary causation not a direct causation. So, God isn’t the author of evil in the sense of direct causation. So, your scriptures pose no challenge to what I said.

#31

I’m following your reasoning as best I can, and with some sympathy, but a couple of things are getting in the way of my subscribing to your thoughts in toto:

Isn’t it rather: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”?

  1. At the time of an evil act, say the beheading of an innocent person - is the victim a demonstration of God’s love?

I’m not being contentious - it’s just that I’ve read and listened to so many attempts to justify God’s ways with man, or to ‘answer’ the problem of evil, none of which really answers the problem; I don’t think we can answer it, but I suppose the effort to try has its own rewards.

I do NOT think that we should attempt a ‘transcendental’ critique (and you’re not!) - reasoning thusly: We see the types and amounts of evil in the world, and using those facts, we can reason as to what god must be like. In other words, defining who God is by observing evil. No, we observe who God is by observing Jesus.

Such a big problem.

#32

Cole H. > So, God isn’t the author of evil in the sense of direct causation. So, your scriptures pose no challenge to what I said.

Seems to me that they do…

Isaiah 30:28, “…HE PLACES in the jaws of the peoples a bit that leads them astray.”
Isaiah 63:17, “Why, Lord, DO YOU MAKE US WANDER from your ways and HARDEN OUR HEARTS…”
Romans 11:32, “For GOD HAS BOUND…”

DaveB > I don’t think we can answer it, but I suppose the effort to try has its own rewards.

Seems to me that Romans 11:32 is Paul’s answer to this specific question. Frankly, it is not as if he didn’t answer it plainly. However, the plain answer is difficult to swallow, even revolting I admit. Yet if you continue to object, how else could Paul have used language to say that God himself is the direct cause of the existence of evil in the world, which he did so that he could demonstrate mercy? Paul plainly writes this in Romans 11:32 and the Scriptures elsewhere, but accepting it as written would mean a radical adjustment in our understanding of the nature of God himself and his grace.

#33

Jeff,

The way God hardens a heart is by simply removing His grace and permitting it to happen. Yes God is ultimately responsible and we can therefore say God hardened a heart (for justifiable reasons) but He doesn’t directly cause it. The example of Job and Satan still stands.

#34

What you have expressed above, Dave, is very close to my own view. The problem of evil has been debated by philosophers and theologians for centuries, and no one yet has come up with a complete answer. I do think that there are partial answers which have been offered:

God does little or nothing to prevent:

1. Suffering From Other People
in order not to interfere with the free will of man. He wants all people to relate to Him of their own free will.

2. Suffering From Natural Disasters
a) in order not to disturb the workings of fallen nature. Particular animals sometimes kill and even eat people.
b) in order not to disturb the workings of nature as God created it. For example if when people stumble and fall over a cliff, if He caused them to land like a feather at the bottom of the cliff, there would be no uniformity with the usual working of the force of gravity.

I know there are many questions, even about the above explanations. And these two are probably not exhaustive in explaining why God “allows” some forms of suffering.

#35

Cole H. > The way God hardens a heart is by simply removing His grace and permitting it to happen.

Sure I totally agree.

Yet that pushes us back further to answer the question of original sin and the nature of man. Why is the nature of man corrupt from birth? Why is mankind even tempted and universally sinful in the first place? The CS Lewis, Arminian style, popular Christianity answer would be to say because of ‘free will’. Yet a will that is guaranteed to sin is hardly free now is it? Sure we all make decisions for which we are personally responsible. However, there is not one human being, except Christ, that has walked a straight line. Instead, because of our bondage to sin, everyone has hit the ditch.

I think Augustine and Jonathan Edwards have written most extensively on this subject. Martin Luther’s ‘Bondage of the Will’ is also a must read.

The focus of Romans 11:32 seems to be concerning the ORIGIN of man’s sinful nature. Why does mankind sin? Because God has bound our very nature to sin. We are unable to not sin because because of our sinful nature, ordained by God. Thankfully, God’s purpose is to exercise grace and set us free. Proponents of ‘free will’ ought to note that it is the grace of Christ that sets us free indeed.

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#36

Jeff, the passages from Isaiah are Isaiah’s thoughts when he prays. This is how he interpreted the wandering away of the people of Israel. Don’t take responsibility—blame God. Thousands still do it today, although some blame the devil. “The devil made me do it!”

Here is the Romans 11:32 verse:

For God has shut up together all in impersuasion in order that He might have mercy on all.

Have you ever noticed that the word for “shut up together” is used in Luke 5:6?
And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking (ESV).

The fish needed to be enclosed in a net in order to haul them into the boat. Only those that were shut up together in one of the nets could be brought into the boat.

In the context of Romans 11:32, the people who were not persuaded by the apostles to entrust themselves to the Son of God, were Jewish people—people who did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but was an imposter. But God wanted to have mercy on them ALL! In order to accomplish this, He shut them up together in their impersuasion, perhaps through their religious system,or perhaps shut up in a particular area, so that when the time would come when Jesus was revealed to them as Messiah, they would all come in together (like the fish in the net), and thus God could them have mercy on them all together.

#37

I’m wondering if [tag]JasonPratt[/tag] has anything to add to the interpretation of this verse (Ro. 11.32?)

#38

popular Christianity answer would be to say because of ‘free will’. Yet a will that is guaranteed to sin is hardly free now is it? Sure we all make decisions for which we are personally responsible.

Well i have learned that the term “free will” is not meant to mean what it plainly sounds like. It is used to mean that man has the ability to make choices. Man may be influenced by a million things but he still can make choices and this is called “free will.”

#39
#40

That is a good point. We need to agree on a unified definition of the expression ‘free will’. This article is a good primer, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will. Common street usage of the expression usually means the ‘ability to make choices’. However, in this theological discussion that definition is not complete enough.

Typically in Christian theology ‘free will’ means that natural man, apart from super natural grace, is able to choose, trust, and love God. These proponents claim that the New Birth happens after the individual exercises their ‘free will’ choice. Thus a human supplied condition is the beginning of the Christian life. That is classic CS Lewis / Arminian theology. Alternatively Calvinistic theology insists that man is dead in their sins and will not choose, trust, or love God without a prior supernatural work of grace.

I’d love comments on this article dgjc.org/dgjc/a-quintessential-defense-of-free-will.

Though I think we have drifted from the question of the original post about the origin of evil.