Morality and Reality: The Existence of God and Evil. (Of God's Love and His Logic Part 3)

This post hopefully takes up where the last Problem of Evil post ended.  We concluded with 3 ideas:
1. Morality is objective.  
2. Natural theories of morality do not give rise to objective moral systems.  
3. Divine Command Theory is a consistent, theistic moral theory allowing for and implying an objective moral system.  By this conclusion, we substantiate the claim that you must first presuppose God's actual existence in reality to even consider the moral value of the attributes that follow in this world.

From this point, we know that God must exist for there to be evil.  However, the question remains, "Even if God exists, how could he possibly be all-good (Omnibenevolent)?"  There are two matters which must here be considered.
The first matter is why God, in his perfect Justice, ever even allows our existence to persist.  In this way, the question then becomes, "how can God tolerate our heinous crimes and rebellion?"  Paul Washer explains it this way: 

 "God saved you from God. It was God who was arrayed in the armor and weaponry of a soldier. Coming after you. In His holiness, and His justice. God coming after you. To do vengeance against you. To cause you to pay for all that you have done against Him, and He is able to return His sword to the sheath now because Christ has died. Christ saved you from the wrath of an almighty God. Hell is just a revelation of that. I always tell people this. God saved you from Himself, God saved you for Himself and God saved you by Himself."

This first point doesn't answer 'why is there evil' but rather 'how does the presence of evil relate to God's perfect justice?'  Through our free choice, we've all sinned, as we explained in our "What is the Gospel anyway?" post.  By that sin, we are completely and entirely separated from God.  To be perfectly Just, God must punish wrong-doing.  How else would any wrong act that went unpunished be atoned for?  Through that lens of justice we can see that God would be and could only be perfectly just to punish each and every person for their respective transgressions.  However, we see action contrary to that conclusion.  In fact, He sacrificed Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only Perfect to ever exist, in order to perfectly atone for all of our wrongdoing.  By this means, Justice is preserved, and incredible, perfect love to humanity is shown.

The second matter is why does evil exist at all?  This question really can be answered in a number of ways.  With respect to human evils, it is sensible to understand them as actions according to our free will, especially in the beginning.  Having free choice is necessary.  The reason we were created was to exalt and glorify God, to love Him with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul (Matthew 23:27, etc).  Well it wouldn't be exaltation if we were mindless, forcibly coerced robots, would it?  Thus non-God options must exist.  Since God is the essence of Good, not-God is evil.  Thus evil is all that deviates from God.  God did not create evil, but rather his creation willed himself to do things against God's nature (satan) and thus a choice, too, was possible for humanity.  (and we chose wrong, all of us.)  However, Paul argues that when looking at life that evil is not even worth considering.  "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, ESV)

You as a believer may be thinking at this point, "Yes, it makes sense how God and evil can coexist, but how do I as a follower of Christ deal with the momentous pain of this life?"  This comes more to the problem of pain, which will be addressed soon, but for now here is a brief explanation.  Reread what Paul said: "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, ESV)   

Lewis put it this way, "They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory."  This may seem like a cop-out.  But even Jesus was tempted and killed.  Surely that was bad.  Shouldn't we look at how he dealt with sin?  Since we are being conformed to his image, we should be becoming more like him.  The writer of Hebrews explains it this way:  "Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:2, ESV)  Jesus was able to endure the scorn and pain of this life and the cross because he could see weight of glory which waited for him and us as his co-heirs.  In the end, this is how we learn to encounter and overcome evil. As we follow the example of our King, we can admit to the pain and scorn we sustain, but know that we are traveling to a better home and press on with confidence that our Lord has conquered. (John 17:14, Heb.11:14-16)


Disclaimer: Hey all, we just want to end every post with a reminder. These are our beliefs. We believe they are right and that’s why we believe them. It is not our goal to limit inquiry on these topics nor do we in anyway conceive our thought processes could always lead us to the right conclusion.  For example, we don't even agree about everything believed by the other. (Col 3:12-17)  It is our earnest hope this blog either helps or interests you, and we would love to discuss matters of questionable legitimacy or of great concern further.  As always, thanks for reading!!! Email theology.guys@gmail.com with any question, comment, or criticism whatsoever!

Grace and Peace,

Excelsior
Athanasius



P.S.  If one is particularly concerned with the existence of Natural Evil, please email us for our respective takes on dealing with this issue.  Specifically, Excelsior's account of the Problem of Natural Evil as explained by Molinism.  Molinism isn't necessarily correct, but it's explanation is (to some) consistent with Scripture and can give an account which satisfies the possible existence of an Omni-benevolent, All-Just God and natural evil.