The Sovereignty of God and the Problem of Evil

by Glenn R. Jackson

Copyright 1998 Glenn R. Jackson

The conflict between Good and Evil is an all too real part of today's existence. The presence of Evil in and around us is a reality that none of us can deny; yet we often find ourselves wondering how and why Evil happens. In our search for answers, we find that there are many ways to explain, and to explain away, this very real and existent Evil. Each of these ways offers a hope of dealing with the unhappiness, discomfort, and misery that Evil causes. However, we know that there can only be one correct answer.

It is my contention that only in God^’s Truth, as revealed by Scripture, and in the Life and Death of Christ Jesus, can an answer be determined. It is important for Christians to have an answer to the question of Evil because it is one of the first major stumbling blocks to the Christian and to the conversion of the non-Christian. This is in the sense that Christian and non-Christian alike are continuously faced with a real and present Evil and find themselves struggling with a way to answer two not so simple questions: How did Evil come to exist in a universe created by an all Good and Powerful God?; and Why does Evil continue to exist in a world created by a God whose nature is totally opposed to Evil?

If we believe the Scriptures, then we know that an all Good and Powerful God created a perfect universe; a universe composed of nothing but Good things. Everywhere you looked and in every thought there was nothing but Good. This state of the universe must be accepted totally, or the rest of the Scriptures can be cast out the window. Therefore, we must concede that, at a point in time, there was a totally Perfect and Good universe. Making this admission is easy, but it has proven itself to be a difficult thing for a Christian to reconcile with the present state of affairs. The existence of Evil has also proven to be a useful tool for the non-Christian to use against the Church and God. Yet to be totally true to ourselves and to Scripture, we must begin at that point in time when nothing but Good existed.

Granting that the universe began totally Good, what was Man's state in this universe? And not just man, but all created beings and creatures? In such an environment, a Free Will was a good and necessary part of each individual's life. Because a Free Will was necessary for the true worship of God; for all of Creation was meant to participate in God's Goodness. And only through free worship and praise was this possible. So back in the beginning of time you had free creatures participating in total and perfect Goodness by freely praising and worshipping God. This gives us a hint of how Evil came to exist since Scripture tells us that Man freely and on his own accord sinned against God. That is, Man chose Evil over Good at a particular point in time; and this choice was free by Man's very nature. To tell us that a Free Will was necessary to completely bask in ~ Goodness and to worship and praise Him seems reasonable enough. But it does not answer the question of where Evil itself came from; it only gives us the actual instrument of Man's fall.

Nowhere in the Scripture will you find that God created Evil; and in no way could He logically have done so. As has been said, no one can deny that an All Good and Powerful Cod would create an All Good universe. Nothing could be more inconsistent than to say that God created a Good universe except for a small and evil corner.

Some people feel that Evil is not a real thing but is instead a privation or absence of Good. This was the view held by Thomas Aquinas. While this view was a start in the right direction, to say that Evil is not an existent thing but rather the absence of Good, flies in the face of Scripture and experience. For Evil is a tangible thing; and when we are in its presence we know it as something, just as we know Good when we have experienced it. Also, Scripture tells us that just as Christ Jesus was the personification of Good, Satan was the personification of Evil. If we believe that Jesus is real, then we must grant that Satan is also real, and furthermore, that Jesus is actual Good and that Satan is actual Evil. To only believe that Good is a real _existent thing and Evil is not, is to open ourselves to the inconsistency of believing in Christ and not in Satan. This leaves Scripture open to charges of telling falsehoods and each of us open to the real power of Evil that will destroy us.

However, by granting the existence of Evil we leave ourselves open to the criticism that Evil is real, and since God created all things, God must have created Evil. As you can see, this major criticism is just the thing Aquinas and others were trying to avoid. Specifically, that Evil is not real, therefore, God did not create it. Well, Evil is a real thing; but do we have to conclude that God created Evil? No.

Let us go back and be true to Scripture to see if we cannot logically show the path Man followed to find himself transported from a totally Good universe into a universe where Evil was a real and existing thing. How did it come about that God created a totally Good universe, and yet Satan and Man both fell? Picture this: a universe that contained everything, Satan, Man, and this world, all of them completely Good. And no matter what anyone chose to do their choices were always Good ones. Just as someone who lived in a totally Red universe would only be able to make a choice of something Red, someone in a totally Good universe would only be able to choose something Good. This is why a Free Will was necessary, because only a free being could enjoy all of the Good things available in such a universe. For if we were constrained to only a few choices, we would never know the full Goodness of our God, and that would have been an Evil thing.

