The Problem of Evil

How do you respond when an atheist brings up the problem of evil? What are the prerequisites? for the problem of evil to even exist. What must there be? for evil to be a problem.

The good. Yeah. And there's no ultimate problem of evil. Unless there is first ultimate goodness. And so, the problem of the existence of evil is one of the overwhelming testimonies to the existence of God.

So the problem of evil isn't the problem the unbeliever believes it to be. This is Renewing Your Mind on this Wednesday. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and I'm glad you're joining us this week as we explore various topics with RC Sprawl to help us better defend the faith. What you're hearing this week is an early series from Dr.

Sprawl recorded in the early days of the ministry at the Ligonier Valley Study Center. You can request lifetime digital access to these messages when you call us at 800-435-4343 or when you visit renewingyourmind.org with a donation in support of this outreach. To thank you for your support, we'll also send you RC Sprawl's 32-message series defending your faith. add a copy of our field guide on false teaching. But this offer ends tomorrow, so respond while there's still time.

Well, here's RC Sprawl to explain the argument of the problem of evil, whether there is a Christian response to the problem, and if it's really the problem the unbeliever claims that it is. Uh A theologian by the name of Strauss in the nineteenth century. made the statement that the problem of evil is the Achilles heel. of the Christian faith. Because he argued at that time that no satisfactory explanation.

can be given Two, the existence of evil. And it's been repeated many times from the lips of skeptics and atheists the following paradox. that if God Could not have stopped the entrance of evil into the universe. Then he is not omnipotent. If he could have stopped it.

but chose not to stop it. then he is not benevolent. And so either way you look at the problem of evil.

Somehow a shadow is cast upon the nature of God.

Now historically All kinds of attempts have been made. To answer the question of the origin of evil. From a Christian perspective. And those attempts have come to us by means of what is called the theodicy. T-H-E-O-D-I-C-Y, the Theodicy.

A theodicy is an attempt to justify God. For the existence of evil in the world. The word, of course, comes from Ta'os, the word for God, and Dikaios is the word for justice or righteousness. in Greek. And so it's an attempt to justify God for the problem.

of evil. has been able to adequately answer this question from a Christian perspective.

So, the first thing for all practical purposes that I think a Christian must do when he's confronted with this question is to immediately respond by saying, I don't know. The answer. this question. And acknowledge the seriousness of the question. Don't try to play games, don't try to hide, don't try to evade it.

But deal with it head on. It's very important psychologically and practically that people recognize that we recognize that there's a serious problem here. and that we're not oblivious to it.

So first of all Let's take a look at a couple of these theodicies to see how some have dealt with it. Of course, some have approached this question by denying the reality of evil altogether. and arguing that evil is an illusion. In my opinion, that's a copper. I don't think I need to labor that point, do I, with you?

The second Approach is that evil is actually a necessary prerequisite for the appreciation of the good. And so in the final analysis, Evil is good. Let's state it in concrete terms: that for man to really experience goodness in freedom, he had to experience the problem of evil. He had to experience the reality of evil so that he might appreciate. his redemption, he might appreciate His restoration and his goodness.

In this kind of a schema, which has been offered many times in the history of the church. Really, the fall. is a leap forward. It's a fall upwards. Rather than downwards.

that fails to deal adequately and seriously With the negative Judgment that God Himself places upon the entrance into the world of human sin. One of the most historically important and fascinating theodicies. that have come to pass. is the philosophical theodicy offered by Leibniz. Leibniz begins his theodicy by making a threefold distinction with respect to evil.

He distinguishes between What he calls Moral evil. Physical evil And metaphysical evil. Mortal evil is a lack of moral good. It's a deficiency. Physical evil is a deficiency of physical good.

Metaphysical Evil is a deficiency of metaphysical goodness. Mortal evil has to do with the actions. Of Moral creatures, the volitional behavioral patterns of mortal agents. Physical evil would be those things that we describe in terms of calamity or tragedy, earthquakes, tornadoes, the fire, the wind, the storm, the pestilence, the disease, that sort of thing, physical evil. Metaphysical evil.

has to do with ontological imperfection.

Well Here I am trying to give you a nice, easy, practical way to handle objections to Christian faith, and I have to resort to such language as ontological imperfections. That's one technical word you really ought to know. What are we talking about when we're talking about ontology? Being. Being.

The essence of things. And an ontological matter is what something is, its being, its essence, its stuff. Right.

Well Metaphysical imperfection would be to be less. than an eternal self-existent being. To be lost and ultimate. An imperfect thing would be that which is created, that which is dependent, that which undergoes change, generation, and decay. In a word, that which is metaphysically lacking.

is that which is finite.

Okay. Yeah. The basic thesis of Leibniz is this. That physical evil And the key word here is flows out of metaphysical evil. And moral evil flows out of physical evil.

So, in the final analysis, the reason why we have moral evil in the world. we have metaphysically imperfect beings. running around. I sin because I'm weak. I'm weak because I'm finite.

And the only way I could be without sin. Would be if I could transcend the intrinsic metaphysical weakness. that associates itself With finite creatures. To err is human. Because we're finite.

