Asking “WHY does God allow evil?” I think is the wrong question.
Why?
Because it presumes that He DOES allow evil. I propose a higher and worthier view of Him.
Asking instead, “DOES God allow evil in the first place?” is the fairer question. It challenges the premise itself.
Here is the key to approaching this question with new eyes. The way a non-coercive God “disallows evil” might look far different than does the way a Zeus-like god of coercion would forcefully “disallow” it.
The latter god uses ALL forms of control, violence, and coercion, and, in so doing, uses evil to stop evil, becoming a different form of the very evil he sought to disallow. The former God, however, doesn’t coerce, never coerces, but instead uses gentle persuasion and relentless patience to ultimately overcome and disallow evil. It may take longer that way but it’s a deeper and far more qualitative work.
Jesus IS God’s complete and eternal disallowance of all evil.
When people say God is in control, they are presuming a particular definition of God’s sovereignty which includes a proactive concept of His “allowance” of all things which happen 24/7 on earth. This view necessarily (whether we perceive it or not) includes the element of a ready and selective coercion on God’s part. His divine character now includes coercion of our wills in order to configure His various allowances and disallowances of evil.
God, under this scenario, reasons thusly, “This child molestation I will specifically allow. But this one I won’t. Robert’s daughter I will allow to be raped, while Craig’s daughter I will not allow to be raped. This three year girl I will strike with life long paralysis, while this three year old I will not allow to be so stricken. This throat I will allow to be slit by terrorists, but but not this throat. A ravaging cancer on this mother of seven I will allow, but this mother of seven I will not allow to be so afflicted.”
What a nightmare! I think we can agree Jesus didn’t engage in this type of selective “allowances” (see Acts 10:38).
And the list goes on.
Calvin defined sovereignty the same way. He believed that everything was ordained by God, that His necessary stamp of approval had to be put on any event prior to its occurrence. Calvinism famously says, “God’s allowances ARE His purposes.” Therefore, Calvin rightly concluded that there is absolutely no difference between God allowing something and God directly causing it. God’s allowance under this view is God’s approval and is the sole direct cause of all things. Martin Luther King famously said that “allowers” of evil (those who stand by who can stop evil but don’t) are just as as morally guilty and culpable as those who commit the evil. Hebrew language also makes no distinction between causing something to happen and allowing it to happen.
But, really, King’s statement doesn’t capture how far this “sovereignty” definition goes. John Calvin certainly hits the outrageous bullseye of where this definition of “sovereignty” takes us.
Consider Calvin’s claim: “that thieves, murderers, and other evildoers, are instruments of divine providence, being employed by the Lord himself to execute the judgments which He has resolved to inflict.” Institutes I, 17, 5.
Consider Calvin again: “The devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are, in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as He permits, nay, unless in so far as He COMMANDS; that they are not only bound by His fetters but are even forced to do Him service.” Institutes I, 17, 11.
Thus, according to and Calvinism, God was judging the victims of 9/11 using the evil terrorists as His instruments of divine will. The terrorists only did what God COMMANDED them to do according to His divine purposes. God FORCED the terrorists to slit the pilots’ throats from ear-to-ear before ramming their planes into both towers and killing thousands. Osama Bin Laden was God’s SERVANT in all this horror.
So, to say that God affirmatively “allowing” evil is a definitional part of God’s “sovereignty,” is to agree with Calvin’s thinking. If God “allows anything” that CAN happen, then He also necessarily “allows everything” that DOES happen. His intentional failure to stop of thwart particular evil is His stamp of causative approval, a sovereign choice in other words.
Contrary to some Calvinists’ assertions, Joseph’s happy-ending story isn’t about God’s “allowing” evil, but rather about Joseph (and prayerful others) “allowing” God’s rescuing love to penetrate his immediate sphere of influence. For every story of a Joseph who survives and thrives, there are a million other stories of oppressed victims who are crushed and killed, all without a happy ending. To say that God sovereignly “allows” one to be rescued but not the other paints a picture of a fickle and heartless God I will never accept. God offers willing rescue to all. The problem is on our side of the equation, not His.
The real question is understanding how God’s disallowance of evil “unfurls” itself over time and space, and how our corporate belief or unbelief can slow or hasten that unfurling.
The provision of Jesus Christ is God’s non-coercive antidote to evil, His disallowance of it. God needs our cooperation to enforce that antidotal disallowance. Even Jesus couldn’t sovereignly coerce, in the immediate sense, the people to receive the mighty works of God in Mark 6 at Nazareth because of their corporate (not individual) unbelief, am unbelief at which He marveled. He still was able to heal a few individuals though. He did what He could.
Remember that Old Testament theodicy believes as Calvin did, that good and evil comes from God’s causative hand. Satan is not a cosmic rebel, but His obedient servant and minister of wrath who merely does what God commands him to do in the temptation and destruction of men. Their hyper-sovereignty leaves us all as programmed robots who all only do what God “allows” us to do by His previous programming. Sadly, some of today’s theological teachings come perilously close to this same line of thought.
Richard Murray, August 31, 2019
At Rest In Him 