The Problem of Evil Series, Wk2, “What About Natural Evil?”

  Growing up I was taught this little jingle in school, “recycle, reduce, reuse, and close the loop.” The jingle was to teach us kids to recycle our cans, bottles, paper, cardboard, and whatever else there was. We used to be shown the pictures of the plastic bottle holders wrapped around a turtle’s neck. We were told that the Ozone layer was collapsing and that if we recycled we could do our part. As I grew up, my dad and I would recycle some bottles and cans we had been collecting. One time when we did, my dad started up a conversation with the guy, asking him where all the stuff went. The man told us, most of it goes to the landfill. And the estimates are up to 80% of all recycled material doesn’t get recycled due to either not being done so at the beginning, or because of food residue that wasn’t cleaned before the item was recycled. 

But the idea that we as a nation should be trying to fix our waste to help the environment around us, is what brings us back to our series on the problem of evil. Last week we tackled the issue of the origin of evil, which is our purposeful choices to choose things that are not of God. Through our God-given will, we can choose to lay our will before God and seek his goodness, or we can use our will for our own purposes which leads us further from goodness into evil. This concept has at its center that anytime you move away from the purest good, which is God, everything else is a diminishing of that good, which is evil.

With the origin of evil is understood that it comes out of our own will, we can now turn to the affects of our choices. From here on out, we’re going to use this term “free creatures” to represent those beings within God’s creation who act freely. For our purposes today, this would encompass only those creatures that have the cognitive abilities to make choices.

With that in mind, we can turn our attention to the affects of choices made by free creatures. We’re going to look at how the choices of God’s free creatures affect the creation itself.

Now usually, when we talk about the choices we make, most of us can agree that our choices can have an affect on the world around us. Child safety advocate, Elizabeth Smart  said, “The truth is, the bad choices of other people can hurt us.” A Turkish writer once wrote, "One person's choices can turn a calm lake into a rough ocean.” There is an idiom, "Make sure everybody in your boat is rowing and not drilling holes when you're not looking.” And Proverbs 11:9 states, “With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor ….” 

However, those effects do not go beyond relationships. I might say a cross word to someone and our relationship is damaged because of it. I might make a bad choice and others suffer due to it. This is usually called moral evil. Evil that humans create because of their choices. However, there are other types of evils, such as natural evil. 

In fact, philosophers such as Immanuel Kant absolve humans of any wrong doing beyond what they can affect in their personal sphere. Matthé Scholten, picking up on Kant’s view of natural evil, writes, “Although natural evils are explicitly defined as not being produced by the intentional or negligent actions of human agents, they are still referred to as ‘evils’ in this tradition because they are seen as the side effects of the intentional actions of a nonhuman or divine agent, that is, of God.” 

The vast majority of people separate themselves from the natural evils of the world, because, "How can I effect the people in the next town over, or on a greater scale, an earthquake in China?” Because we have limited influence, people reason that natural evil must then come from God who is the all-powerful being who can effect nature. Yet the choices we make have a larger impact in the natural world than we might think.

Last week we began to look at Genesis 1:26 and who we are as image bears of God. It’s here that we must return so that we can answer this question of natural evil. In the same breath that we’re told that God decides to make humanity in his image, he states, in Genesis 1:26, “… And let them have dominion …” This concept of dominion carries with it how one governs something. The Topical Lexicon states, “In the Tanakh its (the word dominion) range runs from benevolent oversight to harsh subjugation.” God gives over the dominion of the physical creation to humans and by their choices they will either govern it in his goodness or subjugate it in evil. 

It’s in this concept of dominion that a link is establish between God’s image bearers and his creation that we will see play out after Adam and Eve make their first evil decision. The reason this decision is evil, is because the first humans have decided to turn away from the good order of God’s creation to choose a different path. But any turn from God’s goodness leads not into more goodness, because there could never be any greater good than God, who is wholly good. So any turn from him would be to turn towards evil. Therefore disregarding God’s command to not eat of the tree, is an evil act. 

Now, let’s look at that connection in the aftermath of Adam and Eve’s decision. The scene is set as God returns to the Garden, but his image bearer are no where to be found. We pick up the scene in Genesis 3:9, “But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’ He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ (v. 9-13)”

This is the cascade of evil rooted in that first evil decision as one person blames the next in a series of passing the buck. Already we see the relationship aspect of evil grow. By turning their back on God their relationship with each other is also broken. They hide, not only from God, but from each other, by distancing themselves from the other’s actions.

