William A. Rowe is a twentieth century philosopher who wrote in an 1979 article about an example of what he believed to be unnecessary suffering. Rowe’s example is this, “Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering.” Rowe writes this as an example of an abhorrent evil. The idea here is that there is evil that has no purpose and yet happens, he then states that therefore God is either not in control or not fully good.
Rowe’s example of the fawn brings us back to our sermon series on the problem of evil. In the last two weeks we have covered our role in the problem. In the first week we looked at the origin of evil. Evil does not begin with God, because God creates all things good. However, God gives us the divine gift of will in which we can choose his goodness or reject it. By rejecting the goodness of God, even in a small way we commit evil. Because any movement away from God is categorizes as moving away from good and therefore must be evil. So the origin of evil is our desire to do our own will and not the will of God.
In week two we looked at the affects of the will choosing evil. God crated his image bearers to have dominion over the physical creation. Due to this, there is a spiritual connection between us and the physical creation. When Adam sinned the very nature of the world was thrown into bondage and now is in chaos. Just as sin affects relationships between God and his image bearers, it also affects image bearers and the world they inhabit. Due to this bondage, all matter of natural disasters and diseases happen, even the seemingly unnecessary suffering of the fawn. The image bearers of God are the primary source of evil in the natural world. But there is a secondary source, which are the spiritual beings who are in rebellion against God. They have an affect as well as they battle both God and his creatures. Finally, though God does cause some natural disasters, he always does so as the just Judge; carrying out divine punishment on those who choose evil.
After tackling both the origin of evil and its affects in the natural world, the next question many people ask is what about the amount of evil? This can be asked in various ways as, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people, or why does God allow children to be hurt? Or in the more philosophical way, why did God create this world and not another world with less or no evil?
Let’s begin in reverse, why did God create a world where evil even exist? Philosophers wrestle with the idea of the Best of Possible Worlds Theory. Scholars Marilyn and Robert Adams write, “Taking his inspiration from Leibniz, Pike proposes the Best of All Possible Worlds as such a comprehensive good. By ‘possible world’ is meant a complex state of affairs, whether a completely determinate, maximal consistent state of affairs, or an aggregate of finite or created things together with their whole history. What is important for present purposes is that the least variation in world history constitutes a different possible world. According to Leibniz, what God does in creating is to actualize a possible world.”
The concept here is simple when you take out the philosophical jargon. In the mind of God are all possible worlds that could be created, the world we now live in is the best world that God could actualize or create. Think about it like this, if you’ve ever watched the current Marvel universe movies there are many other universes out there. This is called the multiverse and is actually a real naturalistic scientific hypothesis.
In the multiverse theory, there’s a universe out there where everything is exactly the same except you wore black socks instead of white socks. However, there is also a universe where black socks wore you. Due to the infinite amount of choices humans can make, there is an infinite amount of universes to match them. The difference between the multiverse and the best of possible worlds idea, is that the possible worlds are only in God’s mind, for he knows all the possibilities but only creates one of them, the best one. And since we’re here and able to discuss it, this one must be the best world that God could create.
So the question becomes, could God have created a better world with less evil? Here we run into a problem, what do we mean by less evil? Do we mean that there are no natural disasters, but allow for murder? Do we take out all natural disasters and murders, but allow for broken bones? Do we take out all those things and the broken bones, but allow for scrapes? Or do we take out all forms of suffering even down to eczema and balding? A world where only bad people get hurt but not the good ones? A world where, adults may get hurt, but children don’t?
The issue of the best possible world is not one of evil but one of the degree of evil that we’re okay with. There is always a lesser evil that could happen. Because if we had the lesser evil, we would not know there was a greater evil, that lesser evil would be the greatest evil, and therefore we could say that there is still more evil than there needs to be.
In reverse, there is also a better good. We could have a sunny day, but then there’s the heat, so it could improve with a slight cool breeze. But that could also be better with a day off. That could also be better with that day off sitting on a beach.
The modern philosopher, country singer Brad Paisley writes of a group of guys sitting around a campfire and one says, “Man, it don’t get any better than this…,” to which another responds, “Boys, I hate to disagree,” and then proceeds to sing, “If Bill Dance and Hank Parker floated by in a boat/And volunteered to be our fishin' guides/And Richard Petty pulled up in the old '43 car/And asked us if we wanted a ride.” In other words, it could always get better. So the best of possible worlds, could always have less evil, or more good. The reality is, we would never be satisfied with more good or less evil, because there would always be more to have either way.
Except I believe there is a better world. A world that is to come, where we’re told in Revelation 21:3-4, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”
So why doesn’t God actualize that world now? That world which has no evil and has maximum good, because the people will be next to the infinite God who is infinitely good. Again, the issue has its root in the will of the image bears. God has created the best world in which image bearers can experience in a finite way, what he understands in the infinite. God understands all things without the need of experience, because he is all-knowing. Anything God creates does not have that level of knowledge, they must live into a world where experience can happen. It’s through experience that creatures gain knowledge. This experience comes by way of choosing God and his goodness or not and turning to evil. In this way we can learn what it means to desire God or to reject him. Through experience in this world, God can then bring us into a world without evil because we understand what it means to resent it and follow him.
We see a glimmer of this learning when Paul writes of the angels, “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Eph. 3:10)”
Even if my argument is true, the question still remains, why this amount of evil. To this I would respond that we do not fully grasp the work that God is doing right now to restrain the evil of our world.
Paul writes in Second Thessalonians 2:1-7, “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.”
God is currently restraining evil. Imagine if God wasn’t restraining the hearts tended towards evil, what kind of devastation would occur. We see the mass destruction that we can cause on each other. The further we move as a people away from biblical teaching, the more wicked our world becomes. Love diminishes and hate multiples. And the brutality we show to each other increases. Yet it always seems to be getting worse, and we’re surprised by it. The reality is, we can’t imagine the brutality that could be, we just experience the brutality there is. But it could be worse, and the book of Revelation reveals much of that as it unfolds God’s removal of his restraint on evil.
Jesus speaks of that day, when evil will no longer be restrained, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. (Matt. 24:21-22)”
Until that day comes it is Christ’s Church who stands as a beckoning light in the world which points to the Light of the World, Jesus. This is why it is the Church who is to stand against injustices, against corruption, against perversions, and all other types of evils as it also stands for compassion, mercy, and grace. We as believers are to be seeking God in holy lives, proclaiming his transformational goodness through our words and deeds. There should be a distinction of Christ’s people from the world around them.
But too often there isn’t. Too often we fail and fall, and the world sees no difference. This is why we must be more truthful of our struggles. Not denying our failures but boasting in Jesus who overcomes them. Because there will be a day, when this world will experience an untethered evil and then a judgment of the evil. God will then answer the problem of evil with a finality to end the discussion. But more on that next week.
For now, my challenge to you is this, are you seeking to live a holy God honoring life? If you have trusted in Jesus as Savior, does your life bring the goodness of God to others? Are you compassionate, and merciful? Do you stand against injustices wherever they are? Because we can be compassionate to those who we like and love, but God calls us to a greater compassion, to those who we don’t love or like. God calls us to not only seek justice for those we agree with, but also for those we don’t. The goodness of God calls us into his life, he is not merely an additive to our own. Seek God to open your eyes to the areas where he wants to work.
Let us not be good only to those from whom we will receive good, but also to the one who would reject us. Only when evil is confronted with God’s goodness, can we see the affects of Jesus’ victory in our lives. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment