On the Legitimacy of Ascribing Certain Evils to God
Bob Rigsby
She sat there in her freshman Bible class and wept. The Bible teacher had just insisted that whatever occurs is God’s will. Glory comes to God through whatever happens, even evil. She wept because her mother had brain cancer. A world where God willed such things for his glory, for the purpose of exalting his own name, perplexed and eluded her. My daughter, a classmate, came home bewildered. This kind of a God troubled her as well. As she understood God, he does not act this way.
A partner of mine has, this past year, battled an aggressive form of oral cancer. Although his own philosophic orientation tracks toward atheism, many of his friends are Christian. He recently confided to me that the harshest part of his process of coping with his disease has been to listen politely as Christians, trying to be helpful and upbeat, suggest that perhaps this cancer was ordained by God in order to “teach” him “something.” Dropping his guard momentarily, he confessed that this phrase, “it’s God’s will,” and the idea of a God who wills suffering both angered and revolted him.
To be sure, a great many Christians find not only solace but also encouragement from the conviction that certain evils come directly from God and are ordained for his purposes. Using the metaphor of trials and sufferings as “refiners fire” and likening them to a “crucible,” the lessons of this quarter’s Bible Study Guide have often demonstrated comfort with this notion.
One lesson, for example states that the test of Abraham was “calculated to exert the deepest possible anguish, for ‘God had reserved his last, most trying test for Abraham until the burden of years was heavy on him and he longed for rest’ (Ellen White, Patriarchs and Prophets, 147).” Here we have a God who not only creates a test for a frail old man who merely yearns to be left alone, but also calculates the timing to ensure the most mental pain. Abraham’s mental anguish, often the worst kind of suffering, is placed squarely at God’s feet.
The belief that God actually ordains evil and incorporates it into the pantheon of tools that he uses to enact and further his purposes on this earth is widespread in Christendom. Adventists are not alone in believing that disasters and loss of livelihood, health, and loved ones are means God employs to purify his saints.
But if this is true, if God really is the originator of certain evils, then we are left with the problem of discerning from the vast variety of evils present among us which come from God and which come from “other” sources. To make sense of this dilemma, some have divided God’s will into two types: his perfect or ordained will, and his permissive will. In God’s perfect will, he actively causes certain things to happen; in his permissive will, although it may not be his preference, he allows evils to occur or exist.
I confess I find this distinction both spurious and harmful.
There is simply no objective means by which to distinguish between God’s perfect or permissive will. If we allow one evil to come directly from God, why not all of them? If we add the qualifier that only those evils that produce some measurable good are from God, then we must face the reality that we are incapable of making such a determination. Are there good results or outcomes that we do not detect? Or are there things we might label “good” that actually are not?
This understanding also includes the implication that certain evils do not occur because God may prevent them. Just think of all the nonevents that God might be preventing. This seems to throw a monkey wrench into the idea that we are to reason from cause to effect. How are we to mature spiritually and grow if our perception of events is clouded by the uncertainty of never knowing the true source of evil events?
Furthermore, there remains a sinister hint that because certain evils happen, God must have wanted them to happen. If God allows or permits events that he wants to happen, we humans end up playing a very peripheral and ultimately meaningless part in the scheme of things. We are outside forces and cannot be said to be truly responsible for our actions. Nothing, by this definition, runs contrary to God’s will. The danger exists with this perception for the human will to be demeaned and neutered if God selectively allows only those activities, choices, or events through which he might exert his will.
To hope that the Bible offers clarity on this dilemma reminds us that Bible believers themselves differ widely on this matter. What are we to make of an inspired book that both does (Isa. 45:7; Amos 3:6) and explicitly does not (Jer. 29:11-13) ascribe calamity to God? God, it also seems, demands credit for everything that happens, and at the same time (James 1:17; John 10:10) wants to be seen as the exclusive source of all that is good.
There is a sentinel event in Christian history that, I believe, sheds dramatic light on this dilemma and offers a proper and satisfying solution. I admit that this solution may not convince everyone, but my hope is that at least everyone will give it thought and consideration.
Many believed that the death of Christ was the will of God. They see God’s plan of salvation demanding the sacrifice of a pure and guiltless victim. But was not crucifixion a great evil perpetrated upon an innocent man? In the context of our current discussion, the question becomes, “was the evil of the cross willed and ordained by God?” I beg the pardon of those who might be offended by this question, but it would follow that if the events of the cross were willed by God then the perpetrators of this horror should be honored as heroes who fulfilled his will and praised for helping to facilitate our redemption!
Such an observation is not only perverse, but also abhorrent. The words of Christ himself confirm that God did not will the death of his son: “he that delivers me unto you has the greater sin” (John 19:11). The killing of Christ was not only a sin, it was also a great sin. Yet from this sin, from this horrible evil, profound and extraordinary good was drawn.
Christ came as witness to God’s character of goodness. When Jesus submitted to the will of his Father, he committed himself to being faithful, even unto death. When evil threw everything it had at him, he revealed a God who does not retaliate or seek vengeance, but who loves even to the end. And though evil killed him, that very evil was rendered impotent in the reality of the resurrection.
This reality provides us the clarity to decisively and boldly declare that all evil is counter to God and does not originate with him. The fact that God can and will bring good from evil need not mean that God designs or sends evil, even as an object lesson. We must not conflate the good that God brings out of evil with the causation of evil itself. We must never assert that evil ever comes from God or originates at God’s hand. It is the nature and character of God to do good, to create order from chaos, to bring peace in the mist of storm.
As it was the will of God for Christ to be a faithful witness, even so his will for us is nothing less. In a fallen world, our faithfulness must contend with evil. But we should know with certainty that the evils, the disappointments, the troubles, the sorrows in our lives are not from God. When the enemy throws us into the furnace of affliction, we should have complete confidence that God will be there with us as he was with the three Hebrew worthies. When we walk through the valley of shadows, we should be assured that God will always be there to comfort us. God delivers, heals, restores, lifts us up, but never does God hurt or destroy.
This is the nature of God. He is the Creator God. He can bring beauty from ashes. But just because God brings good out of evil, we should never, never suggest or infer that the evil comes from God, or that it is God’s will.
Anesthesiologist Bob Rigsby writes from Altamonte Springs, Florida.
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Comments
Thanks Bob--it's good to see you in this space again! I'd missed seeing your comments. I've too cringed often at what gets ascribed to God's will. Sometimes this comes through even through prayers of thankfulness in which it seems that we sometimes inadvertently blame God for the original illness/loss/sorrow that we are now thankful someone is saved from. I especially cringe when I hear things about the "Adventist" who was supposed to go to work at the twin towers on 9/11 but stayed home sick, get on the airplane that crashed but missed the flight, etc.
Welcome back Bob, we've missed your cogent comments and now you've given us a choice morsel to dissect.
The problem you present is all too prevalent in many Christian, even Adventist circles.
Nothing is more certain to drive someone away than to suggest that evil comes from God, who is also projected to be the God of Good and Love.
As you suggest, the Bible gives both possibilities, which is another way of saying that the Bible does NOT have all the answers to the questions we raise and the glib answers that "it is God's will" is insufferable to someone in the throes of an impossible situation.
How are we to make sense of a book that speaks from both sides? Either the believer in God behind everything or the one who refuses to accept evil as originating with God, can draw little comfort from the Bible for answers. Is it not a dilemma never squarely faced?
Another thought: If someone truly believes that sickness and disease is ordained by God, why pray for healing if it is "God's will"?
Bob
You just about summed it up--at least for me. It is refreshing to read logic introduced into religion. When John the Baptist's disciples asked Jesus if He was the One? He simply asked them to follow Him for a day and report back to John what they had heard and seen. John was reassured. "To make man whole takes a Whole man!" Tom
Bob,
Thanks so much for this meditation on the Will of God. A much needed counter-balance to our Study Guide.