Due to their decisions, God begins to tell them their consequences. Going in reverse from the serpent to the woman, and then final the man. Let’s zoom in on God’s consequences to Adam. Dropping down to verse 17, we read, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (v.17-19)”

Here we see the connection between the evil choices of these free creatures and the impact they have on the world around them. Paul R. House and Eric Mitchell comment that, “After sin enters the picture, sin, pride, and trouble escalate until the entire creation becomes corrupted.” Victor P. Hamilton remarks, “Sin always puts a wedge between things and people …God and humans … man and woman … man and himself, and now between man and the soil.” The decisions of free creatures have a direct impact on the natural world around them.

We can see this impact in things such as the AIDs epidemic, where the CDC recognizes that the disease is perpetuated through human sexual acts. During the cold war, Russia tried to create a reservoir by setting off a nuclear bomb, only to turn the lake radioactive. The dominion God’s image bearers were to have over the creation was placed under a harsh subjugation due to their decision to seek evil. Paul writes of it likes this in Romans 8:20-21, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Creation was impacted by the decisions of God’s first image bearers.

So then because of this intimate connection we have as images bears with God’s creation, when we choose evil, i.e. not choosing to follow God, we participate in the subjugation of the creation. The spiritual connections are greater than we typically give credit. Just the simple decision not to thrown away a piece of trash can have an impact on the creatures that inhabit God’s creation. And collectively, as image bears we have a connection to the greater world around us, and we do not even tend to recognize. 

This type of individual evil adding to corporate evil can be scene in the idea of vehicle traffic. I could drive all day and the exhaust from my car doesn’t do much. In fact, you might not even notice it unless you’re right next to the tail pipe. But when you head into a city, there’s a brown cloud that hovers over the buildings. Put a million cars on the road and now you can see the exhaust. Individually, we may not seemingly have impact on world around us, but as we grow as a people, we carry evil collectively and it impacts the creation more and more.  We as a collection of image bears participate in the creation’s subjugation by our personal evil choices. This creates a spiritual torrent that continues to affect all creation.

Because of this, we can answer questions such as, where does cancer and all the diseases that plague us? Well, hey come from the evil choices which subjugate this creation. Why are some inclined to evil? We all are in varying degrees, but our evil choices have led to an increase of the degradation of the physical and psychological aspects of who we are. Why is it when there is inbreeding, there are physiological and mental deforming? We are a corrupted race and therefore that corruption is passed down. Our spiritual connection to creation is deeper and more intense than we tend to think, but the Scriptures tell us that connection is there. As a image bearers, our choice to participate in evil is the primary cause of the natural disasters of this world. 

However, there is a serpent too. We cannot miss the fact that there are other free creatures in this creation. Whereas the actions of the image bearers have physical creational effects, spiritual free creations have a secondary impact. These free creatures also can cause evil. The serpent in the garden (Gen. 3), Satan in bringing destruction upon Job (Job 1-2), the demonic spirit who battled against Michael when Gabriel was bringing a message to Daniel (Dan. 10:13). Paul states this about these other free creatures when he writes this in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Yet, though there are spiritual forces, we must not do what Adam and Eve did, and pass the buck to them when it comes to evil. We are guilty of evil just as they are, and more so, sense we are image bearers of God.

So there are two sources that cause natural evil: The primary source are image bearers who have a dominion connection to the physical creation, and secondarily, spiritual beings who are in rebellion against God.

Finally, when talking about natural evils, we must address the concept of God’s role. As I stated at the beginning, the traditional view is that natural evil stems from God. However, I argue that natural evil actually stems from the connection of image bearers and their dominion connection over the creation. 

Yet there are verses such as Isaiah 45:7, which is usually quoted from the King James Version, and reads as God speaks, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” Without tackling everything in the verse, the word that the KJV translates as evil is better translated as, calamity and is used in the biblical sense for humans when they do evil and for God when he brings judgment upon that evil. There are genuine times when God causes natural disasters. We see this in Genesis 7-8 in the flood, but we’re told that the reason this natural disaster occurs is because,  “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Gen. 6:5)”

We see God causing natural disasters again when he brought the ten plagues of Egypt (see. Ex. 7-12) because, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out … (Ex. 3:7-8)”

God brings natural disasters in light of human sin. In this way he conducts himself as the final judge of his free creatures. Isaiah 33:22 states this role, “For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver; the Lord is our king; he will save us.” Since the Lord is the lawgiver, he is the One who judges those that were created under his law. Too often God is given a catch 22 situation. Either he keeps his creatures accountable for their actions, and so brings judgment, or he does not, and is accused of not being just. People pray that God would act against the murder, or the dictator, but when God moves and the murder is caught and sent to jail, or the dictator is captured, people rail against God, because they wanted it a different way. Yet, out of all, God is the only one who brings unbiased verdicts against all free creatures. Something that we will talk more about in our final week.

