OK. Well, I guess it’s time to get busy and answer the objections laid out on Friday. We’ll start with the granddaddy of them all—the problem of evil (a.k.a. theodicy). This is generally accepted as the most difficult challenge to answer. It will take a few posts to deal with it adequately. This post will deal with the origin of evil. Future posts will cover the nature of evil, the persistence of evil, and why the presence evil is actually proof that God does exist.
I’ll start with material from an article in Norman Geisler’s Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. If you have only one apologetics reference, this should be it.
Dr. Geisler lays out the problem like this…
The problem for theism is that it not only believes God is all-powerful and could destroy evil, but he is all-loving and should destroy it. Further; the theistic God is all-knowing and created this world fully aware of what would happen. What is more, God created the world freely, so that he could have done otherwise.
The first thing we must figure out is where evil comes from in the first place. If God is perfectly good, He would create perfectly. Perfect creatures do not do evil. So, where does evil come from?
The key to the answer lies in the free will of the creation. Dr. Geisler says…
God is good, and he created good creatures with a good power called free will. Unfortunately, they used this good power to bring evil into the universe by rebelling against their Creator. So evil did arise from good, not directly but indirectly, by the abuse of a good power called freedom. Freedom in itself is not evil. It is good to be free. But with freedom comes the possibility of evil. So God is responsible for making evil possible, but free creatures are responsible for making it actual.
This is where the concept of primary and secondary causes comes in. God, as the only non-contingent being, is the prime mover or first cause—the primary cause of all things. However, God created morally responsible free agents. These agents (human beings) freely choose to do evil. This is referred to as a secondary cause. Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology has a fantastic chapter on God’s providence. He explains this concept in the context of understanding how God can be absolutely in control, and yet we are responsible for our moral choices.
One approach to these passages about God’s concurrence is to say that if our choices are real, they cannot be caused by God (see below for further discussion of this viewpoint). But the number of passages that affirm this providential control of God is so considerable, and the difficulties involved in giving them some other interpretation are so formidable, that it does not seem to me that this can be the right approach to them. It seems better to affirm that God causes all things that happen, but that he does so in such a way that he somehow upholds our ability to make willing, responsible choices choices that have real and eternal results and for which we are held accountable. Exactly how God combines his providential control with our willing and significant choices, Scripture does not explain to us. But rather than deny one aspect or the other (simply because we cannot explain how both can be true), we should accept both in an attempt to be faithful to the teaching of all of Scripture.
The analogy of an author writing a play may help us to grasp how both aspects can be true. In the Shakespearean play Macbeth the character Macbeth murders King Duncan. Now (if we assume for a moment that this is a fictional account), the question may be asked, “Who killed King Duncan?” On one level, the correct answer is “Macbeth.” Within the context of the play he carried out the murder and is rightly to blame for it. But on another level, a correct answer to the question, “Who killed King Duncan?” would be “William Shakespeare”: he wrote the play, he created all the characters in it, and he wrote the part where Macbeth killed King Duncan.
It would not be correct to say that because Macbeth killed King Duncan, William Shakespeare did not kill him. Nor would it be correct to say that because William Shakespeare killed King Duncan, Macbeth did not kill him. Both are true. On the level of the characters in the play Macbeth fully (100 percent) caused King Duncan’s death, but on the level of the creator of the play, William Shakespeare fully (100 percent) caused King Duncan’s death. In similar fashion, we can understand that God fully causes things in one way (as Creator), and we fully cause things in another way (as creatures).
Geisler says “God then is responsible for the possibility of evil, but we must bear the responsibility for the actuality of it. God neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done. He wills to permit evil to be done, and this is good.”
This helps us see that even though there is evil in the world, God did not put it there. It does not, however answer why He allows it come into existence and remain. For that, stay tuned…
The problem with using Norman Geisler’s “free will” defense is that one must agree with his theological position for it to be accurate. Geisler’s view of God’s sovereignty is more of an Arminian view than a Reformed view (Chosen But Free for example).
Someone with an Armenian view has what is called a libertarian view of free will. This view point says that a person can always choose either of two choices, regardless of circumstances or other influences.
