Biblical Theology and the Problem of Evil
© 2012 Don McIntosh and Trinity Graduate School
Introduction
ANYONE WHO has spent much time on this planet knows that evil is a reality. Evil confronts us all in countless ways, and is a very real problem because it causes not only pain, but doubt. According to a majority of atheists themselves, the problem of evil is the single strongest argument for atheism. Many Christians would have to agree, and confess that their own deep struggles with evil and sufferings have triggered serious doubts, not only about the wisdom or goodness, but the very existence, of God. Whether in the form of sickness, loss, betrayal, injustice, or a host of other manifestations, evil can lead even dedicated and faithful Christians to question the very foundations of their faith. Lee Strobel has described the effect of evil on believers as “spiritual vertigo,” a state of anger and confusion resulting from experiencing prolonged or excessive pain. Any serious student of theology and apologetics would therefore be wise to become familiar with the problem of evil and learn how to respond to it rationally.
A Christian or theistic answer to the problem of evil is commonly known as a theodicy. The term was coined by the philosopher Leibniz and literally means “the justification of God.” The two most common theodicies are the Augustinian and Irenaean, named after the early church fathers Augustine and Irenaeus. In modern times their basic arguments have been repackaged as the “free will defense” and the “soul making theodicy,” and popularized most notably by the philosophers Alvin Plantinga and John Hick respectively. The free will defense, then, represents the more Augustinian argument while the soul-making theodicy corresponds with the Irenaean position.
This module will briefly set out to examine popular formulations of the problem of evil and theodicies devised to answer them, and then suggest a theodicy drawn not so much from modern philosophers, or even ancient church fathers, but specifically from the Bible. As will be seen, the theology of Scripture itself contains a resolution to the problem of evil more extensive and coherent than any philosophical theodicy.
The Logical Problem of Evil
Traditionally, the problem of evil has been said to consist of a set of seemingly incompatible propositions and a conclusion:
P1. God is omnipotent (all-powerful).
P2. God is omniscient (all-knowing).
P3. God is omnibenevolent (all-good).
P4. Evil exists.
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C. God as described cannot exist.
At a glance the above premises do appear incongruent. According to Epicurus and countless critics since, one may rationally embrace one or more of these theological propositions but not all simultaneously. David Hume translated Epicurus’ “old riddle” of the logical problem of evil as follows: “Is 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? Whence then is evil?” Because in this argument the reality of evil appears to create a logical inconsistency confronting belief in God, or theism, it is known as the logical problem of evil. However, as Plantinga and other thinkers have pointed out over the years, there is nothing strictly illogical or self-contradictory about a good God permitting evil for a higher inscrutable purpose.
In other words, so long as it is acknowledged that God is omniscient or all-knowing (P2 above), then it remains logically possible that God has a purpose for permitting evil that transcends human understanding. This is not an empty theistic escape clause. Indeed, critics of theism themselves lean heavily on the premise of omniscience to maintain that God could quite easily create humans unfailingly and utterly happy if he so desired, even if the means transcend human reason. But this assertion comes at a cost to the critic, for if maximal human happiness can only be obtained in defiance of logic, then it may well be that God uses suffering to achieve maximal happiness – an explanation which defies logic.
The argument could also be made that “good” may not necessitate unrestricted opposition to evil at all times or at all costs. Patience or tolerance toward the moral deficiencies (evil) in others, for example, seems to be morally preferable to impatience or intolerance. Or as the apostle James put it, “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (Jas. 2:13). Atheists and critics tend to counter that if God were truly omniscient, God would know how to simply prevent any evil from occurring in the first place. Though this latter notion does seem superficially rational, it assumes without warrant that prevention of all possible evil is the highest possible good. (Note also that by this understanding of good, sheer non-existence would be an instantiation of highest possible good – a questionable proposition at best.) Most thinkers acknowledge that the critics have not met their burden of proof in asserting the sheer logical impossibility of a legitimate inscrutable divine purpose for allowing evil. For these reasons and others, critics have developed a separate argument known as the evidential or empirical problem of evil.
The Evidential Problem of Evil
On an evidential or inductive formulation, it is the degree and duration, or intensity, of evil, that makes belief in a “tri-omni” God unreasonable. Even though some isolated instance of evil could be deemed necessary in principle to maintain free will or some other higher purpose, the argument goes, there appears to be no explanation for excessive or gratuitous suffering. Philosopher William Roe offers the example of a fawn that gets caught under a tree limb during a forest fire and slowly burns to death in agony. The fawn clearly has not sinned, yet suffers an excruciating fate. If no reason can be given to justify this and countless similar examples of gratuitous suffering of innocents, then there seems to be something wrong with the description of God in traditional theology.
