Chances are if you are a living/breathing/cognitive human being
you have either heard it asked, been asked, or you yourself have asked the question
“if God is so good and loving then why does he permit evil?” There are many generic answers to this
question of evil (also known as theodicy) that are often more harmful than
helpful. These range from God allows bad
things to happen for a reason -to- it is part of His plan -to- suffering is God’s
mercy in disguise- and even to- in God’s sovereign ways (or perhaps diabolical plan) He has predestined
some for good and some for bad and then judges each according to how he made
them to be (no cynicism towards Calvinism here). Nevertheless, one’s worldview tends to frame
how they understand and answer the question, so perhaps we need to reframe our
view. Greg Boyd has done some of the
most concise work that looks at scripture’s constant interplay between God
working toward the good of the world, while both humanity and some in the angelic realms
work more against God’s will than for it. In Satan
and the Problem of Evil, Boyd outlines
probably the best model for this warfare theodicy which I have adopted into my own theology and essentially
outlined here. So here it goes:
1. Love must be freely chosen: While this may
seem contrary to rational thought, the allowance for evil begins with the
nature of love. If we can agree on the
assumption that we are to be participatory agents in God’s love then love by
definition is not legitimate if humans or angels are programmed like machines
to have it. Rather, it requires all to be capable of a certain amount of
self-determining freedom to choose or reject it.[1]
2. Freedom suggests
risk: The very idea that the participatory agents have the freedom to
accept or reject love means that the future to some degree is open for God. The
story of Jonah (and likewise for many of the prophet’s messages) shows an open
future in that God sends Jonah to warn Nineveh that unless they change they
will be destroyed due to their continuous wickedness. This carries implications
for the possibility of painful risk for God that while He is in control of the
final outcome He has to some extent relinquished absolute control of His agents
for the sake of having relationship with them.[2]
3. Risk requires
moral responsibility: Risk implies that we are not just free agents, but
also moral agents who can be held accountable for how we use our freedom. For better or for worse we become responsible
for our actions toward one another and thus in many ways responsible for each other.[3]
4. Moral
responsibility implies the principal of proportionality and its ability to influence:
This is to say that because our moral responsibility comes in our capacity to
bless and our capacity to curse it will always carry the same potential
and proportion for evil as it has for love.[4] This gives way for the constant mistreatment
of others or self as we often see in our daily life
and experience.
5. The power of influence is irrevocable: It
is not as if the perpetual destructiveness carried out by the world’s
rebellious agents is working for God’s or human’s greater good. Rather, God has
allowed it to continue because to revoke our ability to influence would unhinge
our moral responsibility that remains central for relationally-mutual love.[5]
6. The power to
influence is finite: While humans and angels have the irrevocable self-determining
freedom and moral responsibility to influence, it does not stipulate the scope
or duration of that freedom. In a sense
the quality of freedom will cut both ways given that God’s creatures are finite
and God is omnipotent. There are plenty of scriptural implications illustrating
that God will not allow those who misuse their freedom to eternally continue as
the time will come when Christ will return to set all things right.[6]