A Reformed theologian has a compatibilistic view of free will. This view point says that a person confronted with two choices still has the freedom to pick between two choices, but they will pick one option because of circumstances, heredity, etc.
This has major implications for theodicy. In the libertarian view one can posit that every world God created must have a little bit of evil in it because in every possible world which God creates man always “freely” chooses to do evil. So if God wanted to create at all, then he had to create a world which had evil in it.
If you have a compatibilistic view of free will (which I do), then the question becomes even more difficult. If our choices are based on our circumstances, make-up, etc. then it is possible for God to create a world where we are truly free, yet none of the influences would lead us to evil. In fact I know that he will one day create that world – it is called the “new heaven and new earth” where believers will no longer sin.
The question becomes, why did God create at all. The libertarian view of free will can use the “free will defense” (which in my opinion becomes ultimately man centered). The compatibilist view of free will must offer other reasons for why God created (which will end up being more God centered). But I think you are coming to that in your next post so …
But doesn’t the practical divide between the Calvinistic and Arminian views of human freedom come in after the fall (the initial entry of evil into the human realm)? Would you see Adam and Eve as bound to sin the way we are today?
Yes and no. I would say that because God is fully sovereign that even before the fall Adam and Eve had a compatabilistic free will and not a libertarian free will.
Could God have created Adam in such a way that he never sinned? If you answer yes to that question then you still see a compatabilistic view of free will before the fall. If you answer no to that question then you have suddenly placed something outside of God’s control. Then the fall is something that had to happen regardless of what God’s ultimate will was (and that is ultimately non-Calvinistic).
Basically, the questions here are, “Did God have to put the tree in the garden … what if he didn’t? Would Adam have been any less free if the possibility of sin didn’t exist?”
I only answered part of that question … I would not see Adam and Eve as bound to sin the way we are today. But even if they were not bound to sin, that doesn’t mean that they had a fully libertarian free will.
They could chose between right and wrong in a way that we cannot after the fall, but whether or not their choices were truly “free” or “compatible” with their nature and God’s sovereignty doesn’t have to be the same question as whether or not they had a sin nature.
I think libertarian free will and compatibilistic free will are based on the character and attributes of the Creator, not the created. Thus all created things have to have a compatibilistic free will or else God has given up some of his sovereignty (and if one follows that line of logic to its fullest I think one ends up an open theist).
So far this has only addressed the question of human sin. What about Satan? Is his story just a divine “oops,” or an intentional case of God saying “trust me on this?”
Matt, a few things…
First, the challenge in question from the skeptic is that no God can be (1) omnipotent, (2) good and yet (3) have created the world as it is today. The challenge is that those ideas are logically contradictory. All we have to do is show that there is a solution that is logically sound that maintains all three points and the challenge is put down. We don’t have to settle the philosophical debate between supralapsarian and infralapsarian Calvinists to carry the day. Our argument should fall within the pail of orthodox Christian teaching, which Geisler’s does.
If Geisler’s argument is not logically sound, though, and leads logically to open theism, then we have some more work to do.
I hold the compatibilistic view of human freedom, myself. If a compatiblist doesn’t like Geisler’s take on how evil entered the world, what is his alternative explanation?
And finally, this is not the complete refutation of the challenge. I’ll be posting more of it over the next few days. We’ll see if the response makes more sense when presented in its entirety or not.
Eric,
Actually I agree with you in that to argue against the problem of evil all one has to do is present a single logic possibility for why God created a world which allows/has evil in it. I think that Geisler’s argument successfully answers that problem. Even if the libertarian view of free will might lead to open theism it is still logically possible and thus refutes the “problem of evil.”
The problem is that though it is logically possible I do not think it is theologically correct. I will save my alternative explanation because I think that you are going to answer in a very similar way in your complete refutation of the challenge.
And to add to what Hugh was saying about the problem of evil including the devil, I think “natural evil” also needs to be addressed in some way.
Great discussion though.
