The problem of evil (POE) is probably the most serious challenge
to the rationality of Christian theism. At its core, the POE claims that there
is a fundamental contradiction within Christian belief. Christians believe that
there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good God. This belief is a
necessary component of Christianity such that if proven false would prove
Christian theism false. Christians also believe that the state of affairs that
has obtained involves evil. This belief is also a necessary component of
Christianity such that if proven false would prove Christian theism false.
Hence, if Christianity is true, then it is also true that an all-powerful,
all-knowing, perfectly good God created a world that includes evil. Every
Christian should be able to reconcile these beliefs in a way that they do not
lead to contradiction, but more importantly in a way that is also consistent
with Christian Scripture. Some Christians attempt to solve the contradiction
but end up compromising Christians beliefs about the nature of God. Others attempt
to solve the contradiction but end up with a view of man is also quite out of
step with Scripture. Such extremes must be avoided, and it is the purpose of
this post to help you do just that.
The critic claims that the kind of God that Christians believe
exists is not the kind of being that would create a world like this. An
all-powerful God is powerful enough to create a world in which evil does not
exist. An all-knowing God would know how to create a world in which evil does
not exist. Finally, a perfectly good God would not create a world in which evil
exists. There is good reason to examine these claims. The argument continues; since
evil exists, the Christian claim that an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly
good God exists is contradicted by the fact that evil exists. Therefore,
Christianity holds to beliefs that contradict one another. Either Christianity
must deny that evil exists, or it must relinquish its claim that the sort of
God it believes in actually exists. Either way, Christianity is irrational for
holding to the belief that this sort of God exists, and evil exists at the same
time. It seems then, if this argument is sound, that the Christian religion is
doomed because without evil Christianity collapses and without it’s God
revealed in the Bible, it collapses. As you can see, the argument is really
quite powerful and has caused many professing Christians to give up their
Christian beliefs. How do you answer the charge?
The Arminian Solution
The Arminian solution to the problem of evil is to point out that
God created a world in which libertarian free will exists and that such a state
of affairs must allow for the possibility of evil. Libertarian freedom is defined
as the freedom to always act to the contrary. This view is based is based on a indeterministic
metaphysic. Indeterministic free will follows from this which means that human
free will is incompatible with causal determinism. Regardless of which action
an agent chooses, he could have always done otherwise. Evil exists in the world
because God created human beings free to choose good or evil. They chose evil.
Moreover, a world in which human beings have this kind of freedom, libertarian
or indeterministic freedom, is the best of all possible worlds. Indeed, this
solution does solve the problem of evil in that it removes the supposed contradiction
in Christian theism. But it comes at a very high cost which I will discuss in
my summary below.
The Open-Theism Solution
The second solution, one that pushes Arminian theology a little
further but focuses its effort on the nature of God is the open view. The open
view claims that God does not know the future perfect. God does not know the
future decisions of free creatures. This means that God is not all-knowing. The
open view agrees with the Arminian position of libertarian freedom. But it also
agrees that if such actions are truly free in the indeterministic sense, then
God cannot possibly know them because what God knows, he knows infallibly. If
God knows that John will eat a ham sandwich for lunch tomorrow, then John is
not actually free to do otherwise. If he is, then God’s knowledge is not
infallible because John could always choose to have turkey. Since open theists
recognize that evil exists but that God is perfectly good with infallible
knowledge, the solution to the contradiction must be sought either by modifying
its beliefs regarding God’s knowledge or God’s power. It focuses on the former.
As a result, open theism does in fact remove the supposed contradiction in the
argument against God from evil. But the cost is even greater than the one
willingly paid by the Arminian approach.
The Reformed Solution
The reformed solution to the problem of evil is, from what I can
tell, the least appealing and the least accepted by philosophers. It is a very
unpopular response that gets very little attention in the literature. Many believe
this a liability and weakness in the reformed response. However, I think this
is a good indication that it is on the right track.
Reformed theology is fully deterministic. This means that the
reformed position rejects the view that human beings possess indeterministic
freedom. The Second London Baptist Confession states:
God
the good Creator of all things, in his infinite power, and wisdom, doth (a)
uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all Creatures, and things, from the
greatest even to the (b) least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the
end for the which they were Created; according unto his infallible
foreknowledge, and the free and immutable Councel of his (c) own will; to the
praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness and mercy.[1]
The confession asserts that God controls and sustains all
creation. Eph. 1:11 says In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been
predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to
the counsel of his will.
