Providence and the Problem of Evil

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL HAS BEEN CALLED THE "ACHILLES HEEL" of Christianity. It is perhaps the most vexing philosophical issue we face when we consider the full magnitude of the providence of God. The question is as simple as the answer is difficult: How can a God who is absolutely good allow evil in His creation? It is a question of theodicy, or the justification of God, for the presence of an imperfect universe.

John Stuart Mill, among others, argued that, given the presence of evil in the world, God is either not omnipotent or not loving (or good). If evil exists because God does not want it to exist but is unable to prevent it, then He is not omnipotent. If He is omnipotent but allows it to exist, then He is neither loving nor good. Either way the presence of evil is fatal to Christianity, according to Mill.

In theology evil is referred to as "the mystery of inequity." Christianity clearly admits that evil exists. Indeed, most religions admit to its existence, with the exception of those few that argue that evil is an illusion. Christian Science, for example, holds this belief. I once had a debate with a Christian Scientist on this point. I maintained that evil was real, and he insisted that it was an illusion.

I asked him if he thought I was an illusion. He allowed that I was real. I asked him if he thought my view of evil was correct. He said it was not. Then I asked him if he thought it was a good thing that I was teaching people that evil really exists. He said "No." I then asked him if my teaching about evil was evil. He saw the trap but didn't slow down. He said that my teaching about evil was an illusion. I guess that meant my teaching that evil was real was not real teaching or that my evil teaching about evil only seemed to be evil but in reality was good, which would mean that evil really exists. The debate gave me a headache, or at least the illusion of a headache.

The philosopher Leibniz provided a famous "theodicy" in which he concluded that God has created the best of all possible worlds. Leibniz did not come glibly to his conclusion that this is the best of all possible worlds. He took several

factors into consideration. First, he considered that God could have chosen from several possible models when He undertook to create a world. Whatever model He finally chose would have been chosen according to His infinite wisdom, omniscience, and righteousness. Any other "possible" model would have been rejected. We might conceive of a better world than the one that is, but we lack the eternal perspective necessary to make the final kind of judgment God is able to make. God alone thinks sub species aeternitatis, or under the auspices of the eternal.

Second, Leibniz argued that only God is perfect and it is impossible for God to create another God. The second God would not really be God because by definition anything that God creates must be a creature. It would be a dependent, derived, and contingent being, not God. The concept of omnipotence does not mean that God can do anything, only that He has complete power and control over what He does create.

There was something else lurking in Leibniz's thought that was critical to his theory. He made a distinction among three types of evil: moral evil, physical evil, and metaphysical evil. Moral evil has to do with the sin of volitional creatures. Physical evil refers to sickness or natural calamities such as earthquakes and floods. Both moral and physical evil flow out of and are a result of what Leibniz called metaphysical evil, which has to do with imperfect being. Basically it is related to finitude. Anything that is created, or is finite, is a lower order of being than the pure eternal and infinite being found in God. Since the finite being is a lower form of being than an infinite being, it is metaphysically impure, or "evil." It lacks the perfection of a being found in God alone. Medieval theologians were fond of referring to God as ens perfectissimum, or the "most perfect being."

For Christians, the problem with this schema is that it makes sin a necessary consequence of creation, or of finitude. This flies in the face of the biblical prohibition of sin and the biblical promise of God's judgment against it. If moral evil is a necessary consequence of metaphysical evil, then the question of culpability is raised.

The biblical record of creation does not say either man or the cosmos created

evil. Rather, the divine evaluation of the work of creation is that it was good. The fall was a fall from original righteousness and is not viewed biblically as a necessary consequence of creation.

Many other attempts of theodicy have been made. One of the most common is the philosophy of dualism, which maintains the eternal coexistence of forces of good and evil. This view has been prominent in various Eastern philosophies and religions. It sees two equal and opposite forces locked in an eternal cosmic struggle. It is light versus darkness, ying and yang, etc. This type of thinking often invades Christian thought when Satan is regarded as an evil being who is equal in power and eternity with God.

Dualism is also fatal to Christianity as it makes redemption an inherent impossibility. If the two forces are equal and opposite from all eternity, there is no hope of either ever emerging triumphant. Also, it is the death of Christian theology because God is no longer ultimate. It is the end of monotheism as well because dualism posits the existence of at least two distinct deities.

In recent times some process theologians have placed the poles of good and evil into the nature of God Himself; God vacillates between the two poles, they say.

God becomes like the Roman god Janus, adorned with two faces. God is no longer deemed absolutely holy but contains a shadow side to His character from which comes evil.