I’m also enjoyng the discussion…
I think part of the problem with the skeptics also lie in their definition of “perfect” and “good”; e.g., to quote Eric hypothetically quoting the questioning skeptic:
“If God is perfectly good, He would create perfectly. Perfect creatures do not do evil. So, where does evil come from?”
Remember, in order for an argument to be consistent, its propositions must be consistent in at least one way of understanding the propositions. Conversely, in order to demonstrate that an argument is inconsistent, one must demonstrate that each and every understanding of the propositions commits a violation of consistency with all the other propositions. So while the skeptics’ argument may be consistent on one level of understanding, they fail to prove inconsistency on the part of the believers (that God’s existence is not contingent on the existence of evil). In fact, what the skeptics do is commit a type of straw-man fallacy: they define their terms for their own purposes and to achieve their own conclusions, failing to consider other meanings that may be present in the contrary position.
I think the assumption behind the skeptic’s question (and his attempt to discredit the believer) is based on a lingering Platonism in all our thinking in which perfect forms are the basis for all that exists. In the Logos’s universe of perfect forms, no spheres have rough surfaces; no perfect beings commit fouls. Do we live in such a Platonic universe?
Furthermore, the skeptics’ argument also assumes too much knowledge about God’s intentions. To achieve soundness in the argument, the skeptic would have to demonstrate conclusively that no perfect God could ever have the intention to produce something that did not behave in exact concordance with His own nature. I don’t know if this has ever been demonstrated.
To be closer to the Hebrew connotation of the meaning of “good” (i.e., “And God saw that it was good.”) we need to think more along of the lines of “complete in meaning and intention.” (tangential question: why does God NOT describe the creation events of the first 2 days as “good”?)
With this idea in mind, I think it sort of paves the way for getting around the arguments of first and secondary causes, which seems to assume that we need to make excuses for God. I would rather we think more about primary and means objectives of God. What is God’s ultimate intention (the primary objective), and what would the characteristics be of a universe (the means objectives) that bring that intention into fruition? I think this leads us down a pathway that is more compatible with the revealed nature of God in Romans and the notions of compatibilism.
Furthermore, it also lets us address Grudem’s faulty analogy. In his analogy, the characters really don’t have any sense at all, no will (libertarian or compatibilistic, real or analogous), no consciousness. I’m not really sure, even as an analogy, that it appropriately addresses the issues of first and second causes adequately. Afterall, in “Macbeth”, Macbeth always kills King Duncan. He never, nor can he ever, choose otherwise because that is the way Shakespeare wrote the play. I think it would be more analogous (though certainly faulty as well as incomplete, as all analogies are wont to do) to think of humans as the artwork of a Jackson Pollock, who abandoned the traditional ideas of composition and representationalism, but whose art, none-the-less, represented the intention and meaning of the author, however obscure. We might not understand or like what Pollock chose to do, but he did it anyway to everyone’s shock; and it pleased him to do so.
Rob – welcome to the party.
Forgive me if this comes across wrong, but I’ve just chased three kids under the age of five into bed, and my brain is trying in vain to shift from The Barney Song to questions of theodicy and Platonic philosophy… :s
What was your central point? It sounds like you’re arguing that the question of evil isn’t really even a question if you start with the right set of assumptions.
Is that right?
Rob, welcome to the discussion.
I like your distinction about what makes a valid argument and, therefore, what is required as a valid refutation.
In defense of the hypothetical challenger, the logic of the argument goes like this. If God is perfect, then there can be no flaw (error, lacking, etc.) in anything that He does. If He creates, then He must create perfectly. If He creates perfectly, then the creation must be perfect (without error). I guess that is the issue… How can imperfection flow from perfection?
I’m not an expert on Plato, but as I understand his system, perfection existed in the world of forms (Logos, reason, mind of God, etc.). We live in the physical world where we have only shadows and approximations of the perfect forms (approximations of the perfect circle, perfect justice, etc.). So, wouldn’t a proper understanding of Plato maintain that the physical world is imperfect? Also, I’m not sure if Plato had an answer for how the imperfect, physical world came into existence.
It seems that Plotinus and his theory of downward emanations from the perfection of “the One” to the ever more imperfect levels of Mind, Soul, and finally to Body (the farthest from the perfection of the One) was an effort to bridge Plato’s two worlds of perfection and imperfection.