By definition, we are not all powerful, we are not all wise, we are not all the things that God are.

So, there's a sense in which it's inevitable. out of my simple human weakness, the limitations of finitude, that I would indeed sin.

Okay. We can see that. But then the question remains, why would God? Create such a limited Weak. Finite Creature.

Well, here's where we get to the crux of Leibniz. Argument. He looks at it this way. First of all, he understands the fact that God creates it all as a benevolent act on the part of God. that he brings other beings into existence.

And allows them to participate in some measure in the greatness that is the glory of God.

So we can't fault God for wanting to create. But the question is: if God is going to give this gift of life. This gift of being Two other creatures. How can he best do it? Why doesn't he create man morally perfect?

This is the judgment, you see, that the skeptics have raised.

Well, if God's going to create man, why doesn't He create him perfectly good? Leibniz answers by saying, Because he can't. Even God. cannot create. a perfectly good creature.

Because in order to create him perfectly good morally. He would also have to create him perfectly good physically. And in order to create him perfectly good physically, he would have to create him perfectly good metaphysically, and that is impossible. Why is it impossible for God to create something that is metaphysically perfect? You want to say among the doctors?

It'd have to create another God. Who is infinite, eternal, self-existent? you know, complete in his being. But is it possible for God to create another God? Why not?

We created Because whatever God creates would be dependent upon the first God for its existence. It would not be eternal. It would not have self-existence. it would be inferior ontologically to the creator being who brought it into being in the first place. The very fact that it had a temporal beginning.

would differentiate itself. From the original God.

So God cannot create another God. But God could create. practically an infinite number of possible Different kinds of being. We see the wide variety of things that he has created in this world: ants, and trees, and men. Etc.

The issue morally with God is not Must God create a perfect world? You can't demand that He creates a perfect world, but if God is moral, If he is righteous, We can make the demand that God create. The best Of all possible worlds. The world that philosophers used to raise as a hypothetical situation that God should have created is an impossible situation. The issue then is not wise or evil, but the question that should be raised by the philosopher is.

Isn't it nice that God has not created the world with more evil in it than it is? He's done the best He can. He's created the best of all possible worlds.

Well, there are several problems with this. There's an intellectual problem with his argument. There is also a biblical problem with this argument. The intellectual problem, the philosophical problem is that he has committed one of the most basic errors of reasoning And yet, one of the most difficult to discern kinds of errors of reasoning that happens in philosophical inquiry. He's committed the fallacy of equivocation.

In each one of these distinctions, the meaning of the term evil. Changes Moral evil carries with it the notion of that which is deserving of punitive measures. Moral evil, by definition, is the kind of evil that comes out of volitional creatures. But metaphysical evil. I mean, it's a misnomer to call.

Finitude evil. in any kind of moral sense. And to link these things together, you see, is in the final analysis to excuse man. from being morally evil. This offers man.

And God, an excuse. This not only justifies God for the existence of evil, it also justifies man for the existence of evil. Man cannot really be held responsible because it's necessary for him. To sin. because of his metaphysical imperfection.

And if it's necessary for men to sin, how can we stand in judgment over man doing what he must do by nature? Biblically, we have other problems. If this schema is correct, then it would be utterly incapable for us to be free of moral evil in heaven. Unless God does more. Then glorify us.

He must deify us. in order to make us free of evil. Second, It means that Adam. Never falls. He's created evil.

At least metaphysically even. And physically. Which excuses his morally. This cannot function as a Christian theodicy. for the problem of evil.

Other attempts have been made to answer this question. that have been somewhat naive. The standard reply of Christians to the origin of evil is that it originates in man's freedom. And in order for man to be free, man had to have the capacity to do right or wrong. And so God gave man the right to choose.

He gave him freedom. And to give a creature freedom. to choose evil is not to make him evil or to be responsible for that evil. And so obviously, we locate the origin of evil in the sinful choices of man in his freedom.

Now the Bible certainly does talk about that and We certainly acknowledge the fact that man was free and that man is held accountable and responsible for his sin, etc. But the real question of the origin of evil has not been solved by merely pointing to human freedom. Why not? Same. Yeah, you still have to ask the question, why does that mean?

Choose to do evil. And that traces us back to the point of analyzing And considering the implications of the fall of Adam and Eve. What prompted Adam and Eve? to choose evil. rather than good.

And all kinds of solutions have been offered to that question.

Some would say, well, The devil made him do it. They were deceived by the deceiver.

Well, the question that immediately comes to mind is that if they sinned out of deception, was it really a sin? Would they not have sinned in excusable ignorance if they really did not know? Same side. The other problem with that argument is That the biblical record Tells us they did now. God explicitly told them what they were allowed to do and what they were not allowed to do.

But we can't Understand the entrance of sin into the world. By deception. How about by coercion? Suppose the devil forced them to do it. The same thing.

If it was an act of coercion, then God's not going to hold them responsible. But the fact of the matter is, God does hold them responsible. And also, the narrative gives us no hint that they were coerced into sin. Every time we read the narrative, we see them sitting out of an act of choosing. out of a free voluntary act.