In the end, there are three sources for evil in the case natural evil: The first two, stem from free creatures. The first free creatures are the image bearers whose dominion over creation leads them to have a significant spiritual connection that places the creation in bondage, which affects are felt both relationally between the image bears and in the natural world. The second of the free creatures are spiritual beings who interact with the natural world and the image bearers. And though they have significant power, they do not have the spiritual connect that the image bearers do. Finally, God does cause some natural disaster, but he does so as an impartial judge in response to verdicts he passes upon the evils of his creatures.

Too often we, like Adam and Even try to pass the responsibility of evil to the next person. The devil made me do it, God isn’t fair. But the reality is, we cause more evil in this world than we would ever want to know. The ramifications of our promiscuity, of our harsh words, of our not picking up the trash, is felt for generations that follow. 

Only when we recognize our role in the evils of this world, will we begin to see the reason for Jesus’ work on our behalf. Jesus came to break the power of evil, that we might return to the goodness of God in which we were created to live. 

This week I want to challenge you, to take a few days and ponder the effects of decisions you have made in the past, both good and evil. See their ramifications. You might have tried to absolve yourself of them before, saying things like, “Well yeah I said that harsh word, but they didn’t have to respond to it like that.” Or, “Well yeah I didn’t treat my spouse very good, but my kids should still talk to me because I’m their parent.” 

We need to be truthful about our decision and the ramifications they cause. This isn’t an excuse for evil to happen to us, we cannot control the evil that others do, but we can take responsibility for our own, and turn to Jesus for forgiveness. He knows every evil we’ve committed and all the repercussions of that evil throughout all of history. He is the just and good God, if we turn to him, he promises his goodness to us and that’s a comforting thing.

So let us be an honest people before the world, and be seeker s of the Good God. Amen.

The Problem of Evil Series, Wk1, “What’s the Problem?”

  We all have those stories of pain and loss of friends and family. Some are more intense than others. Many of those stories happen over the holidays, and we’re reminded of them when the seasons change from the warm summer to the cold winter. Then there are the larger societal stories, like one of the most devastating earthquakes ever recorded. On July 28, 1976, in a city east of Beijing, China, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake stuck the city of Tangshan. The whole city laid in rubble, with the official death toll just under 250,000, but estimates put it up to around 600,000. But it didn’t stop there. An aftershock hit another city, causing another roughly 250,000 deaths. These tragic stories are the reality of our world, and the question is why? Why all this pain and suffering?

At the the end of our November Apologetics series on Answering the agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman, we talked about how Ehrman’s issue with the orthodox faith of Christianity is the problem of Evil. Ehrman writes, “There came a time when I left the faith. This was not because of what I learned through the historical criticism, but because I could no longer reconcile my faith in God with the state of the world that I saw all around me …. There is so much senseless pain and misery in the world that I came to find it impossible to believe that there is a good and loving God who is in control, despite my knowing all of the standard rejoinders that people give …. In my case, historical criticism led me to question my faith. Not just its superficial aspects but its very heart. Yet it was the problem of suffering, not a historical approach to the Bible, that led me to agnosticism.” 

The problem for Ehrman is the problem a lot of people have with God. If there is a God, why is there evil? If God is all-powerful and all-good, then why do people suffer? Sometimes it’s phrased as, “Why do good people suffer?”

The problem of evil is universal and is one of the core questions that every religion and worldview struggles to answer. To the Hindu or the Buddhist, evil and suffering occur because of past things we have done and now must learn to move beyond them. To the muslim, evil is created by Allah to test his chosen and damn the rejected. To the atheist, it’s part of an uncaring, non-purposeful world. 

However, for us as Christians, evil is laid at our feet as a way to diminish the teaching of the Scriptures that God is wholly good, and all-powerful. But how is that possible? The Hindu does not have a wholly good and all-powerful god, neither does the atheist. The muslim’s god is the creator of evil and is un-personal, and creates evil as a tool by which he carries out his plan. But the God of the Bible cares deeply for his creatures. To Ezekiel, God states, “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live. (Ezk. 18:32)” Even the death of the wicked God takes no pleasure in. 