In any case, I would expect any non-theist to reject Plato (and Plotinus) altogether. I would expect any non-theist to be an empiricist in the spirit of Aristotle. The non-theist does not have the pesky issue of a perfect creator creating an apparently imperfect world to deal with.
As to Grudem’s “faulty analogy,” would it be more acceptable if you view the analogy as simply illustrating the difficult to grasp concept of God’s transcendent, yet intimate involvement in the world (in the spirit of CS Lewis’s comparison of flatlanders pondering a three-dimensional world)?
You say the analogy fails because “Macbeth always kills King Duncan,” but if you place yourself into the story (the created world), it only happens once. In addition, within the story the characters have the same level of freedom that we have in our world. They are not aware that they are even in a story. You have to use some imagination. Although I guess that if you reject the concept of primary and secondary causes then the analogy cannot win in any case. It was meant to illustrate and build understanding (assuming the distinction is true), not to prove that the distinction is valid.
And you lost me a little bit on “primary and means objectives of God.” Do you mind explaining that a little more?
I think that I am tracking with Mr. Brown (Mr. Brown, correct me if I am not). The objection of our hypothetical unbeliever assumes a certain definition of perfect. We must challenge the unbeliever to define perfect because the Bible teaches both of these truths: that God is perfect, and that there is evil. Therefore, when the unbeliever objects by saying that there cannot be evil in a world created by a perfect God- they have objected to Biblical revelation. Their notion of perfect is not consistent with that which is revealed by God himself. They must be made aware of this fact. We as Christians give up far too much ground by allowing them to assume neutrality. The unbeliever is not neutral. He is against God, sinful, logically inconsistent, and according to Romans 1 he is supressing the truth. He is not in a position to consider truth in a fair and balanced way as he would like to assume that he is. We should press him to define “perfect.” The irony is that he cannot do this in his unbelieving worldview. He will borrow from the Christian worldview to do it. We must point this out to him rather than allowing him to use God’s Word as a tool to reject God.
Just for clarification, compatibilism merely teaches that man has the freedom to do what he wants to do. It includes the nuance that even if every act man performs is caused by something outside of himself, he still is free to do as he desires according to his character. According to scripture, he has a moral responsibility to do God’s will. This is “compatable” with determinism. We must also be aware of the nuance that some of our choices are determined by God apart from a chain of finite causes. This is implied in the Westminster Confession 9:1 where it states, “God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or evil” This is important when we consider the issue of theodicy.
Geisler’s position has a problem. If God could prevent evil, but chooses not to, is it not true that he has ordained it to happen?
What about the times in Scripture where God uses evil as his agent? Does he not harden hearts? Is this done as a secondary cause? Can we be sure? I don’t have a problem placing a primary causal role on God because he is sovereign. Take Grudem as an example. If I said that God is the author of evil, you would all object because to author evil is to do it. But if we say that God relates to the world in the same way as an author to a story, then you don’t object because somehow you see God as not to be blamed. This illustrates the confusion over the word “author.” The reality is that God is who he is and this does not require him to defend himself against our charges of wrongdoing. He has rights and ways that we don’t have and he is in a different moral category as well. We cannot adopt the Platonic method of calling God into court and trying him by his own law as if he were not the God of the very law we use to object to him. He is not under the law, he is the lawgiver.
Hello Eric, Hugh, Matt, and Jason. Thanks for your welcome…
To Hugh, I am indeed suggesting, although somewhat in the subjunctive mood, “…that the question of evil isn’t really even a question if you start with the right set of assumptions.” But we need to be prepared to accept that we might not ever really come to the right set of assumptions or knowledge that satisfies all of our discomfort or protestations about God and His role in His universe.
To Jason…Thanks. You’re tracking me right on. No corrections needed.
