To consider how one might navigate these tricky theological shoals, “evil” requires a careful definition. If one is too quick to presume what evil is, significant biblical and theological problems connected with the term can come into the picture. From a Christian view, evil is inseparable from the doctrine of creation. The Genesis account traces the primordial temptation of human beings, recorded as precisely the tentativeness to be “like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). However, the tempter’s attempt to connect human knowing good and evil with being like God is not the way God intended when creating human beings as Imago Dei.
Men were not created to be without God but in communion with God. Yet, that is the promise of the tempter that men should be like God after knowing good and evil. That places men in a setting where, knowing good and evil, they become the arbiters of their lives. That is, within the framework of the Christian doctrine of creation, a sound way to define evil is as that which is against God’s will. If God is inherently and perfectly good, then nothing evil can be the product of God’s intentional action. If evil is defined as against the good, and the good is identified with God’s will, then the use of “evil” fits in the category of those who oppose the divine will. This is an important distinction to make because the term evil may not be properly categorized if taken out of the discernment of God’s will.
Understanding how the reality of evil coheres with God’s will for the existence and flourishing of creation is a parameter that should enter the agenda of the person whose grave misfortune strikes, for example. Removing the divine will from the picture and seeing evil as only the privation of “good” will preclude the subject from knowing what is evil in a particular context. So, when the skeptic asks, “If God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then why is there evil in the world in the first place?” A proper place to begin is to point out that his struggle does not consider the biblical and theological implications of evil, which, taken as a whole, provide reasons why God is not responsible for evil in the world and how God had a plan to redeem His creation and defeat evil before evil had even been thought of.
The Genesis account of creation shows man as being created in the image of God with reason and free will. By free will, man can become to the likeness of God. Men have free will to decide upon their course of action. “Created in the likeness of God” is the direct manifestation of man’s decisions, preferences, and wisdom exercises to live according to the standard of the likeness of God. And because humans also have volition, bad decisions often signal a dysfunction between God’s original purpose and humans’ intentions and actions.
Moreover, let us remember that the world is created; in other words, the world’s beings and goodness are contingent, mutable, or able not-to-be. It is this not-to-be ability that renders evil possible. In other words, the actual defection of the creature from God is an act of free will. Yet, free will is also a gift of God that enables the human being to be a moral agent. Saint Augustine added, “No righteous act could be performed except by free choice of the will…God gave it for this reason.” Evil, on the other hand, is the abuse of free will, the failure to will what is right, a rebellious turning aside from God’s goodness.
However, the incompatibilist (one who believes that free will is logically incompatible with determinism) might challenge the determinist by saying, “Why could God not have made human beings such that they always freely choose the good, which also means that the problem of evil would not even have to exist? Exploring this question, Alvin Plantinga rightly asserts, “A world containing creatures who are significantly free is more valuable than a world containing no free creatures at all.” Notice that Plantinga is not saying that God cannot create creatures that only choose the good, but he is saying that by causing these creatures to do only what is right, he added, “If God does so, then they aren’t significantly free after all”.
The other implication is if God created men as mere automata who could not do otherwise than they do, then men would not be both moral and free creatures. That is, the perpetration of evil is a problem with our exercise of free will, not God’s. In other words, the theological objection to the problem of evil vis-a-vis the omnibenevolence of God cannot sustained because first, there is no problem of logical consistency between the fact that God is Good and the existence of evil, second, suffering is too commonly described as entirely synonymous with the absence of goodness. However, the issue of suffering remains central to the problem of evil. But as C.S. Lewis In The Problem of Pain, confronting the popular notion of love as coterminous to kindness, said, “Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad..”
But God is also all-knowing; God surely knows about all the evil that has happened and will happen in the world. Also, when added to His omnipotence, God’s omniscience could have completely ruled out the possibility of evil in the world, someone may add. For example, Jesus, speaking of his death, knew and predicted the one who would betray Him. Jesus knew that Judas was the perfect traitor, calling Judas “a devil” (John 6:70). But it is important to note that Jesus did not turn Judas into a traitor; Jesus chose him because Judas already had a traitorous character. But why does Judas remain a traitor even in the company of the Savior, Jesus, one may ask? First, Jesus, knowing that Judas was a traitor, does not necessarily preclude Judas from exercising his free will. Second, Judas could have stopped and repent, especially after Jesus warned the group many times, “One of you will betray me,” but he proceeded nonetheless towards evil. In this assignment’s context, Judas probably falsely reasoned, “If Jesus knows my heart and my next move, why did he choose me to be a disciple, knowing that I am the devil?”
This leads us to consider in the context of God’s plan to defeat evil, as awful as the crucifixion of the Son of God was, its effect was wonderful because the death and subsequent resurrection broke Satan’s grip on countless souls, giving them eternal life. In other words, love will always be concerned with suffering, but true love will not be willing to prevent suffering at all costs. The question of human suffering vis-a-vis the existence of a loving God must discern the cost to eliminate suffering and evil and what response that loving God might make in the light of suffering’s existence.
P.S. If you make it this far, play this beautiful song below while you’re reading the last paragraph
God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, yet there is evil. It can be hard to imagine the good purpose for which Judas was a traitor. Could the redemption plan be accomplished through some alternative? Perhaps. But as Rogers notes, “We cannot expect to comprehend fully the divine rationale for evil. Still, we can get a glimpse of some plausible reasons why God might permit it” (136). Thank you, Jesus, for the Blood.
Happy Easter! He is Risen! Jesus is Lord.