But what harm could a Free Will bring? For no matter what the choice₃ only Good would result. Neither Satan nor Man could yet conceive of picking up a stick and hitting someone in the head. Such a choice required an Evil intent, and there was no Evil. It was simply not possible to hit someone because that act required a prior cause, which was an Evil thought. That thought also required a prior cause, which was an Evil example. Which lastly needed an existent Evil to have caused it. And as we know, and are more than happy to grant to anyone, in the beginning of time there was no Evil. Evil was not in existence then and neither Angel nor Man could have chosen it.

In Scripture we are told that in the past and in an as yet undetermined future, all of creation was and will be praising and worshipping God. This was a universe, as has been said before, where every act was a praise to God. For every Good act was Good because of God and was therefore a praise to God. Walking in the garden was a praise to God, drinking from a spring was a praise to God, even eating the fruit of the garden was a praise to God. Most important, our very existence was a praise to God.

As we can see, Praise and Good are tied together. Every Good act is Good only because it is a Praise to God. This is hard to understand since we are so far from that now, but Scripture tells us that we were created to praise God and that we were created Good. Our very existence was a praise to God. We are so far from God now that we tend to think of praise as being something done face to face. Imagine, though, how it feels to be very hot and thirsty and then to be able to drink your fill of cool water. The thankfulness, goodness, and just plain happiness you feel at that moment is a praise to God; you do not have to be in His physical presence to have praised Him. Praise is the joy, happiness, and love of the existence and life that God gave us. Everything that we do out of a love for our existence is a praise to God. This state of praise, this state of existence, is what we call Good. Now this is a hard thing to grasp, but to be consistent with Scripture we must say that the universe was created Good and that the result of that Goodness was that all of existence Praised God, i.e., to exist meant to Praise God.

What then did it mean not to exist? Not existing meant not praising God, and that was Evil. This then seems to be our answer, for at some point in time someone in Creation thought about or conceived the idea of not praising God. To a Free Will this was the only possible Evil choice open, and it meant choosing non-existence. The choice of non-existence was not one created by God. It was really not a choice, but the logical opposite of Creation -- or of existence. In all of Creation there was not a single Evil choice to be found. Someone had to go to that which was not created to bring Evil into existence.

As has been mentioned above, many people explain Evil by saying that it is the privation of Good. For today’s world that just is not a good explanation of Evil, because today¹s Evil is an active and real part of our lives. But imagine what the absence of Good meant in a world that was totally Good. The idea is so simple it is hard to believe that it requires explanation, and maybe for some it does not, but in this world where no Evil choice existed, Satan found one.

Evil exists today not because God created it. He did not. It exists because Satan, through his imaginings, discovered the opposite of existence. You see, Satan did not discover the opposite of Good. He imagined the opposite of existence. Thus began the creation of real evil. He could have chosen to exist, thereby living a life of praise and worship. Or he could have chosen not to exist. If Satan chose existence, then he could do no Evil. This option was simply not open to him as long as he wanted to exist. But what if he chose not to exist. Not even that strong at first. Maybe only a thought about what not existing meant. This one thought would be all that was necessary for Evil to break forth. For what is Evil if it is not the beginning of non-existence. This is what Scripture tries over and over to make us see, that Evil is nothingness--death. And under the attraction of that nothingness, creation is tearing itself apart, sliding at an ever-accelerating rate toward non-existence. Earthquakes, floods, disease, and cancer are all the product of creation falling, as it were, into the pit of nothingness. Read Genesis and note the declining lifespans of the people. This is existence (living forever) sliding into non-existence.

The shockwave must have been terrific. Someone in creation stopped praising, conceived of nothingness, thought about the opposite of their existence for just a split second. It was enough to offer up the possibility of choosing Evil again and again at an ever-accelerating pace. Until Satan himself was driven mad with thoughts of that nothingness and chose openly not to praise God. Thus, he opened up the Pit and started dragging everything, including Man, into the madness of non-existence.

To save us from this non-existence God has to fill up His Creation again, Evil is not really existent to God. However, it is to Man because Evil becomes whatever it touches, devouring it, swallowing it, and slowly fading it out of existence.

Think about our universe of matter. Everywhere around us are material things. Be it wood, stone, air, dirt, or water, all things are made of matter. Now try to imagine the opposite of matter, i.e., anti-matter. This is similar to what Satan did in the beginning of time. He imagined the opposite of his existence of Good and Praise, and this imagining got him, and us, into trouble. For when Man ate of the Tree of Knowledge he became aware of the opposite of his Good existence and that knowledge began to suck him into the pit of nothingness.

Evil is tangible to us because it lays claim to all that it touches and makes of it an opposite something. However, in God's presence His reality is all that exists and Evil is shown as the nothingness that it really is. To God, Christians are the lights in the darkness, the something in the midst of Nothing. Christians are full creatures; and God has filled them or is filling them with Himself.

