The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Necessary Evil

Theology Philosophical
#1

Just taken delivery of Julie Ferwerda’s book ‘Raising Hell’ and I’m looking forward to reading it.

I was flicking through the pages as I tend to with a new book reading snippets here and there. The first I opened to was on page 195 in the Chapter ‘Necessary Evil’.

I quote:-
*"Evil has a critical role in our universe of revealing to us what is good and noble and just. Without it, you and I could not be able to distinguish what is good.
In other words…
*You would not know warmth without cold.
*You would not know light without darkness.
*You would not relief without pain.
*You would not know satisfaction without hunger.
*You would not know fairness without injustice.
*You would not know mercy without deserved punishment.
*You would not know love without hate or indifference.
*You would not know life without death.
You would not come to know the character of God without experiencing what is not the character of God, whether through His adversary, or perhaps through your belief in the once misleading doctrine of hell"

I would welcome comment on this line of thinking.
For myself I have some issues with this.
Inevitably we have to come to terms with the presence of evil and God either permitting it/ using it for achieving his purposes- turning evil intent to good/ or actively creating evil to achieve the purposes above and, as the text said, to come to know His character.

Now I grew up in a denomination (SDA) that views evil as directly attributable to the workings of the Devil, who has tried to thwart God’s creation and that God has allowed to persist for a short while (in an eternal perspective) to demonstrate that His way is the only way, His law the only way to live and to show the ‘watching universe’ that He is really a good God.
I’ve probably stated that a little crudely but that’s the gist of it.

Now although I have been quite content to believe the first part ( the fallen world due to the Devil and his rebellion) I take issue with the idea that God’s goodness could only be demonstrated by allowing some sort of demonstration of the results of evil to continue to be played out on earth.
This seems particularly hideous for poor wretches in the world who were/are born in the world with no hope and never hearing of Christ and the offer of salvation only to die after a squalid existence only to be annihalated (I was an annihilationist) or worse.
In fact it was in rebellion to this sort of thinking that first drew my attention to Universalism because then it could be argued that at sometime in the future at least things would be made up to all those who have suffered.

Universalism of course, perhaps more than other lines of thinking emphasises the omnipotence of God. He is not in a battle of soveriegnty with the Devil using and counteracting the evil where He can; but the logical progression often seems to be that God using evil or allowing evil really equates with God creating evil for the very purposes as stated in the quote above.

I have nearly as much trouble (if not more) with that line of thinking as that with which I formerly held in the SDA tradition (and I don’t think their position is very different from most Arminian viewpoints).

I guess the question of God allowing/creating evil has and always will be an enigma that is not entirely explainable.

Getting back to the above points raised in the book. I can’t agree that opposites have to be experienced in order to understand/ experience the joys of the positive. They may at times enhance an understanding or an appreciation eg the appreciation of food if one had at sometime in their life starved.
But for example:-
*I don’t think that experiencing hate is necessary to understand love.
*I can understand Life without experiencing death (obviously)
*I think mercy may be an innate quality that even if not practiced by a person can be understood by them without a concept of ‘deserved punishment’.
etc etc.
I wont go through them all but I think you see where I’m coming from.

If there are other creations who are viewing the playing out of things on earth (I don’t think this is necessarily substantiated in Scripture) other than Angelic entities/ demonic entities, the question is do they /we /need to see /experience evil playing out on this earth; or even harder to comprehend IMO is a God who created evil for the very purpose of demonstrating His love??

May be it’s simplistic to look at a human father child relationship and imagine a father creating scenarios in the child’s life in order to be seen to be a good father- I find this bizarre.

In ending this I must point out that I’m not prejudging the book as I haven’t seen the whole picture but just wanted to raise these thoughts in response to the one passage I read.

It remains to me a thorny issue as I don’t enjoy the concept of a God who must actively create evil as the only way to ultimately acheive His purposes and for us to understand what a loving God He is.

Anyway I’d love to hear some arguments for and against and your opinions.

Cheers S

#2

Sturmy,

I know the concept that God has planned for man to experience darkness is hard to digest. Almost Harder to Digest that he actively brings it about. That Chapter 18 in Julie’s book was also for me a very thought provoking one that I am trying to sort through, but I believe it Lines right up with Universalism and What scripture reveals about God and his Sovereignty, and omniscience.

You have used alot of examples to make your point that Evil is not Neccessary or even logical from a father that loves his child/children but before we look at those which i think i can make a good point might be false, I would first like to see what you think of the following scriptures. Tell me, do these verses not indicate that God is the one who not only planned us to experience darkness but also actively brings it about in people’s lives:

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and Create the Darkness. I make peace and create evil. I the lord do all these things.
The word Create above is the same word used in genesis1:1

1 Sam 16:14-15 He sends evil spirit to torment.
1 Kings 22:20-23 He decieves people in order to lead them astray.
2 Thess 2:11 God sends a working of delusion.
Jer 6:19 God sends disaster
The book of Job

The tree of Knowledge of good and evil in Genesis. Did not God create this? Is he not all knowing and clearly knew mankind would eat from it? Did he not when he finished creating say “It is very good” knowing what would transpire?

I also find it right in line with some of Jesus words. For example “I speak to them in parables so that though seeing they may not see, and though hearing they may not hear, lest they turn and be saved”. Hmmmm. Which appears to be showing not that Jesus didnt want them saved, but that it was his plan for them to experience a hardening/Evil before it was time for them to see and come to the light.

Everyone will be salted with fire etc.

Also does not Paul make it clear in Romans that it was God that allowed all to receive a hardening so that he could show his mercy to all?

Does not James and Peter and the other NT writers point out that God disciplines those he loves, just as a father disciplines a son he loves? Is not discipline usually in the form of something painful? Would pain be classified as light or dark?

Let me know what you think of those scriptures.

#3

I think it might be helpful to distinguish between experience and know.

I may be currently as a child experiencing the love from my parents but that does not mean i understand or know this love for example, compared to bad parents that abuse their children.

I may be living as a child with wealth and experiencing it but do i really understand/know/appreciate it now as much as i would after living among the poor for a year.

You say you can understand life without experiencing death. But is that true? Is it possible that you understand life only because you have lived and been exposed to death? If you were born in a world where no one ever died I think it would be possible to conceive of the idea of death, but after the first person died don’t you think you would gain a greater appreciation and knowledge of life?

As others have pointed out, Jesus said "he who loves little has been forgiven little.He who loves much has been forgiven much. Does that not indicate that a persons appreciation and knowledge of forgiveness is directly related to the depth of their sin that was forgiven?

Just my thoughts, I’m trying to sort through these things to. Let me know what you think Brother.

#4

Hello all!

I have a few comments to make in this area:

I believe that UR provides a complete defeater to the problem of evil, since, in the context of an eternity of joy and happiness (which I would say applies not only to humans but to, at least, all sentient creatures), even the longest lifespan becomes infinitesimally small. Then, the infinitesimally small fragment of evil remaining, I would say, is permitted (rather than directly caused; it could be considered to be caused by other free agents, human or not) as the least possible amount of evil that could be allowed in order to create the eternal happiness (i.e. the best of all possible worlds that could have been allowed in order to create eternal happiness, having the minimum amount of evil possible balanced with the maximum eternal happiness). I thus believe there to be no evil allowed that does not ultimately provide benefit to the individual (since God uses no-one solely as a means to an end without also using them as an end in themselves), and God has chosen to create a future with maximum possible happiness and florishing for eternity, allowing the minimum possible evil to bring about this contained within this life.

Blessings to all! :smiley: