Why Doesn't God Prevent Genuine Evil?

[Thomas Oord]

The quote above from your blog seems to my thinking to be taking a hair and splitting it right in two.

I will accept the notion that God can't entirely control the other - as long as we can recognize that from time to time God will make it so unpleasant to go against His will that the other will eventually succumb to the will of God (this to me however seems to be a form of control). So God "can't" force Pharaoh to release the Israelites - but God makes going against His desires so incredibly unpleasant that Pharaoh is eventually "forced" to let the people go. So if we have room for the miraculous - then we have room for a great deal of influence by God - an influence that could easily be equated with God acting against free will without ever taking away free will.

Kevin,

I can go along way with you on this. I've described this as being extremely persuasive and mildly persuasive. But I don't want to paint a picture of a God who can be a big bully! I think God's extreme persuasion occurs in the context of God's knowing the dire natural negative consequences that come from choosing to do evil.

Tom

[Thomas Oord]

Yeah, I've been thinking about evolution and free will some lately. I posted about this on another thread (I think the Jeremiah 18 one). Again, this is a hypothesis for analysis, not a proposal or belief. But what if God gave creation free will - evidence we see in natural selection and the overall development of creation, but perhaps individual species or even individual actors within creation do not have free will apart from their participation in the whole of creation.

I began thinking this route after hearing a lengthy NPR interview with some neuro-scientists doing work with decision making and morality. They seem to think that even our free choices and the way we make decisions are almost entirely determined by past experience, genetics, etc.

That even our "free" choices are in some extent (this guy thought to a large extent) not really "free" in the traditional philosophical sense.

I've been thinking in this vein because more and more it seems like scripture speaks collectively about creation. God created. God gave humanity a specific place in creation (and the task of nurturing and managing creation), but ultimately we are within the whole. When we talk about sin and redemption (even as scripture talks about it) it's not generally in individualistic or even species-specific terms. God is at work redeeming all of creation, not just the sinful humans within it.

I don't have answers to these things, but I've been pondering the questions a lot lately. I think they're worthwhile. Our western thought has so been captured by the idea of individualism that it's difficult to step outside of that paradigm - even as it is one foreign to scripture and much of Christian tradition.

Ryan,

I like the way you're thinking. I don't think any creature has unlimited freedom. All freedom is constrained not only by the creature's own structures (body, etc.) but also by their environments (which includes both creatures and other forces).

I think more complex creatures have greater degrees of freedom. So people have greater freedom than worms.

I also think that we can expand or diminish the relative amount of freedom we have. So, for instance, an alcoholic diminishes her freedom through her addiction. And we can say the more we follow God's leading, the freer we become.

Tom

[Bob Hunter]

Bob,

Yes, I think we can. But such discipline (in my view) never becomes total control. Our bodies can still rebel or be influenced by other forces and spin off in directions we do not want.

Tom

Sounds like a great way to explain my fetish for chocolate. My body rebelled and spun off in a direction I did not want...

[Ryan Scott]

I like the way you're thinking. I don't think any creature has unlimited freedom. All freedom is constrained not only by the creature's own structures (body, etc.) but also by their environments (which includes both creatures and other forces).

I think more complex creatures have greater degrees of freedom. So people have greater freedom than worms.

I also think that we can expand or diminish the relative amount of freedom we have. So, for instance, an alcoholic diminishes her freedom through her addiction. And we can say the more we follow God's leading, the freer we become.

This research on neurology and inheritance really has me thinking though. I used to separate humans from animals along the lines of humanity's ability to recognize our own inherent instincts and then choose to act contrary to them (not something that seems all that common among non-humans in creation). However, this researcher was pretty adamant that even that ability, our reasoning, and the ultimate choices we make, are determined based on the same kinds of factors that bring about the instincts in the first place.

It's really gotten me thinking about whether we do have any more freedom than worms - perhaps we just have more of a capacity to think about our own actions, but ultimately do not have any more actual freedom?

I don't know.

[Roland Hearn]

Good discussion but I have got to say I agree with Tom on this. The word "can't" is precisely the right word. It is our need for omnipotence that is part of the problem but that is a structure we created to ensure we have a God that meets our criteria. Here is the issue as I see it: in a world of limitations the incomplete human seeks control of circumstances to overcome fear. Fear flows from our ability to imagine consequences and be unable to respond to them. More than that at the core level fear is an existential response. We are not enough and we know it; we seek to control the world around us to minimise our fear. More often than not control is the antithesis of love. In most of life’s circumstances we have a choice to control or to love –rarely can we do both. As a result of our fear we imagine a God of unlimited power able to control all of reality and choosing not to and we wonder why. Love is, however, a limitation of seemingly unimaginable application. Our problem is really not that we cannot work out why God can’t or won’t do something but that we cannot see all that pure love sees in any given circumstance. God works within the construct of the Universe that He set in motion 14 billion years ago to bring about love. The only way God could avoid evil is to make that first micro second the unchangeable reality. To allow for change inherently involves decay. Where there is decay there will be tragedy. A star lives out its life and collapses with a violence beyond anything we can imagine but without that collapse the very elements that make life possible would not exist. Yet if you were living on a planet in orbit around a collapsing star you would ask the question “why?” Yet it is creation within the collapse that is an expression of a loving God. So much of what happens in life that we struggle with are simply random realities coming to be because life is being lived. Yet it is our perspective that is often the problem. When I focus on God’s love shaping and making me more like him my circumstances seem less daunting. When someone close to me dies or is in pain I want to blame God or at least beg God to respond and when he doesn’t I can feel frustration, fear and even doubt but that is my response to Him. I can equally say, “though he slay me (which he won’t – life might but He won’t) yet will I trust Him.” It isn’t faith born of a need to have Him control but faith that says in the end He will make me more like Him –not more controlling but more loving. So why doesn’t He do more in any given circumstance – why did Jesus not come earlier – because the revelation of love always takes time. I think that is why scripture insists: “at the right time.” We can only accept that at any other time it would be less loving and not more loving. God will always do all that love is able to do in any given circumstance not less. If something is not done it is because love cannot do it. That is where our faith comes in not in knowing the answers but in trusting that what is happening is the expression of the limitation of love not an arbitrary decision.

[Dale Cozby]

If something is not done it is because love cannot do it. That is where our faith comes in not in knowing the answers but in trusting that what is happening is the expression of the limitation of love not an arbitrary decision.

This is the heart of it.

God knows all there is to know, He can do all there is that can be done, He can love completely.
God cannot betray Himself, Love is the ultimate measure of what God is and wants for us all.
Since He wants love for us all, all the horrors of the creation's fallen state is a direct result of Him wanting us to love as we are loved. Our love is only possible if evil is possible.
If there was a way for us to love as He loved and for evil to not exist God woud have known it and He would have done it that way. In the end we trust His love for us in the hardship we endure until all is complete and He brings us back to paradise with pure hearts filled with love.
If I could have my freewill removed like a cancer and given back to Him and still have love for Him I would take the surgery without a hesitation. Unfortuantely freewill is needed for pure love to exist and if I had it removed it wouldn't be true love anymore.

[Roland Hearn]

I've been thinking in this vein because more and more it seems like scripture speaks collectively about creation. God created. God gave humanity a specific place in creation (and the task of nurturing and managing creation), but ultimately we are within the whole. When we talk about sin and redemption (even as scripture talks about it) it's not generally in individualistic or even species-specific terms. God is at work redeeming all of creation, not just the sinful humans within it.

Ryan this definitely has the potential to be a "baby with the bath water" situation. There is a significant problem with seeing individualism as a priority above the corporate or social construct of which it is a part but the effective response is not the opposite perspective of seeing the corporate without the individual. Some of the greatest atrocities in human history have happened as a result of such thinking. The scriptural record is absolutely a record of individuals and individual choices within a community. The great stories of scripture are stories of individuals making choices from Adam to David to Jesus and a cloud of witnesses in between. Those choices are a part of a community, a culture, and a history but to take away the significance of the individual within that construct is to do a great injustice to the scriptural record. True there are expressions of creation history and its redemption but to say that is the only or event the major theme is to look with fairly limited vision at a greatest part of scripture. It is that God’s love is for us as an individual and not just as a part of a great throng that gives the gospel its unique power. There is no way to exclude the processes of intellect, understanding and imagination of the individual from the process of salvation. All that we know we know first at an individual level. It is, or should be, an act of love to subvert that perspective to the community of which we are a part but that is - dare I say it - a choice we make. If we make that choice it is an act of the individual. It is absolutely the imperative of the gospel and the only adequate expression of holiness that seeks to find loves application within community but we make no gain in that by ignoring and mitigating the place of the individual in that process.