How do you get rid of the "nothing" in an empty glass? You fill it with something. That is what God is doing to His Creation. He is refilling all of the empty or "nothing" parts with Himself. God is not going to destroy Evil the way we would destroy something material like a statue or a picture. He is going to move into it like water into an empty vessel and fill it up.

We are continuously disappointed in God because He does not always destroy the Evil that afflicts us, but to God, Evil is not an existent thing that is to be destroyed. It is really an empty thing that needs to be filled. And who are we to determine the shape of that vessel. It is important for Christians to understand the nature of God and the nature of Evil. To view one as filling and the other as emptying. Presented in this way we can see that God is redeeming His creatures and His Creation by filling them once again with Himself. This is happening no matter what we may see or think we understand.

Now seems to be a good time to pause and consider the two questions that were posed earlier and see if a concise answer to them can be formulated from what has just been said. Afterwards, we can continue with some further implications of this explanation of Evil as it addresses the nature of our relationship to God in our present state of sinfulness; sin being the presence of Evil in our lives.

While it is true that God is an all Good and Powerful God, He is limited in one sense. He can do nothing that is not in His nature. This means that God could not do Evil, or said in another way, God could not not exist. His very nature implies existence and Goodness, from this we logically know that God could not create Evil. This understanding also gives us our first insight into how evil came into creation. Because if Evil is the opposite of Goodness and God's nature, then Evil is non-existence. The problem of Evil is a problem of spiritual knowledge. For through a lack of knowledge, wisdom, or of understanding, Satan, in his imaginings, thought of or conceived the opposite of existence and thereby created Evil. Once the choice of non-existence was available, Free Will became a liability. For where once a Free Will was necessary to the joyful experience of existence, when Evil became a part of that existence anyone could freely choose it. It seems paradoxical for non-existence to become existent, but that is exactly why Creation is tearing itself apart. Creation is caught in a paradox, and would, without God's intervention, destroy itself.

To most of us, that intervention does not seem to be nearly enough. After all, it is obvious that Evil continues to afflict us; it seems that everyone is expecting God to destroy Evil outright in one fell

swoop. What we need to remember is that He has already defeated Death and will wipe Evil from the face of His Creation. With this in mind, we see that the real problem for us is that interval of time that comes before we experience His full redemption.

The answer to this problem seems to be this. Evil is a non-existent thing for God. All that is real to God is Himself, His Nature, and His Original Creation. Evil is not a part of any of these. Also, Evil is an emptiness that has been scattered throughout Creation. Like being fired from a shotgun, little Black Holes of nothingness are scattered throughout Creation. They are sucking up that Creation and giving nothing back. Given these conditions, it is clear that God would not destroy something that does not really exist. To do so would mean to recognize it and to give it legitimacy. Instead He must fill up Creation again. This means that when Christ Jesus died on the cross to conquer Death, He took on all of the non-existence scattered throughout each of us. Which guaranteed for us a real Death of non-existence. He filled that non-existence completely with His infiniteness, and conquered Death for us. Only by becoming Man could He have done this. For Evil and non-existence are parts of our existence. They could never have been a part of God's existence.

The defeat of Evil and of Death has already occurred. But just as we freely chose to do Evil, we must now freely choose to accept the filling of God. This interval before full redemption that seems to worry us so, exists so that we may have time to save ourselves. For the Evil which is scattered throughout Creation is slowly being pushed out and collected into one place. From there it will be cast back into the nothingness to which it really belongs. Scripture confirms this when it tells of the unspeakable Evil that will grow in the world toward the end of time. Read Revelations in this context and see if that does not make sense.

In any event, God did not create this Evil, but He will remove it completely, and soon. And while we may grieve for those whose lives are being touched by Evil in this interval of time before total redemption, it is important to know that God is not the cause. He has already resolved things such that from the viewpoint of Eternity, Good has triumphed.

One final comment. God does not punish us directly for the sin in our lives, but His nature cannot tolerate Evil. He does not even look upon Evil. So as far as Evil is in us, we punish ourselves due to our separation from God when we sin or when we look upon Evil. And as far as our concern for the good people we know that are afflicted by Evil, we must recognize that nothing in this world is really free from Evil. Creation is sick with Evil and as bad things happen we need to understand that it is just the sickness of Creation manifesting itself in and around those we love. Furthermore, as the Evil is pushed out of Creation, it will appear to increase simply because it is becoming more concentrated instead of being scattered. This means that things will get worse before they get better. God is slowly refilling His Creation. The dividing line is becoming more and more distinct. Only by accepting the filling Salvation of Christ Jesus will we assure ourselves of being on the right side of that line.