THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Introduction
ANTILOGISM
Supposedly only two of these points of the antilogism may be affirmed at any one time. The solution to an antilogism comes by adding new factors, which implies that one of the factors is not an absolute bereft of circumstantial qualifications. Evil is not an absolute, and neither are the other two characteristics. As omnipotence is qualified by holiness, all three of these points are qualified by love. Love, for example, may allow free will to be used to do evil rather than stifle every attempt to misuse free will. The most important consideration in the presentation below is that a larger category surrounds the antilogism—the interpersonal one.
I. Aspects of the Answer
beginning TIME end ETERNITY
of evil of evil
creature’s creator’s
will power
A. Time allows for origin and end. An antilogism is a logical relationship; hence, it does not deal with truth but with validity. Logic is timeless/atemporal. The space between “beginning of evil” and “end of evil” becomes an exception rather than an absolute. If each time a person wanted to exercise his free will in an unacceptable way God intervened between the decision and its fulfillment, it would have the effect of collapsing into one point in time the origin and end of evil.
Intention transcends time in light of the future anticipated acts of one’s own doing; hence, even timelessness (conflicting patterns) can be adapted to the timeline: both matters are in God’s mind presently (evil and future overcoming of evil); so he can allow the present in light of the future, which in objective reality is in sequence.
B. Will: Evil originates in the free will of secondary agencies.
C. Limitation: Limitation “limits” the expression of evil. God restrains the degree and length of evil opposition to good and permits lesser degrees as he wills. “Permissive will” means what he allows in contrast to what he initiates. An example is the statement in Genesis 50:20, “God meant it for good.” The following diagram pictures factors of concentric limitation.
D. Redemption: Redemption “transforms” evil. God rises above the exercise of sheer power to overthrow in love by first giving the opportunity to redeem evil into good.
nature of creation and evil
DEGREE
Limits persons’ ability to do evilNature of evil (tends to self-destruct)Special providential intervention
LENGTH
People cannot remember pain (only the fact of it).The death of evil persons limits how long they can ruin life for other
people.
- Consummation/judgment/eternity . . .
a. Gathers up in judgment, and so on, the inequities of the time of this life.
b. Involves hell as poetic justice (conditional immortality, annihilation, eternal punishment).
c. Removes evil permanently from God/good.
II. Reasons for Allowing Evil: God knew he could handle it and do so in a way as to create even greater possibilities.
A. There is greater potential life satisfaction for volitional creatures than for robots. Every good potential has an equal and opposite evil. That factor is implicit in any choice to create what can have a good potential. If the good does not work, the corresponding evil becomes the case. The reason divorce is so bad is that marriage is so good; the reason a rebellious son can be so disheartening is that a good son is so satisfying. In God’s decision to establish the high-level goods that he did, he implicitly established correspondingly high-level evils because of the free will that can choose not to do what it should.
B. There is greater appreciation for good by providing a real contrast with it. The point here is about greater appreciation of good, not about definition for good. Evil does not have to be present to provide a basis for a definition of evil. Evil can be defined by being contrary to what is commanded, contrary to purpose, contrary to nature.
C. The presence of evil sensitizes people to their own lack of self-sufficiency. Evil comes in the form of death, pain, suffering caused by evil behavior. (negative factor) (Note death/pain/suffering above under “limitation.”)
D. People develop positively in ways and to degrees not otherwise likely or possible (positive factor).
E. The presence of evil provides God with a circumstance that allows him to show some qualities and degrees of qualities that he would not otherwise be showing: patience, love, mercy, and the like. The presence of evil even tends to confirm that he is not a self-centered God. Evidently, he can “handle” having things other than the way he wants them. With the impersonal creation there is glory that comes in consequence of the beauty of nature as his creative self-expression. However, with personal creation he first graces the persons, and then they praise him for his previous self-giving (see Ephesians 1).
F. In the end, the presence of evil establishes greater glory potential for God by contrast. The existence of evil provides occasion for him to demonstrate some virtues he would not otherwise have occasion to show. If there were no evil, there would be no circumstance for seeing his capacity to forgive and love his enemies as he commands us to do.
Greater glory comes to him from personal wills than from impersonal forces.
Greater glory comes to him from those who first will against him and then he redeems them than if no redemption had ever occurred (cp. one that repents vs. ninety-nine righteous ones).