Eric, you said: “I hold the compatibilistic view of human freedom, myself. If a compatiblist doesn’t like Geisler’s take on how evil entered the world, what is his alternative explanation?” I’m in good company with you and Matt, for I am a compatibilist as well. But why does there have to be an alternate explanation if we don’t like Geisler’s? In fact, I’m sure there are many skeptic’s that don’t like Geisler’s argument and work vigorously to refute him (I can think of some). What if they succeed? What then? An infinite regress of advancements and refutations?
I understand the claims of the hypothetical challenger. I used to be quite a skeptic myself. My question is this: who told the skeptic that God’s creation was perfect as we often assume “perfect” to mean? And who told the skeptic that God would have to create a universe without flaws? Again, to achieve soundness in the argument, the skeptic would have to demonstrate conclusively that no perfect God could ever have the intention to produce something that did not behave in exact concordance with His own nature. I don’t know if this has ever been demonstrated. Just because we find it hard to conceive how imperfection could flow from perfection doesn’t mean “that it ain’t so.”
I know you didn’t make the connection, but our belief that God created, at least originally, a perfect universe comes from Genesis based on a projection of the meaning of “good” and the above contingency that is often assumed that a perfect God necessarily has to create a universe that can never be flawed in any way. In fact, God could create a universe with some type of flaw that would be used within His plan to achieve a greater good than a flawless physical universe. I suggest that “good” means something different than “without flaw”, which is generally what we mean by “perfect”. By “good” I think the author meant “complete in meaning and intention”, meaning that God’s creation was designed to do what he wanted it to do, that everything was being built to carry out His plan and glorify Him as He willed.
I don’t know whether St. Thomas Aquinas was exactly right about this either, but he alludes as much to this understanding in his Summa Theologica under “Whether God is perfect?” In “reply to objection one”, Aquinas says: “Nevertheless because created things are then called perfect, when from potentiality they are brought into actuality, this word ‘perfect’ signifies whatever is not wanting in actuality, whether this be by way of perfection or not.” In “reply to objection three”, Aquinas says: “Existence is the most perfect of all things, for it is compared to all things as that by which they are made actual; for nothing has actuality except so far as it exists.” So for Aquinas, existence was that which is perfect. When the skeptic claims “perfect” means “without flaw or the ability to do wrong”, he fails to take into account a theological tradition that doesn’t quite use the term “perfect” the way the skeptic conceives it. If we go back even farther, I think the Hebrews had something in mind more like Aquinas but furthermore to imply some intentionality in existence.
Not to be rude (and please forgive me as I say this), but I’m not sure that it matters what Plato or Plotinus actually said. What really matters IMHO in regard to them and our culture (which has the obverse impression of Hellenism on it) is the presumptions we carry with the term “perfect” whether we are a skeptic or one trying to thwart the skeptics’ claims. Whether we understand Plato or Plotinus or not is beside the point. We have a left over vestige of an in idea from their culture that we bring to the table when we use the term “perfect” in regard to the problem of evil. I’m not sure those presumptions are valid.
Sweeping Plato to the side, I suggest there are no perfect Forms “out there”. (How could we really know anyway?) What we conceive of as perfect derives from both a preference and a mental model. For example, one may define a perfect circle to be one that has a circumference that is equidistant from some central point, applied only in 2 space. That works very nicely in Euclidean geometry. I might define a perfect circle to mean a shape that is roundish (no angles) and forms an unbroken perimeter around a closed space. If you like Pringle-looking shapes, you could define a perfect circle to be one that fits the first definition above in 2 space, but follows a cosine function in 3 space. However you define a perfect circle is up to you and whatever geometry you wish to apply that definition in. There is no ultimate authority on what perfect circles have to look like. So, our notions of perfection often begin with preferences.
In regard to Grudem’s analogy. I’m sure Grudem was a well meaning fellow. But to say that “…within the story the characters have the same level of freedom that we have in our world” isn’t really true, is it? To think that is self-deception, even if we suspend disbelief for a season for argument’s sake. Shakespeare made them behave the way they did. They had no choice in any sense of the word. None, regardless of how much imagination we might employ.
