RESOURCES — SHORT ARTICLES

 

SHORT ARTICLES BY TOM ELSEROAD
	2020-07-06	The Problem of Evil in the World
		This is from the viewpoint of man, trying to explain evil. People want to blame God when bad things happen. Of course God is sovereign over creation and the affairs of man. Basically there are three views of the presence of evil in the world. 1. The Eastern View of Evil 2. The Secular View of Evil 3. The Biblical View of Evil 1. The Eastern View of Evil There is no solution for evil, suffering, or injustice. The answer is to detach yourself from the world. It is freedom from individuality. The problem is that we are reborn (reincarnation) many times over and over. The only solution is freedom from this world. The world is sometimes called the wheel. So desire leads to cravings which leads to attachments to worldly things which binds us to the wheel. And the process starts all over again. 2. The Secularist View of Evil We live in a meaningless universe. Everything comes from chance. To some evil is an illusion. Evil is in the very existence of the universe, so we never expect to overcome it. The secularist cannot define what is evil, but most acknowledge it exists. 3. The Biblical View of Evil The Bible addresses three questions concerning the existence of evil. A. Is evil, evil? B. Is God all good? C. Is God all powerful? As the Bible addresses these, it turns them from a challenge to reassurance. A. Is evil, evil? The Bible sees evil as terribly evil, but it should have been otherwise. The Biblical view is that evil is unnatural. Evil came after man was created. When we see evil as evil we begin to see it as God sees it. Yet God sees it as worse than we do. When we are (1) shocked by bad news; (2) outraged by injustice; (3) grieving because of sorrow, we are seeing evil the way God sees it. Death, disease, and suffering is the result of human rebellion (sin). From the standpoint of original creation, it should have been otherwise. So sin and rebellion is the result of man's choices. B. Is God all good? The Bible says God is all good, and that He cares for us (Ps.107:1; Ro.8:28). Isaiah 53 describes the suffering Servant sent from God on behalf of man. This refers to Jesus who suffered and died on the cross. Man messed up, but God will step in to help man. We can trust God when things seem tough, because we know God loves us (1Jn.4:16). 1Jn 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. We can trust God in the dark, because we are not in the dark about God. C. Is God all powerful? Omnipotence (meaning all powerful): Biblically it means God can do anything He wants to do, not what we imagine Him to do. Note that (1) God cannot lie (Ti.1:2), and (2) He cannot deny Himself (2Tm.2:13). What God wants to do is always a function of His character (Ps.145:17). God created a world in which there are morally free creatures. They can make choices. This is good. Human beings can be morally bad or good. There is a possibility for great good, but also for great evil. This reflects that God is all wise. Would it be good if God did not give us the freedom of choice? He could have made us like robots who always obey. Most admit this would not be good. Power has nothing to do in this scenario where God has made morally free creatures. Morality is a different kind of problem than power (omnipotence) can address. Could God through power remove all the evil from the world? Yes. (And by the way He will one day). But He would have to destroy something good. That is, the morally free creatures, mankind, would have to lose their freewill. Freewill everything to do with why there is suffering and evil in the world. God gave us free will. We have abused our free will. This is why evil is present. Freewill explains how God can be good and allow moral evil. God created us in His image, as rational creatures, capable of love. If you are capable of love, then you are capable of choice. Think about a world without choice. That would not be much life at all. If you have freewill then we have to be able to abuse it. That is, to behave against God's will. You cannot create a morally free creature that has no possibility of going bad. Do you blame God for giving us this freewill capacity? Freewill obviously comes with a cost. Pastor Tom Elseroad

 

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