Unfortunately, most theodicies that seek to explain the origin of evil raise more questions than they answer and leave us with more theological problems than the problem of evil. It is a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

The Nature of Evil

The problem of evil must be addressed first by asking questions about the nature of evil. The Westminster Catechism answers the question, "What is sin?" by the answer, "Sin is any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God."

The answer contains an important negative term, the word want. A want is a lack or deficiency of something. This word was carefully chosen by the framers of the catechism to conform to classic definitions of evil. Both Augustine and

Thomas Aquinas defined evil in terms of negation or privation (negatio and privatio), referring to the lack, or privation, of something, namely the good. Evil is a lack of goodness, the negation of goodness.

The theologians understood that evil is characteristically defined in negative terms. We speak of unrighteousness, injustice, lawlessnessor antichrist. Sin is described as disobedience. We cannot understand unrighteousness except against the standard of righteousness. Likewise, injustice is defined by contrasting it to justice and disobedience by contrasting it to obedience. It has been said that evil is parasitic; it cannot exist except as a privation or negation of the good.

Augustine argued that evil depends upon the good for its very definition.

Because evil is defined in such negative terms it may be tempting to say that if evil is negation, or if privation cannot be absolute, then perhaps evil doesn't really exist after all. We cannot conceive of pure nothingness. If something were absolutely evil it would be an absolute negation, which would be nothing. Or if it were pure privation it would likewise be nothing. We can think of absolute goodness but not absolute evil.

To protect against the conclusion that evil doesn't exist, the magisterial Reformers of the sixteenth century added a descriptive word to the classical definition of evil by calling evil privatio actu-osa. They agreed that evil is a kind of privation but is nevertheless real. It is both actual and active. Evil is something that moral agents do. This "doing" may be either active or passive. It may involve sins of commission or sins of omission. A sin of omission is a failure to do what we ought to do. But even this "not doing" is a certain kind of doing because it involves doing something other than what we should do.

Augustine insisted that sin or evil is something that only a good creature can actually do. That is, the creature must first be good before it is capable of doing bad. He argued that Adam was created good but not immutably good. He had the ability to sin [posse pec-care) and the ability to not sin [posse non peccare). That he exercised his ability to sin is a matter of record. Part of what Augustine was getting at is that since evil is a lack of good it depends upon the good for its very existence.

Perhaps the only comfort we can draw from this is that those who complain that evil is a problem can only do so once they have affirmed the existence of the good. If we are unable to account for the origin of evil, the critic has a double problem. If he insists that evil is real, then he must also affirm the existence of good. If there is no God, he is left, not only with accounting for evil, but for the good as well.

This is the dilemma that leads many skeptics to conclude that evil really doesn't exist after all. But then neither does good. This view reduces to nihilism and the idea that we live in an amoral universe: There is neither good nor evil, only conventions and preferences. This view is integrally related to a relativistic view of life. Relativism insists that there are no absolutes except the absolute that there are absolutely no absolutes. In this philosophy all things are permissible.

I once was visited by a distraught Christian woman who complained to me that her son was a professed atheist. She begged me to talk with him, and I agreed to do it, knowing in advance that the son would probably resent the meeting. He came, openly hostile and obviously reluctant to be there. I asked him how he felt about his mother's views. He complained bitterly that his mother was always trying to shove her religion down his throat. I asked him why he didn't like that.

He said he believed everybody should have the right to do his or her own thing.

Then I asked him why then he would complain about his mother's behavior.

Didn't she also have the right to do her own thing? I explained that his mother, being a professed Christian, was called to be sensitive to him and not coercive in her behavior. From a Christian perspective, he had some just grounds for his complaint, but according to his "ethic" he had no grounds whatsoever. He got the point.

Most relativists are only relatively relativists. That is, they want to express their own rights of preference and will tolerate other people's preferences—until they bump up against their own. This is why Kant argued that the existence of God was a practical necessity for the survival of civilization. Without some norms to govern human behavior, we are left with moral anarchy, a situation in which society cannot survive for long.

All cultures have norms. Perhaps the norms are simply conventions or the

preferences of the controlling powers. If that is the case and the preferences are not universally held, then manifestly somebody is being tyrannized. Nietzsche argued that these norms are mere conventions people follow in a "herd morality" because they are not bright enough or courageous enough to challenge them.

However, we must admit that practical necessity is not an adequate proof for the reality of God. Perhaps the nihilist is right. There is no God. Nothing is either right or wrong, and we live in a cosmic jungle. I don't believe that. I am convinced that sound and compelling argument can be given for the existence of God and of good and evil. But at least I admire the pure nihilist for not copping out to silly alternatives like the humanists do, wanting to have their cake and eat it too. The humanist exalts the dignity of man and the importance of various virtues while at the same time declaring that we are cosmic accidents.