As I was contemplating it, the words of the Lord's prayer came to my mind. "Thy Will be done on earth - AS IT IS IN HEAVEN." Would God's will on earth be any different than his heavenly will?
Donna
Thanks Bob!
As a mutual friend, Bill, says, preaching to the choir here!
But I wonder if you may have ended up "scratching where it does not itch" for many? What I mean by that is that, as was noted by an astute observer, many people WANT God to be in total control. They would prefer to ascribe evil to God than to face the terrifying freedom of taking responsibility for their own actions. I am thinking more and more that the heart of the difference between "us and them" is in many respects a desire to escape responsibility. Isn't that the whole point of the penal substitution model - to transfer responsibility from me to someone else?
But I'll say this for the article, it will be very good for people who have struggled with such thoughts but weren't quite sure whether it was "safe" or "allowed", it will be good for them to hear that someone else is thinking along the same lines as well.
Mark
Hi Mark;
Yes, Bill is an extraordinarily insightful man. As are you... If only you two would get busy writing here for this site, along with all the other gifted minds here, I could just sit down and listen! And be blessed...
I do hope you understand though, that I do hold those who ascribe all to God with great respect... For God describes Himself that way too. But one has to ask himself, why is God so anxious and willing to ascribe all to Himself? I think we would agree that He does not do so to take away our own responsibility; for our choices do have consequences, and why would God counter those?
Could it be that God talks this way to those who are yet unable to see the full brilliance of true personal freedom? This is the gentle, teaching God, trying to teach us to move forward. For me, this speaks to the God of condescendance (have I just made up a word here? maybe it's condescension) who risks coming into our world and Who never gives up on us.
For myself, I grew tired of wondering which of this earths evils and horrors were from God. Then, slowly began to wonder if none of them were -- yet God remained steadfastly with us. So, I took the greatest evil I could possibly think of -- the killing of God Himself -- and realized that a great many believed this particular evil was in fact from God and was His will. That is demonstrably false; how I missed John 19:11 all this time I'm not sure.
Once I knew the truth about that evil which many Christians elevate as willed good, (the cross was explicitly not good; but God did bring astounding good FROM it....) I began to see that I had a way and a means to understand ALL evil which I observed.
And in that evil both we AND God are responsible; God, because He allowed it to happen/exist (He must if freedom is real) and ourselves -- because we ARE free.
Then too I confess to you that I grow weary of really wonderful and worried souls dutifully allowing for the possibility that God "did" this to them. That makes me extraordinarily sad. God too I'm betting.
Evil yes; it is reality and it is all around us. But through the cross, we may know that evil is not from God and we may also know just as clearly that (not to diminish evil) "so what?" -- because God is with us. For with the resurrection God simply neutered and annihilated evil. From then on, it is only a hollow shell with temporary ability to effect or harm.
So, we enter the "Kingdom" of God when we participate in recognizing the impotence of evil and simply act in ways that recognize that evil is already vanquished... God took evil, at the cross, and squished it into oblivion. It is simply no match for His Universe of Love...
How then shall I live my life?
Not easy stuff for me at all Mark.
Blessings!!
Mark:
I forgot to respond to another aspect of your reference to the penal substitution idea…
It seems to me that if penal substitution was the proper understanding of the cross, one has little choice but to see the cross as a good thing. However, once one sees that the cross was an abject evil, and not from God, it seems “payment” notions no longer stand up to scrutiny and thus must be abandoned -- or at most, understood as a very limited metaphor.
Further, it seems to me that if penal substitution ideas “work,” they only do so for about 36 hours; that period (Friday PM to Sunday AM) when Christ was actually dead. If payment was the intent, it seems it was categorically rescinded by the resurrection. The resurrection may be seen as God’s unwillingness to let that monstrous evil stand. So it seems to me as if atonement theories which rely on penal substitution are stuck in that weekend of long ago, say, about Saturday, and have no logical place for the victory and negation of evil of Sunday’s resurrection.