So while evil is a necessary part of other worldviews and religions, it isn’t with the biblical God, because, as the Scriptures say, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (Jam. 1:17).” So if God is good, loving, wants good things for his creatures, and there is not evil in him, then why do we have evil? 

Now, there are a lot of ways to approach this question, some of which I shared back in our series on Answering Ehrman. However, I’m going to give you my answer to the question of evil, and develop it over the next four weeks. There are four aspects that we’re going to cover: The origin of the problem, why is there evil? This will be today. Why is there natural evil, tsunamis, earthquakes and the such. Why is there seemingly a lot of evil? And finally, what is God’s answer to all of it?

Let’s answer the first question, what is the origin of evil? I see the question as being rooted in the very nature of God’s design for us.

Genesis 1:26-27 reads, “Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

This one sentence is a profound theological statement that reverberates throughout human societies and the nature of who we are. We, both men and women, are carriers of the imago Dei, the image of God. But what does it mean to be made in the image of God?

The theological definition is: A term describing the uniqueness of humans as God’s creatures. In the Genesis creation account, Adam and Eve are said to be created in God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). Theologians differ on what the image of God actually refers to, but most agree that the image is not primarily physical. Instead, the imago Dei may include presence of will, emotions and reason; the ability to think and act creatively; or the ability to interact socially with others. Scripture attributes the imago Dei solely to humans, and it indicates that the image is in some sense still present even after the Fall (see Jas. 3:9). Above all, however, Christ, and by extension those who are in Christ - is the image of God. (Grenz, Guretzki, Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, 63)

Theologians and Scholars have not come to a consensus on what the image of God is, but it is unique to humans. But why does God create a uniqueness for humans to carry his image?

You might have heard this from the Westminster Catechism as it begins with these words, “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” This is God’s goal for humanity: that his creatures would experience him. However, how can the finite experience the infinite, and what does it mean to experience him? Second Peter 1:4 reveals that those who are in Christ Jesus “… become partakers of the divine nature … (ESV).” But how can the finite participate in the divine nature of the wholly-other God? Humans will not be omniscient, or omnipresent, or omnipotent. They will not be little divines, for there is only one divine, none before, nor none after (Is. 43:10). So, in what way will humans participate in the divine?

In the Summa Theologia by Thomas Aquinas, the medical scholar points to God’s will as being the core to who God is. God is the only being who can actually will something to come about. That means that God is the only being who makes free choices. In that will, Aquinas notices that God wills goodness. This is why all that he wills to create is good. As the Scriptures state, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day (Gen. 1:31).”

His will is something unique to him and his will produces goodness. Keeping this in mind, what is the first thing he says to humanity? Genesis 2:15-17 gives us the first words to Adam from God, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”

This is a command to choose to follow God, or not. To participate in the good things that God creates, or choose a different path. In other words, a core component of an image bearer is the ability to choose. And that core component does not go away with the fall. Joshua would call the people of Israel, “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Jos. 24:14-15).”

God would speak of this choice when he spoke through Isaiah, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool (Is. 1:18).”

John’s Gospel opens up with this choice when he writes, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (Jn. 1:12).” 

And in that same Gospel, Jesus said on several occasions states, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments (Jn. 14:15).”

To be an image bearer is to use the will the Lord gave us for goodness, which means choosing him instead of anything else.

The way we experience the divine is through yielding our will to the will of God. This can be seen in John’s vision of heaven, in Revelation 4:9-11, "And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.’”

So then, where does the evil come from? It comes from the will of the image bearer to not willingly participate in the goodness of God. The choice is the greatest gift God has given to his image bearers because it allows us to participate in the divine ability to choose. However, God’s choices are eternal because he knowns and understands good and evil from an eternal perspective. For us, there is only one eternal choice, to accept God’s work on our behalf, or reject it. 

All evil comes from a will who is rejecting the goodness of God. This is why Jesus states, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander (Matt. 15:19).”

James would write that what is contained in the heart is our desire and that is the cause of strife, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you (Jm. 4:1)?”

But though a person might be ignorant of who God is, they are not ignorant of God’s call to them. As Paul writes, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Rom. 1:18-20).” 

Each of us are responsible for the use of our will. What we choose reverberates into eternity. As Paul writes in Romans 2:6-8, "He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.” 

So God gives the gift of the divine ability to choose to his image bearers, and with such a tremendous gift, a great responsibility weighs on us to utilize that gift to bring glory to him. 

