Biblical and Theological Resources for the Problem of Evil

 * The following was written for a Philosophy of Religion class I am taking.  Here was the prompt for the essay: 

You will write one short three-page, double-spaced paper (do not go onto the fourth page!!). Here you will do a biblical and theological reflection on the problem of evil. This is not a research paper. You want to explore the question: “How does our biblical and theological framework provide resources or parameters for our investigation into the problem of evil?”

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Christians have an abundance of resources available to them in terms of biblical material and theological reflection to aid in approaching the problem of evil—both its philosophical and existential aspects.  In order to briefly canvas some of this terrain four categories of theology will be considered: God, Sin, Jesus Christ, and Eschatology.[1]

God.  The God of the Bible is the sovereign Creator who continues to sustain all things in existence.  Further, God is good, unstained by evil.  In that the traditional set-up of the problem of evil attempts to play God’s attributes of omnipotence and goodness against one another, it is important to maintain both attributes in their biblical fullness.  We ought not to relinquish either attribute in a quest to neutralize the objection.  God’s sovereignty, as manifested in the biblical storyline, also shows us that God’s plans and intentions are not always immediately apparent.  The story of Joseph with its pain and setbacks leading to ultimate vindication in a different season demonstrate this.  The story of Job shows us as well that, at times, God’s heavenly dictates are inscrutable to those on the earth.  This provides impetus for elements of the “skeptical theist” approach to the problem of evil.

Another key component is the glory of God.  Theologians such as Jonathan Edwards argue that God’s glory is the ultimate value in the cosmos and is the chief thing that God is seeking to manifest in all his deeds.  God’s glory can be analyzed in terms of his essential nature (which cannot increase or decrease), his excellent deeds (which express God’s excellent being and character), and the epistemic goods which flow from conscious agents becoming acquainted with and appreciating God’s exalted character revealed in excellent deeds).[2]  This fuller understanding of God’s glory is important if one wants to properly assess the possibilities for a greater-good defense.  Many times, the “greater-goods” contemplated in answers to the problem of evil revolve around human-centered goods.  A focus on God’s glory as the ultimate value as displayed and understood opens up larger vistas to contemplate.  In other words, divine-centered goods needed to be added to the mix as well.

Sin.  A full doctrine of sin shows its extensive influence and powerful reverberations across all relationships.  Rebellion against God creates fractured relationship between humanity and (1) God, (2) other humans, (3) ourselves (in psychological disruptions), and (4) the created order itself which “groans” under the burden of the curse of God.  This gruesome, four-fold fracturing is important to acknowledge since it shows that the world, as it currently exists, is not fully “normal.”  It is not the way it was intended to be by God.  It also reminds us that evil and pain are not illusory but, rather, concrete realities that must be dealt with.  Under the category of sin mention should be made of demonic evil.  The New Testament in particular draws attention to these forces.  Not only does this show us that the problem of evil is much deeper and intense than some allow but it also may be of service in explaining some other elements of evil.[3]

Jesus Christ.  At the center of Christian theism is Jesus Christ.  In his life we see One who is continually fighting evil and suffering in exorcisms and healings.  Thus, we see that passivity in the face of evil and suffering has no place.  We see Jesus weeping and angry in the face of evil and suffering.  In this we see proper emotional responses to evil and suffering.  And in seeing the suffering of Jesus of himself, we see that, in some strange way, not even God himself is immune from suffering.  The fact that Jesus has suffered is often brought up in the New Testament as a hope-inducing example for believers who are going through suffering.  Suffering is to be expected for those who following the Suffering Servant.  Not only has Jesus suffered, but he has also been raised from the dead.  The resurrection provides a perspective on the problem of evil in which a horrendous evil—the crucifixion of the Son of God—can be overcome by the great good of the vindication of the Jesus the Messiah and its attendant blessings flowing to billions of people.[4]  Furthermore, the very complex of events consisting of the incarnation of the Son of God, his suffering for atonement, and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a great-making feature of the world.  Alvin Plantinga and others have drawn attention to particularly the incarnation and atonement as indicative of a contingent good-making characteristic of our world “that towers above all the rest of the contingent states of affairs included in our world.”[5]  With this datum, Plantinga is able to construct a justification for God’s permitting evil, namely, that it will allow for the extremely great-goods of the incarnation and atonement.

Eschatology.  The Christian vision of history is linear and purposive.  God is bringing the cosmos to a teleological goal—the “summing up of all things in Christ” (Ephesians 1.10).  This provides assurance and hope at an existential level.  This also factors into how we calculate the amount of good and evil.  John Frame explains, “Since the ultimate theodicy is future, we must now deal with the problem of evil by faith.  We cannot total up the present evils against the present goods and from that calculation exonerate god of blame.”[6]  While we wait for the eschatological fullness of God’s plan we philosophize in hope and sing, “how long, O Lord?”[7]

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     [1] I will largely refrain from proof-texting to demonstrate the biblical basis of the individual points in an effort to conserve space.

     [2] I was helped to develop this tri-partite understanding of God’s glory by Daniel M. Johnson, “Calvinism and the Problem of Evil: A Map of the Territory” in Calvinism and the Problem of Evil, eds. David E. Alexander and Daniel M. Johnson (Eugene, Ore: Pickwick Publications, 2016), 44-45.

     [3] Alvin Plantinga brings up the possibility of some forms of natural evil being the result of demonic beings in God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974), 58.

