Atheists will attack the Christian notion of God by pointing out that there is evil in the world. Since that is certainly an undeniable fact, some Christians will use the defense of free will. That is, they claim that God gives men autonomy to do good or to do evil. Men choose to do evil, so there is evil in the world, regardless of the desire of God.
In this case, the harm done to Christian theism by these "defenders" is worse than the attack against which they argue. They claim that God doesn't want evil in the world, but He is just unable to do anything about it, because man is sovereign.
That is false. It is a false view of God, and it is a false view of man.
Let's start with the truth about God. As the atheist grants (showing that his professed atheism is really just a cover for the hatred he has toward God), God is in control. And that includes the control of evil. For example, we read in Zechariah 8:10, "Before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in, for I set every man against his neighbor." That is an unequivocal statement that the evil of men toward other men is the result of God's purposes, a judgment for rebellion, as Calvin commented on this verse: "As then in God's judgments there ever shines forth the highest equity, there is no reason for men to try to implicate Him in their own perdition, or to devolve on Him a part of the blame. God then justly excites the hearts of men into madness, and yet men themselves bear the whole blame, though God draws them here and there against their wills, and makes use of them as His instruments; for the hidden purpose of God does not excuse them, while nothing is less their object than to obey His word, though they are guided by His hidden operation." It was in understanding this that Job was moved to say to his wife, "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). This illustrates the assertion of Scripture, contrary to this supposed defense by ill-informed Christians, that God does everything as He desires to do: "Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps" (Psalm 135:6).
And that leads me to addressing the false view of man expressed above. Man is not sovereign. He does not have a veto on the intentions of God, whether or not it is claimed to be by God's permission. "All the inhabitants of earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand or say to Him, 'What have you done?'" (Daniel 4:35). Rather, God always acts according to His own glory: "For My own sake, for My own sake, I do it, for how should My name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another" (Isaiah 48:11).
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2 comments:
Hi, I appreciate your desire to wrestle with the Scriptures and understand their meaning.
I would cite this: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--" Romans 5:12. This tells us simply that sin entered the world, that is, evil, by Adam and Eve. We did it. It was our choice. Could God have stopped it? Sure. Should He have stopped it? I can't say, since I don't second-guess God. But this we see from this passage . . . that evil began with us, not with God.
You said, " They claim that God doesn't want evil in the world, but He is just unable to do anything about it, because man is sovereign."
Myself, I don't know anybody who says what you said. Sure God doesn't want evil in the world, and evil is present, but not because God can't do anything about it, or because Man is ultimately sovereign. So I think the quote above is a formulation that attempts to fix the outcome of the thought process about God/evil/Men/free will in such terms that a divine cause of evil must be posited.
Since the terms of your illustrative quote are not held/claimed by anybody, I don't think you proved your point. Not meaning to discourage. Keep studying and writing!!!
You have never heard someone explain evil as God's inability to violate the free will of men? Then you have been blessed to be insulated from it. I hear it frequently. And atheists are well-able to see in that excuse that such Christians are gutting the rule of God.
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