Due to this, the choice to do good mirrors God’s own. However, God’s choice to will good is from an eternal perspective that understands good and evil. Our choice comes through a finite experience of good and evil. It is because of this that God forgives through the work of Jesus even the most horrific of evils. Teaching us another aspect of his goodness, that of sacrifice, mercy, and grace. 

By choosing God, we make an eternal choice of God’s goodness, and we understand, as God does, the impact of evil. Therefore we can then live eternally with him, as those who choose only good and never sin in his presence. 

This is why our acceptance of what Jesus did on our behalf is so important. All of us have chosen evil, and because we have chosen evil, evil runs rampant in our world. Every time we choose evil, it grows. When it grows it devours. When it devours, death reigns. Until Christ is accepted, evil has dominion. Yet through Christ’s work, evil has been broken. Where before the evil seemed like the only choice, and even our good choices seemed to lead to evil, Christ’s way brings a new kingdom, and new reign where good and righteous work can work even in the most evil of places. 

The question, why is there evil, is rooted in God’s love for us. A love that designed us to participate in a divine aspect of his nature, choice. Yet with that design of choice, we can use it it bring about evil. The answer to the question why is there evil, is that we use what we have been given wrongly, and why does God continue to allow it, that’s a question for another week. But for now the answer to the origin of evil is us. When we chose anything but the goodness of God, we participate in the creation of evil. We distort the good things of God, to seek our own desire, and by doing so, evil runs rampant. So it is us, not God, who is at fault for evil.

But what about natural evils, what about the amount of evil, and why doesn’t God do anything to stop it? We’ll cover each of these in the next several weeks. For now, we must take responsibility for the creation of evil, and realize what God calls us to do, lay down our will for his. Because his will is always for good.

My challenge then, is to go before the Lord, and pray this prayer. 

“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9-10).” Amen.

Let us be a people who lay down our will to the Father, choosing his good over our evil, just as we were created to do.

Personal Theodicy Essay: Philosophical and Theological

 Introduction

Many theodicies seek to understand man’s relationship to the evil in the world by addressing the basic philosophical questions which Hume presents as he reflects on Epicurus, “Is he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then where does evil come from?” Other issues that arise are the possible worlds and the maximal worlds concept, as Alvin Plantinga discusses in his defense of free will. Theodicies, such as Theonomy, Greater Good, and Soul Building, as in the case of Irenaeus, seem to add pieces to the overall discussion of why God would allow the amount of evil in this world. However, these theodicies seem to present only snippets of the greater picture of the biblical God. 

Too often in discussions on the problem of evil, the question comes from a human perspective: “Why would God allow evil to occur to us?” Questions of God’s goodness and his omnipotence are called before the judgment of humanity in a strikingly similar courtroom, which Job and his fellows call upon God to disclose. Yet, it is in the person and purpose of God that the question of evil finds its answer. The biblical God’s reason for creating humanity is linked to his end purposes for them, and by understanding this end goal of his creative work, evil, too, is answered. 

Infinte Goodness

The Westminster Catechism begins with the words, “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” This is God’s goal for humanity: that his creatures would experience him. However, how can the finite experience the infinite, and what does it mean to experience him? Second Peter 1:4 reveals that those who are in Christ Jesus “… become partakers of the divine nature … (ESV).” But how can the finite participate in the divine nature of the wholly-other God? Humans will not be omniscient, or omnipresent, or omnipotent. They will not be little divines, for there is only one divine, none before, nor none after (Is. 43:10). So, in what way will humans participate in the divine?

St. Thomas Aquinas, in The Summa Theologiae, wrestles with the concept of God’s will.   In Article Three, Aquinas concludes that God necessarily wills goodness because of his divine nature. In this sense, God always chooses to do good, for he wills it. This is reflected in passages such as Psalm 145:17-18 and James 1:17. To this end, it would appear that what humans are to participate in is the goodness of God. However, how can the finite understand goodness? For God to understand and will goodness, it is a simple thing; he is omniscient. The infinite God knows all things, so he knows both what is good and what is evil. Because of this, God does not need to experience evil to know that it is indeed wicked. God understands all concepts related to what would be termed evil. Yet, the finite is limited in knowledge. The finite does not know that goodness is to be desired, and evil is to be shunned. So how does God bring his creatures into an understanding of goodness?