Even more than the logical argument, the evidential argument appeals to the emotions evinced in the face of evil. According to Andrew Naselli, the emotional problem of evil is "the religious and emotional tension people experience when they or those close to them suffer." After all, if in principle evil can be logically justified in a world created by an all-powerful and all-knowing God, as mentioned in the section above, then the problem of evil is not strictly logical. For most of us the reality of pain is something we desire to see eliminated or at least alleviated practically rather than merely explained logically. Above philosophical or even theological reasonings, Christians ought to emphasize hope, healing and compassion in their response to evil.
Besides, a case could be made that appeals to any amount of “evidence” in the evidential formulation are really irrelevant to the problem of evil, because scarcely anyone with an interest in the question disputes the premise that evil exists, and therefore further evidence for evil does nothing to strengthen the problem of evil as an argument. All it does it take premise 4 from the logical argument cited earlier, “Evil exists,” and replace it with “Lots of evil exists,” or “Too much evil exists,” or some such. But it could be argued that evil exists only where pain or suffering is gratuitous in the first place. A thief who has to repay what he stole does experience pain, for instance, but only in proportion to his own transgression. The price he pays is equal to the loss he caused. Few observers other than the thief himself would consider restitution an instance of evil. But a thief caught and tortured by an angry shop owner would become a victim of evil himself, precisely because his experience of suffering would be unjustifiably gratuitous.
The more useful service rendered by the evidential argument is to underscore just how serious evil really is in practical or experiential terms. In dispensing pain and sorrow wholesale, evil proves itself wholly unreasonable. In contrast to the rationality implied by the "scales of justice," this gross imbalance of suffering over happiness is precisely what marks out evil as evil, and precisely what the prophets of Scripture so vociferously denounce. It may be, then, that the problem of evil is more of a rhetorical protest against injustice than a truly logical rationale for unbelief.
Free Will and the Fall of Man
From Augustine to Plantinga and many others, philosophers and theologians through the ages have depended on a “free will defense” to justify the emergence of evil under the supervision of God. That is, because God values the moral freedom of his creatures above even their immediate physical comfort, God permits the possibility of evil. This makes the problem of evil a theological issue. After all, evil is at bottom a moral problem, a violation or transgression of a moral standard. (Here is another reason evil may not necessarily defeat theism: The fact of objective morality suggested by the reality of evil constitutes the major premise of an important argument for theism, namely the moral argument.) Given then that evil is a reality, suffering is the natural result. On this reading suffering is not, strictly speaking, evil in itself; nor is the conscious decision to undergo suffering an evil act. In fact, at the heart of God’s redemptive plan of atonement is the willing suffering of the sinless Son of God on the cross.
If we take the book of Genesis as our guide, we accept that the introduction of evil came about as a conscious decision to disobey God on the part of Adam and Eve. In the midst of paradise, God in Genesis 2 presented the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to Adam and Eve, right alongside the tree of life. God then expressly forbid eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a warning which directly implies the ability of Adam and Eve to choose between obedience (right) and disobedience (wrong). Along with the choices given was a dire warning: Disobedience will result in death. This all means that Adam and Eve were clearly confronted with the moral responsibility that attaches to genuine freedom. Because they were enticed by temptation and fell into disobedience, suffering quickly ensued. The fall of man as a function of moral freedom thus provides a plausible explanation for the introduction of evil into the world under the watch of an all-good and all-powerful Deity. At this point an additional premise may be added to the premises of the problem of evil, one which makes a possible defeater to the original argument apparently more likely:
P1. God is omnipotent (all-powerful).
P2. God is omniscient (all-knowing).
P3. God is omnibenevolent (all-good).
P4. God has granted humans moral freedom.
P5. Evil exists.
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C. God as described may or may not exist...
...depending on whether God’s goodness obligates him to prevent the introduction of human evil through the action of moral freedom, or instead obligates him to allow moral freedom at risk of evil and its attendant consequences. Philosophers like Pierre Bayle have argued against all this that under the premise that free will is a gift from God, then free will “was not a good gift” – because its abuse led to untold sufferings. But this objection seems to be founded on an assumption that less risk of pain means more net goodness on balance. On that assumption death would be preferable to love, for love risks the pain of rejection whereas death risks nothing. Yet few observers would agree that death is preferable to love. As described in the New Testament, God is motivated by and even defined by love (John 3:16; 1 John 4:8) It may be, then, that the higher degree of risk inherent in a relationship of love is a greater good than a simple assurance of painlessness.
In sum: Paul’s observation that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23), that human freedom has resulted in moral wrongdoing, means that biblical theology provides a coherent explanation for the human experience of evil. But an explanation is not enough. What the problem of evil really calls for is a solution.