At the very end of the matter, glory even comes to him from his conquest over those who refuse redemption and continue to disobey. The refusal of love is self-condemning. Evil merely provides occasion for divine conquest of evil.
The love of God propels him to want that on which he can bestow himself (grace), to which then the graced people respond in thanks and praise, which glorifies him. But God does not need that glory; he is so glorious he does not need to be glorified. His omniscience makes him aware that the glory will come, but his outward-centered love overrides concern for self-centered glory. So to speak, God allows evil to express itself to prove to his rational creatures that he is not self-centered.
In this connection it may be well to note what a “jealous God” means. The modern usage of “jealous” adds a negative connotation. Removing that connotation leaves God’s “straight-up” recognition that he is the only God and that it would be contrary to reality and to his truthfulness to “respect” our attempt to credit some non-existent entity of our own imagination with actions that Yahveh did.
We may ask why God could not create free will and simply not allow no one ever to misuse it. It could be used to choose between goods, but not to choose evil. Free will would still be a human endowment without God’s allowing people to express it in an evil way. A comparison to parenting (“theology from below” in an interpersonal fashion) suggests an understanding. We do not walk around with our children, constantly hovering over them ready to stay their hand from doing anything bad. We consider the characteristics of persons with our children, which means being trusted and loved. If we were the children, we would not want our parents hanging over us constantly; we would want them to trust us and, by trusting us, show their love for us. We would want to feel free to the extent that we might even choose wrongly.
The following diagram combines the previous three diagrams to picture the relationship that exists between the sets of factors involved in each one. The lettered triangle reproduces the antilogism in diagram #1, the two vertical lines integrate diagram #2 into the situations, and the broad arrow recasts the point in diagram #3 to show how the antilogism relates to the time boundaries of evil as well as its natural, providential, and redemptive limitations.
In the final analysis, the “answer” to the problem of evil comes out of the distinctives of interpersonalism. An antilogism is solved by added factors—by the enlarged context. That larger context qualifies back from absolute degree the elements of the antilogism. That larger context here is not only (a) eternity and (b) what lies beyond our knowable circumstance; it buys (c) the personhood of God and mankind; that is, it involves another kind of reality. [1] LOVE, an interpersonal phenomenon, becomes the factor—in a personal God’s giving the capacity for personhood (which risks evil) for us to experience. Inasmuch as love has an affective dimension, it speaks to (d) the emotional component implicit in the antilogism. Furthermore, [2] LOVE is involved in God’s giving adequate opportunity to persons to redeem the evil before he expresses his holiness in destroying them. Another interpersonal manifestation is that [3] caring enables persons to endure even when someone else cannot do anything or does not do anything. Jesus got through the trauma of Gethsemane by an interpersonal experience—prayer and the angel that strengthened him (Luke 22:43ms).
In a way, we can correct the misrepresentation in the antilogism at the front of this essay by writing L O V E across the triangle in large letters.
III. At Any Rate: Whatever his reasons for allowing evil, God himself is not above
experiencing what he calls on his righteous ones to endure: incarnation unto violent
death.
This last observation speaks in a non-content way to the hardest of theodicy questions: why does God allow evil to express itself to the degree that it does? Whatever the reason, it is not an adequate reason for losing faith, because Christ took on himself (a) the limitedness of the human condition, (b) to the point of death, (c) which was violent in the extreme of pain because it was crucifixion (Philippians 2:8). The answer to the problem is God’s willingness to involve himself in the brunt of evil. Perhaps he is establishing the greater glory potential by establishing the greater redemption option.
The reason for evil must be a good one if God himself would rather endure it than avoid it. The incarnation signals that this is so even if we do not know what the reason is. Incarnation addresses the feelings, which are part of the theodicy problem and a part that arguments do not, and cannot, address. That is why the argument from evil has more apparent power than it really has. Changing the feelings must come from doing something even if the doing merely experiences what someone else does toward us.
The answer to the problem is bigger than intellectual answers. That is the reason intellectual reasons do not seem to satisfy, not because they are irrelevant or false, but because they are inadequate. Theodicy involves the affections as well; giving reasons does not satisfy feelings; yet they are part of the problem theodicy raises.
Christ’s incarnation provides an aspect of an answer to the problem of evil that other religions cannot use.
See also the document “Extreme Evil” and other essays on evil under “CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES” > “APOLOGETICS.”
christir.org