[Dwayne Petry]

I trust that this is a proper post for this thread. As an average layman, I do not have the theological training of many here, but the question of "how can" or "why does" God allow evil to happen, comes up in conversation.

This is how I attempt to explain what I believe.

Because of God's omniscience, He has foreknowledge of all things, past, present and future. Before the foundation of the world, He foreknew that the creation of mankind, with the freewill to accept or reject God, evil would be present. Even with His foreknowledge of events that would happen, because of His desire to have a relationship with you and me, He created mankind, knowing it would require a "plan of Salvation" - Jesus. My feeble human mind cannot comprehend such Love.

On a personal note. I believe God foreknew that I would be born into a Christian family and would reject Jesus as Lord and Savior until age 32. I also believe that His Love and Amazing Grace would place His Convicting Spirit upon my soul in my teen years as well as at times in my adult life. I believe God foreknew that at age
32, I would be contemplating ending my life. He foreknew at that time I would accept Jesus and Lord and Savior, and I would become a new creation. I believe He foreknew I would be here trying to explain the unexplainable.

I believe God's foreknowledge of the Holocaust, abortion, and all evil, is out weighted by His desire to see all (more) saved. To prevent the above mentioned evils, as well as other evil acts, God would have had to hasten the judgment (Second Coming, end of the world, etc.). If God were to ask each of us, if tomorrow would be a good day to bring the evil of this world to an end, we would plead for more time to try to convince our unsaved family members,friends, etc. to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior of their life. How much greater is God's love for the lost!

I hope this is understandable and has some theological basis.

[Kyle Borger]

A complete answer would require me to write a book or something. I will leave that to Dr. Oord. My simplistic answer is that love requires a choice. In order for God to allow a choice He had to create something that is outside of Himself. That which is outside of God's control is evil. Man that chooses against God is evil. Man that chooses Jesus as his master and is under God's control is transformed and no longer evil.

Nature is not intentional. Nature operates as it was intended and it recycles itself and this at times causes disruption to what we claim to be normal. Our bodies are imperfect because they die. Since we die our bodies are constantly deteriorating. Death is only a punishment if you are separate from God. We see our pain and death in negative terms when we view it internally. When our actions are all for God, our pain and death can be used as a grand testimony and be redemptive for our loved ones when they recognize the power of God helping us through our difficulties.

God allows evil so that we will recognize what is not God and so that we can love God.

[Tim Bourland]

Why Doesn't God Prevent Genuine Evil in the World?

Why is there an expectation that He should?

[Hans Deventer]

Why is there an expectation that He should?

Tim, first, I have tried to repair your quote, I hope this is what you had in mind.

As to your question, for thousands of years people have wondered why there is evil in the world, if God is both good and almighty. To most people, that seems to be a contradiction.

In broad strokes, solutions to the problem usually go in one of those 3 directions:

1. There is no genuine evil
2. God isn't really good
3. God isn't really almighty

[Dale Cozby]

Our bodies are imperfect because they die. Since we die our bodies are constantly deteriorating. Death is only a punishment if you are separate from God. We see our pain and death in negative terms when we view it internally.

Our bodies die because we do not get what we need to replenish them in a perfect manner. We can't replenish them in that way because we are denied access to the "Tree of Life" which Adam could eat of in Eden , burt we will be allowed to eat of it again after the resurrection.
Our bodies are limited to a hundred years or so because of all the evil that has taken place in the world since the fall. The effects of our cumulative sinfulness is really beyond our comprehansion at this time. Amazing the scriptures say men used to live nearly 1000 yrs and now we die in less than 100 most of the time.
This is just part of the evil we unleashed on this world and ourselves.

Even so Lord Jesus come.

[Dale Cozby]

1. There is no genuine evil
2. God isn't really good
3. God isn't really almighty

1. Ok that is kinda of silly so I will dismiss this one.
2. This seems to doubt God's nature so I will not cover this now.
3. God isn't almighty in the sense most people define almighty.

God can do all that can be done. He can't do things that can't be done. So is He almighty under that definition?
He can NOT betray Himself. Thus He isn't almighty in thier definition.

[Hans Deventer]

1. Ok that is kinda of silly so I will dismiss this one.
2. This seems to doubt God's nature so I will not cover this now.
3. God isn't almighty in the sense most people define almighty.

God can do all that can be done. He can't do things that can't be done. So is He almighty under that definition?
He can NOT betray Himself. Thus He isn't almighty in thier definition.

Thank you for illustrating point #3. Whoever, the question was why this is an issue at all.