From the start this seems to introduce the problem of moral
responsibility. How can human beings be morally responsible for their actions
unless they act freely? However, free will, as defined by most reformed
theologians is not the ability to always do otherwise, but rather, the ability
to act or choose apart from coercion or force. Man is free so long as he does
whatever he desires or wants to do. This view of free will is compatible with
the Reformed theology’s view of determinism. This view of determinism is soft
determinism. In short, it contends that human free will is compatible with
divine providence. If this is the case, then it seems to lead to the inevitable
conclusion that Reformed theology is in fact a contradictory system since it
affirms an all-powerful, all-knowledge, perfectly good God and the existence of
evil in the world. But this conclusion is mistaken. The reason this conclusion
is mistaken is located in the definition of “good.” When we say that God is “perfectly
good,” what do we mean? Christianity means one thing while the opponent of
Christianity means something else. There is an element of pagan thought
smuggled into the definition of good that is contrary to Christian theism. If
the goal is to demonstrate that Christian theism involves a contradiction, one
has to use Christianity’s own definitions and not import those definitions as
this objection seems to do.
The Reformed answer to this challenge, not to oversimplify it is
to say that it is simply not true that a perfectly good God would not allow
evil or create a world that would come to have evil in it. That claim, in and
of itself, is contrary to Christian theism according to Reformed theology. All
that is needed to answer this charge is to say that the existence of evil in
the world produces a world that is better than a world that is has no evil.
That is one way to remove the contradiction. Another way to remove the
contradiction is to hold that God is under no obligation to create the best
possible world with the most good. God is only obligated by his own nature to
create one of the good possible worlds as opposed to evil possible worlds. This
leads us to ask the question, what is the greatest good? It isn’t a problem if
we reject the idea that God is not obligated to create such a world. The idea
that God has a moral obligation to create only the best possible world is
without ground. On the other hand, the world was created, and everything in it,
to glorify God. Is it possible that the existence of evil serves to glorify God
more than if evil did not exist? I see no reason why it is not possible. If
Reformed theology can plausibly deny the premise that a perfectly good God
would not allow evil, then this successfully removes any contradiction from its
understanding of Christian theism. The fact becomes that a perfectly good God
would allow evil to exist if it served his greater purpose of
self-glorification. What is a greater good than God’s being glorified. Or, what
is greater than a world in which God is glorified more than other possible
worlds?
Conclusion
The problem of evil then as a logical challenge against the
existence of the God of Christianity turns out not to be a problem after all.
Still, it is the most challenging problem for Christian theism to answer. That
much is granted. And there is a lot more to the challenge than any one blog
post can address. Arminian theology solves the problem with its “libertarian
free will” argument. This is a high price to pay because it places the Arminian
in a position of having to solve for a new problem: how can God have infallible
knowledge of the future free acts of human beings while also claiming at the
same time that those actions are free in the libertarian sense. If God
possesses infallible knowledge that John will have a ham sandwich for lunch
tomorrow or next week or year, then how is it possible that John could always
do otherwise up to the time that he has the ham sandwich? So far, I have seen
nothing in the literature that satisfactorily removes the contradiction between
divine omniscience and libertarian free will.
For the open theist view, the problem is worse. Scripture is clear
that God infallibly knows the future acts of human beings. Jesus’ knowledge
that Judas would betray him is a clear example. Jesus said that it would have
been better if Judas had never been born. If it were possible for Judas to do otherwise,
then Jesus was simply wrong. Jesus could not have made such a statement if it
remained a possibility that Judas could do otherwise. But Jesus, acting on his
infallible knowledge of Judas’ future act to betray Christ, made a true statement,
not a possibly true statement. It was true that minute Jesus made it. And that
is only possible if there was no other possibility than that Judas would betray
Christ.
The Reformed position says
that God has decreed whatsoever shall come to pass. But the decree is not
itself the cause of man’s acting to commit evil, even though that act is part
of the decree. The decree is not a causal agent. It is the divine plan. A
blueprint does not build a house. The agents carrying out the instructions of
the blue print are the cause of the house being built. God created in such a
way that man does as he pleases, he acts according to his own desire and he is
therefore morally responsible for his actions. Man was created in God’s image
and likeness. God does what he wants to do. Human beings, created in God’s
image and likeness, do what they want to do. Adam did what he wanted to do. He
was not forced against his will to violate the divine command simply because
that is what was in the divine blueprint. How can God bring it to pass that
evil exists without being the cause of evil in the sense that he is morally
responsible for that evil? I think this is where epistemology can be critically
helpful. Our knowledge of God is, as Van Til would say, analogical. God can be
the cause of something in a way that is similar but different from the way in
which human beings are the cause of something. That has to always be kept in
mind. God loves like we do, but differently than we do. And that difference isn’t
just in terms of degree but in essence as well. God’s knowledge and acts are
not only quantitatively greater than ours, but they are also qualitatively
greater than ours. Reformed theology then answers the challenge of evil without
compromising the divine nature and while also remaining true to sound biblical
exegesis. Both Arminian theology and Open Theism error seriously because they
are far more rationalistic in their approach to this challenge while Reformed
Theology attempts to remain true to the text of Scripture.
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