The finite only has access to the infinite through God himself, yet, unlike God, who knows good and evil, the finite does not. That is, unless the finite is shown that goodness is preferable to evil through a mechanism or ability that is granted by the infinite. To do this, God creates a world in which his creatures are given the mechanism or ability to choose freely between good and evil. It is the free choice and the ability to set our will to choose, which becomes the central crux through which the infinite God teaches the finite creature. In this sense, Origen’s concept of necessary purposes and the Teleological Argument can be seen. The image of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil within the Garden of Eden, and the command not to eat of it, reveals this very ability to choose. To choose good is to look to God as the source of all knowledge. In him, the finite understands goodness and has learned to shun evil. However, choosing the tree and its easy access to knowledge of evil leads to an experience of evil. As revealed in the aftermath of Adam and Eve’s actions with the tree, their choice not only leads to moral evil but also affects the natural world, poisoning it.  

By allowing the finite to experience evil, God’s purpose is for his creatures to detest it. The cry of the Psalmist to wonder at how long the wicked will triumph (Ps. 94:3) becomes a realization that a person must seek the goodness of God, because the alternative is horrific. When the finite experiences evil through their own choice, it gives reason to search and turn to the infinite God who wills goodness. It is at the point where we ask, “Why does God allow evil?” that we find God’s purpose. The very reason he allows us the freedom to choose is that we would learn that it is, in fact, we who have sought the evil which he desires us to turn away from. That we would see evil’s wickedness and cry out to him. When this occurs, the words of Paul ring, “… we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28).” God works even evil out for our good when our choice aligns with his purpose. It is through the finite’s choice to experience evil that they truly understand the goodness of God. In this, they can participate in the divine nature in a way that better grasps what the omniscient God already knows. 

The Actual and Future World

It is then, when the finite creatures choose God in his goodness, instead of evil, that he moves his creatures from the actual world to a future world. God’s purposes not only create an actual world in which free choice is possible and evil can be experienced, but also lead to a perfect world where the choices of finite creatures solidify into God. For God’s will is not that the finite would only experience evil, but that by experiencing it now, in the actual world, they may never experience it again, in a future world. The transition from the best world to the greatest of worlds occurs when God brings justice against the evils chosen, making them right in the end. 

This is what can be seen in the final pages of Scripture. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more … 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 (Rev. 21:1, 4).”

Therefore, the best of possible worlds in which free choice brings about an understanding of God’s goodness leads to the greatest of possible worlds, where only the goodness of God is experienced. The current experience of evil is merely the weeping in the night before the dawning of God’s good morning (Ps. 30:5). However, the current world is not simply for humans to experience and understand the goodness of God, but is also for the angels. As humans experience both good and evil, angels watch and gain valuable insight (1 Cor. 4:9; Eph. 3:10). This experience in a world where evil is encountered breaks into the world where only the goodness of God is understood, appreciated, and wholly experienced. In this future world, God will establish his utopia, a concept that answers J.L. Mackie’s conundrum.

Conclusion

The God of the Bible seeks a people of his own, who will experience the goodness of who he is. He achieves this by giving the finite the gift of free choice. Through this gift, his creatures may use it to experience the good, which is his intention, and the evil. His goal is that they would seek him, choosing his goodness over their own evil desires. Through this momentary experience, the finite has an opportunity to be brought into the infinite’s goodness and participates in his divine nature. Therefore, the amount of evil experienced in this world is what is necessary to point finite creatures back to their good God. God then sets right even that which was evil in this world, bringing justice to evil. Then, God moves those who have chosen him into a new world in which no evil exists, because as God has always understood, and now his creatures do as well, only in his goodness can one be at peace.

Bibliography

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    Aquinas, Thomas, The Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1. translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Revised by Daniel Sullivan. Chicago: IL: William Benton, Encyclopedia Britannica Inc, 1923.

    Feinberg, John S. The Many Faces of Evil: Theological Systems and the Problems of Evil. Revised and Expanded Edition, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004.

    Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Edited by Dorothy Coleman. Cambridge, ENG: Cambridge Press, 2007.

    Jackson, Roy. The God of Philosophy: An Introduction to Philosophy of Religion. London: ENG: Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.

    McGrath, Alister E. Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2001.

    “Origen, on the Relation of God and Evil,” in The Christian Theology Reader. Edited by Alister E. McGrath, 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.

    Plantinga, Alvin. God. Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977.

    The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Assembly at EDINBURGH, July 28, 1648. Sess. 19, Accessed November 11, 2025, https://prts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Shorter_Catechism.pdf.