Paul’s argument (Romans 9), a revealed argument that should supercede metaphysics for us, avoids any discussion of systems of primary and secondary causes. He asserts that it’s God’s business what He chooses to do, how he establishes His creation, and for whatever purposes. I just have this sense that when we reply to the question of evil with apologies that incorporate excuses for how God gets around it all, we’re actually thwarting, however well meaning we intend to be, one of the greatest revelations and mysteries of all: “I am that I am.”
My suggestion about thinking of the problem of evil in terms of hierarchies of objectives rather than systems of causes comes from Paul’s argument. A primary objective is the ultimate result one attempts to achieve through a plan or a strategy. Means objectives are the stepping stones in outcomes or events one puts together to get to the primary. These notions come from decision science (See _Value Focused Thinking_ by Ralph Keeney) rather than theology, and as such, I don’t know if they have ever been applied in this type of discussion before. So what I mean is that God has a primary objective to glorify Himself; and he created a good universe, one that has meaning and intention and that has all the necessary components, including mankind’s sin, that He will use as a means to achieve that primary objective. He can do that without any justification or guilt.
Romans 9:22 What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath–prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory– 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
God has a plan. That plan includes mankind’s sin and the consequent evils that result as well as a promise to work all things for the good of those that love Him. It appears through revelation to be a system of hierarchical objectives over which God is completely sovereign and without guilt for the several and shocking consequences that occur along the way.
Wow!
I’ll address this excerpt:
I have this picture in my head of the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which the knights ask the French garrison what they are doing in England, and the French reply, “Mind your own business!”
If I approach my life with an attitude of “Mind your own business!” when people ask me about how and why the world is the way it is, I doubt whether God is really glorified.
I think the question of evil is one that deserves a more thoughtful response than that. (Note that by “thoughtful” I don’t necessarily mean reasoned.)
Also, why is it “making excuses for God” when we consider how it might all work together? I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that God is somehow fragile and in need of a spin doctor to polish his image.
God’s tough. He can take it. So long as we are not putting him to the test, he is honored when we ask questions that seek his glory – and what is more glorious than a lost soul frankly stating “I’m drawn to God but I’m hung up on this problem of evil?” That’s fertile soil – we would do well to see it as more than just manure.
I will forgo trying to defend Mr. Brown’s statements, I believe that he is more than capable of doing that on his own. I do disagree with sweeping Plato and Plotinus aside. Though they are incorrect in their assumptions, through common grace they still have insights we might learn from. I agree that those insights might not be relevant for this discussion.
To get back to Eric’s argument, I think that Geisler’s argument is flawed. I am not sure that removing God logically from the cause of evil is possible. When we ask about what the nature of that causal relationship is we are forced to attribute to God a primary cause at some point. To remove that one step from active to passive involvement still begs the question. “Is God the author of evil?”
Paul’s rebuke in Romans 9 is to the hypothetical (or real) accuser who takes the argument to the next level by finding fault with God for being the author of evil. This we are forbidden to do. We are also not to allow the unbeliever to call God into court and accuse him. Such behavior warrents strict rebuke.
To my knowledge, no one in this discussion has found fault with God for being in a causal relationship with evil. The goal here is to speculate on how that relationship can be articulated. Such speculations in and of themselves are niether evil, or condemned by scripture. Fortuneately, God never tells us to “mind our own buisness” but in his very nature he is a revealer of himself. The condemnation of Romans 9 is against those who would judge God guilty of wrong, but we are encouraged to meditate on the law of God, it is partly how we grow in a relationship with him.
Eric, I will have to say that I would reject any explanation of theodicy that does not properly nuance the fact that God is involved somehow in a causal relationship with evil.
I think it might be interesting to attempt to catalog the common ground that we all agree on. Let’s take each statement below in isolation (ignoring any conflict between them—real or apparent):
1. God, as the only non-contingent being is ultimately the cause behind all things (creation and actions).
2. Sin is real (i.e. evil is not an illusion).
3. God hates sin.
4. God is not morally responsible for sin.
Does anyone disagree with any of those statements? Or prefer to state them differently?
I’d rephrase #4 (more for clarity than objection):
4. Neither the existence of sin, nor the commission of discrete sins on the part of created moral agents, constitutes a direct or indirect moral defect on God’s part.