Too bad because that is our assurance that God opposes all evils in our own lives.
Might this be approximately how you see it too??
Bob, a couple of comments on your comments on my comments! :-)
First, thanks for the compliment and I will try to get my ducks in a row and put them on display for the consideration of others.
Second, I too respect those who ascribe everything to God. People are indeed in many different places along the path. We need to honor their experience and look for what they have to teach us while also finding ways to communicate what we have discovered in our own growth that might help their perspective. I think your article did a good job of that. I do believe that God takes that into account in his dealings with people - he always meets them where they are and speaks a language they can understand. We should always do the same. At the same time, God does not seem to be content to leave people where they are but always beckons them forward into a deeper understanding of and relationship to him. Thus, at Sinai, which is probably the most dramatic example of God stooping to meet newly freed slaves, we also have Moses telling the people "There is no need to be afraid!" God challenges their paradigm - for under their understanding of God and how he worked, well, there was plenty of reason to be afraid. I find this throughout the bible. God is constantly "nudging" us forward.
Third, I agree that the cross, as the central event in God's LONG response to evil, is much much deeper than a simple satisfaction of some legal requirement. What happened at the cross was evil and its results finally unmasked - at least for the onlooking universe. And of course God's response, especially the resurrection, is God "unmasked" if you will, God revealed in his full glory. And of course the Incarnation is part of this too... in fact, there's no place to stop short of the whole Great Controversy. But rather than dealing with a fairly "narrow" issue, a legal justification for God's forgiveness of sin, it was as you put it, "God took evil.. and squished it into oblivion." This whole issue is much much larger than just God's plan to save you and me. Fortunately that is included too. But we do need to look a little higher and be overwhelmed by God's whole answer to this emergency of evil.
Fourth, I agree that the "substitution" idea does work but only in the short term. It is an emergency surgery while God works on the deeper issues of healing of lifestyle and attitude and our ability to make good choices in harmony with the way God created us. As such, it is an important component of God's answer to sin which we should not dismiss. But IT IS NO PLACE TO STOP!!!! Why? Because it is essentially fear based and we are told that the obedience that comes from fear leads to the character of a rebel - the very thing that God is trying to combat! The confidence that God has provided a way to "legally" forgive us is another step by God to meet us where we are and convince us that it is safe to come to him. Once we come to him we should listen for I think we will ALWAYS hear him say "You know, there really was never any reason to be afraid of me." Sin is the problem, God is not!
Well, I didn't mean to write an article in response. But you got me thinking. Thanks!!!
Mark
Bob
Thank you for the clarity and what I take to be the accuracy of your position. It seems to me that God is responsible for evil in the very broad sense that this was a risk God took when creating the universe. But in my view God is not indictable for doing this.
I wish I could claim credit for the "responsible" and "indictable" distinction. I can't. It is from David Ray Griffin.
As to the Bible being a book that says more than one thing on the topic, perhaps thinking of it as "a book" is part of the problem. I think it is not a book but a library and in libraries one expects a range of views.
Thanks!
Dave
One really must have been given the gift of love for God and faith in God in a world full of evil. Not everyone receives that gift or can live with it successfully once it's given. Of course, you can also focus on the beauty and goodness in the world and it will partially negate the evil that is also present. Not all of life is evil unless we only focus on that side of it.
Those of us who believe in God, in spite of the imperfectons of life in an evil world, must really want to or need to continue believing in God.
Some people would say either there is no God and all this evil is a mystery which humanity is partially responsible for.
Or they would say that there is a God and he allows the evil to continue when he could very well stop it tomorrow. Or they would say that he might want to stop the evil, but is not able to do so.
Perhaps that's why some churches are full of people who want to reassure each other that in spite of the evil in life, past and present, it's still ok to believe in God and to believe that he wants the best for us at all times.
Regarding the Bible, I'm finding that I have to focus more and more on the positive parts of the Bible, the promises of hope and love while at the same time not dwelling on the negative and, yes, ugly passages one sometimes comes across.
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