Three Views to the Problem of Evil: View #2

Nick Kenrick/Flickr

By Brian Lowther  

Ralph Winter once said, “There are very many people, even Bible-believing Christians not just non-Christians, who are profoundly puzzled, perplexed, and certainly confused by the extensive presence of outrageous evil in the created world of an all-powerful, benevolent God.” In other words, if God is all-powerful and all loving, then why is there so much evil, disease, and suffering in the world?

In part two of this three-part blog post, I will explore a second Biblical view addressing this question.  [Click here for Part 1] As before, I won’t venture to interpret any scripture passages. I’ll simply list the passages that at a surface level, seem to support the view I’m exploring.

View #2: A mysterious, loving, sovereign, divine plan lies behind all evil, disease, and suffering in our world.

This conviction shows up every time someone suffers a tragedy and interprets it with a version of one of the following statements:

• “Everything happens for a reason.”
• “God’s ways are mysterious.”
• “There are no accidents in God’s providence.”
• “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.”
• “You have to trust that God always does what is best.”
• “It is the will of God...hard to understand…providence writes a long sentence, we have to wait to get to heaven to read the answer.”

Scriptural Support

This understanding is taken from the Bible, where you can read of numerous examples of God saying or doing very mysterious things, such as:

• “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.” (Samuel 2:6-7)
• “It is I who puts to death and gives life. I have wounded, and it is I who heals.” (Deuteronomy 32:39)
• “The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (Proverbs 16:4)
• “I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well being and creating calamity [Lit.,"ra", evil]. I am the Lord who does all these.” (Isaiah 45:6,7)
• “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and evil go forth?” (Lamentations 3:38)
• “Not one bird falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father.” (Matthew 10:29)
• “For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it in hope...” (Romans 8:20)

Key Advantage

The explanation that a divine reason lies behind every occurrence in history—including evil—has brought comfort to countless people down through the ages.

Questions

But, should we take this view to be the universal explanation for all evil and suffering? If so, some very troubling questions arise. Below I’ll illustrate these questions by paraphrasing a story from Greg Boyd’s book, Is God to Blame? [1]

Melanie’s Story 

For as long as she could remember, Melanie had wanted to be a mother. Once she got married, she and her husband began trying for a baby. A few years went by with no success. They found out that a medical condition would prevent her from conceiving a child. Melanie was devastated.

But, her disappointment was short-lived, as unexpectedly she conceived. The pregnancy moved forward without incident. Finally the day came and she and her husband went to the hospital to deliver the baby. However, during the birth the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby’s neck, choking the child to death.

Melanie was understandably inconsolable and in deep despair, tormented by questions like, “Why would God miraculously give us a child, only to take the baby away while coming into the world? Why did this happen to us? And why is God preventing us from conceiving again?”

After years of depression and confusion, Melanie and her husband sought answers from a Bible teacher they respected. The answers they received were consistent with the theology she had been taught all her life: “God is still on his throne. There’s a silver lining in every cloud. All things work together for the good. Maybe God is trying to teach you some kind of lesson. Or maybe it’s just not God’s will for you to have children.”

Melanie accepted this advice, but felt extreme guilt because she was starting to lose her trust in God’s “mysterious” plan, not to mention the fact that her marriage was slowly deteriorating as well.

What was so confusing about the situation was that God had seemingly given Melanie a strong desire to mother a child and then miraculously set her up to believe he was going to fulfill that desire, only to kill the baby just before it was born. One can’t help but ask, does that seem like something a loving God would do? Can you picture Jesus doing that to someone?

In addition to these questions, this belief that a mysterious plan underlies all evil reduces the problem of evil to an intellectual puzzle to solve, needing books and devotionals to parse out its meaning. Also, if all evil is believed to serve a higher divine purpose, what is the point in fighting against it?

Conclusion

If the explanation that people suffer because of a mysterious, loving, sovereign, divine plan was the only Biblical answer to the problem of evil, I think we would all be forever “profoundly puzzled, perplexed, and confused.” Thankfully, there is at least one other predominant answer in scripture. Tomorrow I’ll explore the third view.

Endnote

[1] Greg Boyd, Is God to Blame? Moving Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Evil, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2003) 11-13

Brian Lowther is the director of the Roberta Winter Institute. 