     [4] The notion of “horrendous evil” comes from Marilyn McCord Adams and she specifically mentions the crucifixion of Jesus as an example of a horrendous evil in her essay “Horrendous Evil and the Goodness of God” in The Problem of Evil, eds. Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert Merrihew Adams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 212.

     [5] Alvin Plantinga, “Supralapsarianism, or ‘O Felix Culpa,’” in Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil, ed. Peter Van Inwagen (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004), 1-25; reprinted in Michael Peterson, ed. The Problem of Evil: Selected Readings—2^nd ed. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), 368.

     [6] John Frame, “The Problem of Evil,” in Suffering and the Goodness of God, eds. Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2008), 156.  

     [7] Kristin M. Swenson has written of the Psalms that they “provide a vocabulary and language for expressing pain, a grammar of pain, which continues to resonate for people struggling with difficulties understanding and describing their particular experiences of suffering.”  Quoted in David B. Calhoun, “Poems in the Dark: My Cancer and God’s Grace” in Suffering and the Goodness of God, eds. Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2008), 186.

Calvinists on Arminians

In their book Why I Am Not an Arminian (IVP, 2004) authors Robert Peterson and Michael Williams (both of Covenant Theological Seminary) begin with some good words on how they as Calvinists view Arminians.

Calvinism and Arminianism do disagree regarding significant issues having to do with salvation, issues that we believe Calvinism rightly addresses and Arminianism does not.  We believe that at certain points Arminianism presents a skewed picture of the gospel.  The Synod of Dort was right to condemn the Arminian misrepresentation of the saving ways of God.  Yet we do not think of Arminianism as a heresy or Arminian Christians as unregenerate.  You see, calling someone a heretic is serious business.  Heresy is not merely doctrinal error; it is damnable error.  The heretic so mangles the gospel of Jesus Christ that it no longer communicates the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  Heresy is such a corruption of the grace of God in Christ that it invalidates either Jesus as the Savior or grace as the way of salvation.  The Arminian tradition does neither.  The Arminian Christian believes that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh to save sinners and that the saving work of Christ comes to the sinner by way of the grace of God received through faith.  Whatever issues relevant to salvation we disagree upon, let us agree on this: the Calvinist and the Arminian are brothers in Christ.  Both belong to the household of faith.  The issue of debate is not between belief and unbelief but rather which of two Christian perspectives better represents the biblical portrayal of the divine-human relationship in salvation and the contributions of both God and man in human history.  (p. 13)

Later they go on to write:

Polemics often degenerate into name calling or use descriptors in association with Arminians that Arminian theologians do not themselves employ.  Rather than resort to name calling, we will seek to let people name themselves.  Such a goal also demands that we refrain from making charges without clear evidence or from ascribing to Arminian theologians conclusions that they themselves refuse to draw.  We should not push an adversary's position to what seems to us to be a natural consequence of the position.  At best, such consequences might be a danger or tendency of belief if overly emphasized.  People usually live in the middle of their commitments rather than at their logical periphery.  This is so because it is usually the case that one theological commitment within a tradition is moderated by other commitments.  To no small degree, the very heart of the Calvinist-Arminian debate is about the nature of the relationship between divine action in salvation and history, on the one hand, and human responsibility in salvation and history, on the other.  Both traditions seek to relate the human to the divine.  Thus what is said about human agency in history will necessarily moderate statements about God's historical relationships.  It would be easy to take the Calvinist commitment to the sovereignty of God in all things, push it to some "logical conclusion" through inference, and conclude that human beings have no proper role or agency in history, that they are but puppets trapped within an utterly amoral and deterministic stage play.  Yet the characterization would not be one that many Calvinists would want to claim as their own. Indeed, the vast majority of us would strenuously object that we have been misrepresented.  (p. 16)

Preaching and the Perseverance of the Saints

John Piper in his small but profound book The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Baker, 1990) has some moving thoughts about the relationship between the preached word and the perseverance of the saints.

Gravity and earnestness in preaching is appropriate not only (as we have seen) because preaching is God's instrument for the weighty business of saving sinners and reviving his church, but also because it is God's instrument for preserving the saints.  Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:10, "I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which in Christ Jesus goes with eternal glory."  Labor on behalf of the elect, therefore, is not icing on the cake of their eternal security.  It is God's appointed means of keeping them secure.  Eternal security is a community project (Heb. 3:12-13) and preaching is part of God's securing power.  He calls effectually by the Word and he keeps effectually by the Word.

We can say that eternal security is certain for the Christian, yet avoid a mechanical view that drains the blood-earnestness right out of the weekly ministry of preaching to the saints. Biblically God uses the earnest application of the means of grace to hold his people secure; one of those means is the preaching of God's Word.  Heaven and hell are at stake every Sunday morning not merely because unbelievers might be present, but also because our people are saved "IF they continue in the faith" (Col. 1:23).  Paul connects the steadfastness of faith with the preaching of the Word of God in the gospel (Rom. 10:17).  (pp. 58-59)

These thoughts take me to another portion of Piper's book:

How utterly dependent we are on the Holy Spirit in the work of preaching!  All genuine preaching is rooted in a feeling of desperation.  You wake up on Sunday morning and you can smell the smoke of hell on one side and feel the crisp breezes of heaven on the other.  You go to your study and look down at your pitiful manuscript, and you kneel down and cry, "God, this is so weak!  Who do I think I am?  What audacity to think that in three hours my words will be the odor of death to death and the fragrance of life to life (2 Cor. 2:16).  My God, who is sufficient for these things?"  (pp. 37-38)