The Plan of Redemption
In biblical terms, the solution to the problem of evil begins with the Incarnation of Christ. If sin committed at the fall occasioned the onset of evil, then it makes sense that to defeat sin is to defeat evil. But sin cannot simply be eradicated without destroying all of humanity, because all have sinned. Sin must be forgiven before it can be defeated. Evil therefore must be overcome with both mercy and justice. The New Testament makes clear that Jesus came to accomplish both. Specifically, Jesus came to earth as God in the flesh “to demonstrate His righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). As the only spotless Lamb of God, Jesus sacrificed himself to appease the wrath of a holy God against sinful men, and at the same time to transform the spiritual condition of sinful men by “clothing” them in the righteousness of Christ. These realities are expressed in theological terms as propitiation and imputation. In one grand act of atonement on the cross, Jesus propitiates the wrath of God (1 John 4:10) and imputes righteousness to sinners (Rom. 4:24).
But somehow these truths must make their way into the human heart and human behavior if evil is to be overcome in real-world terms. In fact the gospel message also confronts men with a very practical and life-changing decision that is theirs alone to make – to repent of their sins. Because of the grace of God active in the person of Jesus Christ, men now have access to the kingdom of God. Their journey must begin with repentance. God has completed the work of atonement, so that now all that separates a man from the life of God is unbelief, for which repentance is the cure. Jesus thus began his ministry with the announcement, “Repent, and believe the gospel.” Faith and repentance are the twin acts of a right response to the divine initiative of grace.
Further, because in the life of discipleship the believer continuously learns to live more like Christ, the gospel incorporates something much like Hick’s “soul making” theodicy: God permits hardship to teach his children to appreciate the “peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11). Without the ongoing moral effort of repentance in the hearts of men predisposed to evil by nature, evil will remain a problem. So the problem of evil leaves Christians and unbelievers at an impasse in practical terms. Unbelievers call on Christians to justify the existence of evil in a world created by God; Christians call on unbelievers to put an end to the evil in their own hearts by repentance and faith in Christ. Scripture indicates that repentance will do much toward solving the problem of evil, at both a personal level (Acts 3:19) and a corporate or national level (1 Chron. 7:14).
The Hope of Heaven
Nonetheless, repentance will only take us so far. Even if everyone on earth repented of their sins and placed their faith in Christ tomorrow morning, the problem of evil would remain – although in a much less menacing form. Left unresolved would be the ever-corruptible (and corrupting) nature of human flesh, the reality of unremedied injustices, and the scars remaining from past experiences of evil. C.S. Lewis has noted quite rightly: “Scripture and tradition habitually put the joys of heaven into the scale against the sufferings of earth, and no solution to the problem of pain which does not do so can be called a Christian one.” Again, it may be argued that New Testament theology completes what is lacking in a purely philosophical theodicy.
Significantly, there is no mention of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the depiction of heaven in the book of Revelation. There is only the tree of life. This may help further explain theodicy from a biblical standpoint. If it is right to say that the tree of knowledge of good and evil represents free will, or the options of loving or disobeying God, then the absence of the tree of knowledge and good and evil in heaven means that disobedience in heaven is no longer an option. Though in heaven a believer’s will to disobey further is eliminated, the decision to forgo that will has already been made freely while on earth, through the act of placing faith in Christ. By this reckoning our earthbound experience is the pre-eternal arena in which ultimate moral decisions are made. This may be easier to appreciate with an analogy: As a husband I have freely forsaken my right to love any other woman but my wife. In a real sense, I cannot love another. But this restriction is self-imposed. Likewise in heaven, as the “bride of Christ” we believers have freely renounced the right to sin or worship other gods. God honors that decision of faith and makes it eternally binding. Therefore heaven represents the ultimate, eternal outworking of free will. In heaven the good of being free to choose is consummated in the good of an everlasting life without sorrow.
In heaven sin is thus permanently removed from the hearts and imaginations of its inhabitants, along with any traces of guilt, shame, fear, regret, sorrow or pain. “And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). Though free will and the program of redemption serve as legitimate counters to the problem of evil, eternal life in heaven remains its ultimate solution. Until the time of its realization, we must remind ourselves that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18).
For Further Reading
Koukl, Gregory. "Augustine on Evil." Stand to Reason, URL= http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5124.
Kreeft, Peter, and Tacelli, Ronald. Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Downers Grove, Ill: Intervarsity, 1994.
Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain. San Francisco: Harper, 2001 (orig. 1947).
Martin, Raymond, & Bernard, Christopher, eds. God Matters: Readings in the Philosophy of Religion. New York: Longman, 2003.
Naselli, Andrew. "How Could a Good God Allow Suffering and Evil? A Biblical Approach to the Logical and Emotional Problems of Evil." Crossway Community Church Difficult Issues Series, 2008. URL= http://andynaselli.com/wp-content/uploads/2008_problem_of_evil_handout.pdf?9d7bd4
Sproul, R. C. Essential Truths of the Christian Faith. Wheaton, Ill: Tyndale, 1992.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000.
Tooley, Michael. “The Problem of Evil.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, URL= http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/