Hello Hugh, I understand your point. But Paul responded with an argument that basically boils down to: God can do as he pleases. Is that “mind your own business” or a call to understand our role in the kingdom of God? I would never counsel you to respnd to anyone who asks you why the world is the way that it is with, “mind your own business.” You could try something like, “You know, it’s hard to understand, and in some ways it violates our notions of justice, but let me tell you about this plan that involves a sovereign God and His son Jesus…” That’s not manure. That’s honest and loving.
Jason, dittos. But I’m not saying we need to completely throw Plato, et al, out with the bath water. My point is that as far as notions of the meaning of “perfection” are concerned in the discussion of the origin of evil, our cultural background (that includes Plato’s contributions) informs us more than we give it credit. We need to make sure as best we can that the way we present our arguments are consistent with the meanings God has chosen. I think we already agree on that. No?
Let me pose a question to which I have no real answer for right now. Is something that is evil necessarily sinful?
Thanks to all for the continued lively discussion.
Eric, I can agree to all points you listed. Rob, I’m sorry if I misrepresented you. Looking back, I understand that you were not saying let’s throw them out altogether. My point shoud be taken as more of an addition to what you said, though I agree that what both Plato and Polinus said has little to do with our discussion. We can agree that our definition of terms needs to match revelation.
To speculate on an answer to your question, I think that it depends on how we define evil. If we define it biblically, then yes. Though I believe in a scale of heinousness.
Rob, where are you getting the “intention” connotations of the Hebrew word tov, or good? I am trying to think through the angle you are implying that evil is apart of God’s intentions for the cosmos. Thanks.
I didn’t suggest that evil was a part of God’s intention for the cosmos. I merely asked: “Is something that is evil necessarily sinful?” I’m not trying to pull any punches or produce any logical sleight of hand…just thinking things through myself.
Rob,sorry if I misunderstood the implication of your question. I was thinking through what you said earlier,
“I suggest that ‘good’ means something different than ‘without flaw’, which is generally what we mean by ‘perfect’. By good I think the author meant ‘complete in meaning and intention’….”
My thinking was that if you accept the above definition of good, then you can redefine evil. I was anticipating the direction I thought you were headed in, but I was mistaken. I apologize if I offended you.
I would still like to know where you got the above definition of tov from. Gramatically in Hebrew, “good” is not defined the way you stated.
The question of whether or not all evil is sinful goes to the theological/philosophical distinction between moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is pretty easy to recognize and seem to map pretty directly to sin (murder, adultery, gossip, etc.).
Natural evil refers to events that are not directly caused by moral agents (tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.). I think most theologians hold that these events occur as a result of the fall (at least that if mankind hadn’t sinned, we would not experience them).
Part of the problem is that there is a lot of muddiness in the distinction. When over 200, 000 people died as a result of the recent Asian tsunami, was it purely natural evil, or was there some moral evil involved (e.g., when those in authority could have developed a warning system, but didn’t)?
Jason, No worries. You didn’t offend me at all.
The word “tov” doesn’t have to carry the meaning to which I was referring in a strict lexical sense. In fact, since it is a very generic term, I would doubt that it would. In Harris, Archer and Waltke’s Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Yamauchi outlines five areas of “tov”: practical, abstract, quality, moral, and technical. Remember, words only have meanings in context (but we digress into linguistics). This is so especially true for Hebrew. If translation was as simple as lexical mapping (i.e., word-for-word replacements), we Christians wouldn’t have nearly as many debates in hermeneutics. I was thinking more of the braoder concept of goodness/perfection that is present in many eastern cultures, of which Judaism is a part.
I just found this interesting article: “The English Term Perfect:
Biblical and Philosophical Tensions” . The author, Dennis Bratcher, here does not refer to “tov”, but he does address the issue of perfection. Notable, he says: “From the biblical perspective, ‘perfect’ describes something that functions as it was intended to function or of someone who acts appropriately (note that in Romans 12:2, the Greek term ‘perfect,’ teleion, is used with ‘good’ and ‘acceptable’).”