Image of Man, Image of God

By Jeffrey Havennner

Editorial Note: This material, written by Jeff Havenner, was actually written for Advent. However, we considered it too good to wait most of a year to share. Hope you enjoy.

In the season of Advent, followers of Jesus look back on the coming of God’s Son in human image, as a human child, born of an earthly mother in the humble setting of a stable long ago. His birth itself looked back on another event much longer ago, which was God’s creation of man in his own image. The account in Genesis depicts God speaking from heaven saying, “Let us make man in our image and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on earth” (Genesis 1:26).  We are told in passages that follow that both male and female human beings together carry the imprint of God’s image and bear his stamp of authority on the earth. Why is this of importance?

Elamite Head of an Ruler, Iran - 2300-2000 BCE Flickr/Mary Harrsch

Dr. Richard Pratt, Professor of Old Testament studies at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, FL made the analogy to the practice of kings in the ancient world. When kings wanted to demonstrate their control over territory they would erect statues of themselves to emphasize their control to any forces that might contest their power. Normally these would be tall impressive statues of stone that projected the intimidating power of the king. Dr. Pratt said the creation of man was similar, only instead of creating stone statures of imposing size, God made more modest images of clay. God thus intended to declare his rule over the territory of earth that was in rebellion against him at the time of his creation of man.

Dr. Gregory Boyd, in his book God at War, argues that the rebellion on earth was manifest in the Serpent's presence in the garden. Eden was established as a beachhead from which to liberate the earth from Satan who was already present. By creating and filling the earth with his image, God was announcing his claim to the earth and putting Satan on notice that he did not even need to use his own power directly. Rather God would use just little clay images of himself.

The serpent broke those images by inducing man to disobey God's command about forbidden fruit and probably thought, "That was easy."  God however said, “I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall crush your head and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15).  In effect God told Satan that a struggle would continue between him and the broken clay images of God. God would gain the ultimate victory and Satan's powers would be held up to ridicule. So Advent prepares us for the coming of the seed of the woman in the likeness of broken clay images.  He will be bruised on His heel but deal the serpent a mortal blow to the head and restore the universe completely under the rule of God.

Jeff Havenner is a retired microbiologist who worked at the Frederick Cancer Research Center and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Greg Boyd's Warfare Worldview, Lecture II

In this video of Greg Boyd's second lecture at the 2013 Ralph D. Winter Lectureship on Friday, April 26, Greg wraps up his teaching about the Warfare Worldview in the Old Testament and then moves on into the New Testament. Video shot and edited by Kevin Renel.

Greg Boyd Ralph D. Winter Lectureship 4-26-2013

The views expressed in this lecture are those of Greg Boyd, not necessarily of The Roberta Winter Institute. 

Greg Boyd's Warfare Worldview, Lecture I

In this video of Greg Boyd's first lecture on Friday morning, April 26, Greg discusses the importance of waking up to the “the War.” Video shot and edited by Kevin Renel.

Greg Boyd Ralph D. Winter Lectureship 4-26-2013

The views expressed in this lecture are those of Greg Boyd, not necessarily of The Roberta Winter Institute. 

Greg Boyd's Spiritual Pilgrimage

By Brian Lowther

Greg Boyd took the stage in Pasadena last Thursday and Friday (April 25 and 26) in front of a crowd of 160 paid attendees on the campus of the William Carey International University. Boyd—if you don’t know him already—is an impish, intrepid and energentic pastor, author and theologian from St. Paul, Minnesota. He is most well known for losing twenty percent of his congregation because––according to the New York Times––he urged the church to “steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a ‘Christian nation’ and stop glorifying American military campaigns.” Boyd is also one of the most eloquent proponents of what is known as the warfare worldview, the awareness that “the world is not all physical, not even primarily physical, and certainly not all right. It is, rather, a world that is populated with influential spiritual beings, some of whom are evil, and most of whom are at war with one another.” (Boyd, God at War, p. 13) It was because of this warfare worldview that we invited Greg to be the keynote speaker for the fourth annual Ralph D. Winter Lectureship. 

In this video shot and edited by Kevin Renel, Greg shares his testimony and spiritual pilgrimage.