All right, so here's the question. In what state were Adam and Eve before they sinned? From a moral perspective. What was the inclination of their will? Was the inclination of their will only towards the good?

Was it only towards the bad? Or was it neutral? If the inclination of Adam and Eve's heart is evil Before they make the evil choice, what's the problem with that? Yeah, that means they're fallen before they fell. That they sinned because they were sinners.

And that original sin is not the result of Adam's fall, but it's the result of creation. And God has created someone with an evil inclination. And judging from biblical categories, even the inclination towards evil, even the desire for evil, is considered sin by God.

So, if we say that they sinned because they had an evil inclination. Then what? Uh very much. Yeah, they were acting according to their evil nature, which they were created with, which makes God the author of sin, and that's bad. You know?

And that's not good. All right, then we say: suppose their inclination was only to the good. Then how could they possibly have chosen evil? Beats me. That will not explain.

They're sin.

Okay. How about if it's neutral? They have an inclination neither to the good or to thee. If you made a choice, it would just have to be arbitrary. Right, if you had no reason for your choice.

Bye. Yeah, you just did it with no moral disposition one way or the other. It wouldn't even be a moral act. But There's even a bigger philosophical problem. If a person has no disposition.

towards choosing. Can they choose? The neutral status of the will leaves a person in paralysis. There's no way to choose.

So that can explain it. There's no satisfactory logical explanation. or the sin of Adam. I think we have to make a choice out of one of these three. And it has to be a reasoned choice.

This one perplexes the greatest minds of history, but it's the one that the church has always taken. That man's disposition was only to the good, yet he chose evil.

Somebody looks at me and say, hey, man. You know. I just can't buy that, I say. That's where I have to locate the mystery. Just as we don't know things about light and gravity and stuff like that, but it's a mystery.

How man sin? Roll. To say that it's a mystery, how man sins, is to say that it presently is a mystery. The answer may come tomorrow. But I can still say to you, I doubt if it will.

Because I really do doubt. Because it's such a thorny, thorny question. All right. Is all we can do then to the pagan? To the unbeliever, to the critic of the Christian faith who comes to me with the problem of evil, is to surrender.

Is that all we can do? Since we can't offer An answer to the problem of the origin of evil? Do we have to abandon the Christian faith? Why not? All right, the one thing is, we're faced with the reality of evil.

Right?

Now what are the prerequisites? for the problem of evil to even exist. What must there be? for evil to be a problem. The good.

And there's no ultimate problem of evil. Unless there is first ultimate goodness. And so there's a certain sense in which, though we lose the battle in the front door, in the back door, the problem of the existence of evil is one of the overwhelming testimonies to the existence of God. That's the irony of this argument. Because there can't be a problem of evil.

unless there's first a problem of the good. And The reason for this thing is that we always define evil in negative, dependent, derived categories. That's why the medieval distinction that I mentioned earlier came to be: that evil was provatio. or negadio. That is, it's a privation or a negation of the good.

It's a lack, it's a deficiency. And that the evil is dependent upon good. As a standard, For its definition. How does the Bible treat the problem of evil? How does the Bible describe evil?

Negatively. Unrighteousness. Lawlessness. disobedience, immorality. Antichrist.

See. Immorality can only be defined in terms of what morality is. Disobedience can only be judged against the background of what obedience is. The Antichrist is dependent upon his existence and definition on the Christ. The negative needs the positive.

As a reference point to even exist.

So only if we assume ultimate goodness. Can evil become a problem? But the philosopher turns round and says, Hold it with that sophistry. That's what we're saying here. And that you are assuming the good.

But if there is a good, the good's not really good because we have the problem of evil. And so we have to eliminate The motion of all and goodness. and fly back to the notion of illusion. There is no such thing as good. Or evil.

And that's a weighty response. That's the basic case for nihilism. Which we have to deal with on other ground? But you can't have your cake and eat it too. And most people who are.

arguing against the existence of God from a reference point of the problem of evil. Assume the reality of good. And what I do with those people is I turn the tables around. I say, look, I grant that I have a problem with the problem of evil. My problem's half as big as yours.

Yeah. You know, if you really think that evil exists. Then you have a problem. of explaining how evil can exist. Apart from the good.

Ultimately. And the only way you can account for ultimate goodness is in God.

So, far from proving that God doesn't exist, it's an argument for his existence. This is Renewing Your Mind, a listener-supported outreach of Liginar Ministries. Thinking thoughtfully about what we believe as Christians and how we can defend those truths is why we release Renewing Your Mind three hundred and sixty five days a year. It's why we have a rigorous Bible college at Reformation Bible College. It's why we host always ready youth events for teenagers.

and why we release the growing in God's Word children's curriculum. and your regular support makes all of this possible. In an unthinking age, we need thinking Christians more than ever. If the thought of defending your faith seems intimidating, first let me say that you don't have to have all the answers, but there are tools out there to help you. One is this week's series, Christian Evidences.

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So visit renewingyourmind.org while there's still time or use the link in the podcast show notes. Thank you. Is it arrogant to say that Jesus is the only way? and how should you respond to an unbeliever who claims that it is? That'll be what RC Sprawl addresses tomorrow, here on Renewing Your Mind.