I found a discussion thread on the etymology of “tov” and one writer suggested that “tov”‘s root means “nature”. Therefore, you could interpret “…and God saw that it was good” as “…and God saw that it was all working well according to the laws of nature which He set into place.” This seems to convey “good” = “acting according to intention.”
My contention is that we often take the statement that God created a good world, and conflate that consequent with His absolute personal characteristics and other cultural biases to reach the conclusion that the “good” meant a state of flawless perfection. I think Moses in writing Genesis meant something more akin to what Bratcher describes above.
As far as the argument against Christianity from the existence of evil goes, the argument of a perfect God creating perfectly is a philosophical one. I don’t believe it comes from Genesis at all. They are just saying that if God’s creation was flawed (it could have been better), then God could have done better, but failed. Then, they say, God must not be omnipotent.
I agree that this is the premise that we need to show is false. The challenger is presuming to know how God must create the world if he is omnipotent. As ones who accept the Bible as divine revelation, it is clear to us that God does not reveal His purposes in lots of things (see Job or Romans 9). But again, my only goal with the challenger is to show that it is logically possible that a good, omnipotent God created the world we find. Does that seem like a reasonable thing to do?
Rob, Thank you so much for the clarification. I believe that the connotation of tov that you describe is accurate…it is just something that I never had thought through or heard before. So, you taught me something. I discussed it with Dr. Douglas Kelly this morning and he thought that it was a significant point. Especially when the phrase “very good” is used. It implies that God’s intention was certainly seen in his creation.
I am aware of the discussion of context and etymology. The context argument uncovers the flaw in the etymological argument. It is known as the etymological fallacy. So we should default to context.
Hello Jason, Pretty good for an engineer, huh? 🙂 Always remember: context is king. We should ALWAYS default to context.
Hello Eric, I understand what your saying, and I truly appreciate your continuing to discuss this, and I truly hope that you don’t take me as simply being argumentative about this. But which notion of God is the skeptic attacking? The Platonist view? The Judeo/Christian view? Or some conflation of the two or others? Where does the skeptic get the idea that he needs to assume a perfect God and that such a God should create with flawless perfection? His argument is obviously pointed to some camp of thought that he assumes makes those claims or have in fact made those claims. My point is that both are sort of going on.
The skeptic does not start a priori with the premise “Evil exists” and end up with the conclusion “if a god does exist then ((God can’t be good) & (God can’t be omnipotent)).” The contention made by Christian theists is that God is perfectly good, perfectly just, omnipotent, and omniscient. Where did Christians get this idea? I know there are some Platonic roots to it, but for the most part it comes from the bible. The skeptic begins entirely with this back drop and then observes (maybe simultaneously) the obvious corruption and evil in the world. The argument then follows that God fails to have the characteristics we Christian theists ascribe to God. His argument is not derived singularly from the observation that evil exists, but with both the claims of us theists and his observation of evil.
One amusing aspect of this issue, and I’m sure you share my amusement, is that many of the people who attempt to refute God’s existence or His absolute attributes on the basis of evil will also say they believe human nature is inherently good. So evil in the world is enough to disprove the existence of a good God but not the existence of a good human nature.
“my only goal with the challenger is to show that it is logically possible that a good, omnipotent God created the world we find. Does that seem like a reasonable thing to do?”
Admittedly, on one level, yes. But it leaves me with a certain itchy feeling because it’s like getting the right answer for the wrong reasons. When we take this approach, I feel like we demonstrate validity but avoid soundness. Doing such a thing invariable leads people down a pathway of continuing with the wrong reasons. My experience with more practical situations in my consulting practice is that the original right answer was more a matter of chance, but it reinforces the continued use of the wrong reasons, which invariably lead to very uncomfortable situations or worse. And in this particular case, I think it leads it other strange odysseys in theodicy such as speculative metaphysics (which remain unconfirmed), theosophy, or other never ending cycle of paradoxes (We haven’t brought up the role of God’s omniscience in this yet.) that arouse further arguments and counter-arguments.
“And in this particular case, I think it leads it other strange odysseys…” should read
“And in this particular case, I think it leads to other strange odysseys…”