Slime has no virtue, and the humanist can give no compelling reason why any human being should have any rights because he has no justifying grounds for rights in the first place. He has only sentiment, which proves nothing except the emotional state of the avower.

No Easy Answers

Frequently I hear Christians give an easy answer to the problem of evil; they declare facilely that evil originates in man's free will. I call this a facile answer because it fails to get to the root of the problem. It is plain, from Scripture, that man chose evil instead of good in the Garden of Eden. But it doesn't explain how a creature that was created good chose evil. Let us look at the biblical account of the fall: Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"

And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'" Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows

that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. (Gen. 3:1-7) The text indicates that Adam and Eve chose to do something God had commanded them not to do. Their doing it proves with certainty that they were able to do it. The question is, Why did they do it? And how were they able to do it? Various explanations are given. The first is that the serpent coerced them to do it ("the devil made them do it" excuse). This explanation has two serious problems. The first is that the Scripture gives no indication that they were victims of coercion. The second is that if they were forced into the act the guilt would be Satan's and not theirs. They could not justly be held responsible for doing something they were forced to do by Satan.

The second explanation is that they were deceived by Satan. The Scriptures do indicate that Satan is subtle, crafty, beguiling, and is capable of being highly deceptive. Indeed, he is the Great Deceiver. The problem with this explanation, however, is the assigning of guilt to innocent victims of deception. If Adam and Eve were totally deceived they would have sinned in ignorance. Certainly deception occurred. Satan told them that by eating the forbidden fruit they would be as gods and that they would not die. Both of these assertions were lies. They ate and did not become as God. They ate, and they did die.

It is also clear from the text that Adam and Eve could not claim ignorance as an excuse. They were told and told clearly what God commanded and what He forbade. They acted in the clear knowledge of these things and could not say they were totally deceived.

So the question comes back to free will. We grant that Adam and Eve freely willed to sin, but the deeper question remains: Why? Obviously they sinned because they wanted to sin. They had a desire to sin. But the desire to sin is

already sin. They committed an evil action out of an evil desire. Without the desire they could not sin. If they acted against their desire then they would be acting against their own will, and the choice would not have been a free choice.

If the act was truly free and they acted according to their desire then they must have had an evil desire or inclination to start with. From whence did it come?

Was it there from the beginning? Did God give them the evil desire? If He did, how could He hold them culpable? If He didn't give it to them, where did it come from?

These are no small questions allowing easy answers. This dilemma provoked Karl Barth to describe the origin of sin as an "impossible possibility." These words are, of course, an oxymoron, a veritable nonsense statement. If it were impossible, then it couldn't have been a possibility. If it was a possibility, then it couldn't have been impossible. The use of the oxymoron does not resolve the problem; it only underlines the dilemma.

I do not know the solution to the problem of evil. Nor do I know of anyone else who does. I have never been fully satisfied by any of the theodicies I've ever seen. This does not mean the problem is insoluble or that the question is unanswerable. Perhaps tomorrow the problem will be solved. But so far I haven't been able to find a solution. My ability to identify the problem is no solution to the problem. Diagnosis or analysis is not a cure.

This does not mean I have not reached any conclusions on the matter. I have concluded that evil is real. I also agree that evil is dependent on the good for its very definition and that evil must be defined in terms of privation and negation.

Most importantly perhaps is the conclusion that ultimately it must be good that there is evil or evil would not exist.

We must be exceedingly careful here. To say it is good that evil exists is not the same thing as saying that evil is good. To say evil is good is itself is evil, as Scripture so clearly declares. Evil is evil. However, to say that it is good that there is evil is simply to declare that God is good and that His providence extends to all things, including evil. God's sovereignty stands over evil, and He is able to bring good out of evil and to use evil for His holy purposes. When I say it is good that there is evil I'm saying that evil could not exist for a second

apart from the providence of God. That God allows, permits, or ordains that there be evil means He deems it good to allow it. He only ordains what He wills should take place. His will is perfectly and absolutely righteous. If He wills that evil should exist and it could not possibly exist if He did not will it, then we must conclude that in His secret counsel He has good reasons that evil should exist. The only reasons He has for anything are good reasons. He wills whatsoever He wills according to His good pleasure. There is no bad pleasure to be found in Him or in His will. Evil is real, and it is evil. But evil is proximate, not ultimate. It is not the final answer of God who works all things according to His inscrutable but righteous will.

Evil is a problem to Christianity, but it is not fatal to Christianity. In all things we must interpret the unknown in light of the known, not the known in light of the unknown. What is known is that God exists and that He is good. What is also known is that we sin and that only God can solve that problem and that He has solved it for us in Christ. We also know that sin is not a necessary consequence of finitude because in heaven we will still be finite and we will not sin. There we will enjoy the best of all possible heavens.