Luther on evil

Who is this that darkeneth counsel

by words without knowledge?

- Job 38:2

It now remains for someone to ask: Why does God not cease from that movement of omnipotence by which the will of the ungodly is moved to go on being evil, and to grow worse? The answer is: this is to desire that for the sake of the ungodly God should cease to be God; for you are desiring that His power and activity should cease - that is, that He should cease to be good, lest the ungodly should grow worse!

Why then does He not alter those evil wills which He moves? This question touches on the secrets of His Majesty, where 'His judgments are past finding out' (cf. Rom. 11.33). It is not for us to inquire into these mysteries, but to adore them. If flesh and blood take offense here, and grumble, well, let them grumble; they will achieve nothing; grumbling will not change God! And however many ungodly stumble and depart, the elect will remain (cf. John 6.6off.).

The same reply should be given to those who ask: Why did God let Adam fall, and why did He create us all tainted with the same sin, when He might have kept Adam safe, and might have created us of other material, or of seed that had first been cleansed? God is He for Whose will no cause or ground may be laid down as its rule and standard; for nothing is on a level with it or above it, but it is itself the rule of all things. If any rule or standard, or cause or ground, existed for it, it could no longer be the will of God. What God wills is not right because He ought, or was bound, so to will; on the contrary, what takes place must be right, because He so wills it. Causes and grounds are laid down for the will of the creature, but not for the will of the Creator - unless you set another Creator over him!

- Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will

We shall thank Him for every storm

If we are true Christians, we must not expect everything smooth in our journey to heaven. We must count it no strange thing, if we have to endure sicknesses, losses, bereavements, and disappointments, just like other men. Free pardon and full forgiveness, grace by the way and glory to the end – all this our Savior has promised to give. But He has never promised that we shall have no afflictions. He loves us too well to promise that.

By affliction He teaches us many precious lessons, which without it we should never learn. By affliction He shows us our emptiness and weakness, draws us to the throne of grace, purifies our affections, weans us from the world, makes us long for heaven. In the resurrection morning we shall all say, ‘it is good for me that I was afflicted.’ We shall thank God for every storm.

-J.C. Ryle (H/T: J.C. Ryle Quotes)

1941

At Loma Linda, School of Medicine students are required to take religion classes during our first two years. This quarter I've been taking a class called "God and Human Suffering." Various strains of thought regarding the existence of an omnipotent, good God and the reality of evil in the universe have been very interesting to me for some time so I looked forward to this class.

Our instructor, a Seventh-day Adventist physician and New Testament scholar gave us a lecture in our second to last session this week that I was impressed by. We briefly talked about the history of Christian thought on evil and he emphasized Origen and his writing Contra Celsum to give a taste of the thought of the early church on evil. Our professor, Dr. Tonstad, called this a triangular view of history with God, man and Satan all as actors. He then contrasted this with much of modern thought on evil, even thought claiming to be Christian which tends to completely de-emphasize the role of Satan in evil. In his lecture he quoted D.F. Strauss and Barth but the high point of his lecture revolved around a quote from Rudolf Bultmann, "We can no longer believe in spirits, whether good or evil." Bultmann wrote this in Germany, in 1941. In a prior lecture we had watched some of the film Shoah. It was some of the most disturbing footage on the holocaust I had ever seen. Our instructor's point was that if there was ever a time in history when man could believe in real evil, a real evil greater than ourselves in the spiritual world, it was 1941. I think he was right to point out the irony of Bultmann's statement in 1941 and his rhetoric made a strong impression on me. It is amazing that in a time like our own more people than ever before are quick to deny the existence of spiritual evil and the depraved state of man.

Origen on Evil

One theme that has naturally arisen on this blog has been a survey of attempts at dealing with "the problem of evil." This is also known as "theodicy" or justifying God in the face of the evil in the universe. I've wanted to write about this as I struggled greatly with the reality of evil for many years and how horrendous evil in the universe fits with the reality of an all-powerful and perfectly good God. While I've found most arguments made by atheists against the existence of God to be quite unconvincing, the one argument which they make that once had some weight for me was their argument against God's existence from evil. This argument is perhaps most strongly and artfully made by Dostoyevsky's character, Ivan, in The Brothers Karamazov. As I said, this argument once affected me strongly but God, by His grace, has brought me to a place where that argument seems no longer to have much of an effect on my convictions. I would be tempted to say that I wasn't even really converted when a strong argument from an atheist would throw me into a serious state of doubt as to whether or not there was really a God.

So with that introduction, I will quote from an article written by one of our professors here at Loma Linda. At Loma Linda students in the school of medicine are required to take religion courses and I'm just beginning a course called, "God and Human Suffering." This article, which was required reading for us, explores the view of the early church on the problem of evil, specifically through the writings of Origen. Origen has been called the greatest intellect of the Eastern Church and lived from around 185 to 254. Origen did have some heretical ideas that were later condemned but I think that Origen's writings are still of great worth.

Much as Origen feels bound and emboldened by Scripture, he is quite able to single out the difference between the Christian view and that of Celsus on a deeper theological and philosophical level. First, evil did not arise by necessity, as if by some flaw in the divine design or by a capricious withdrawal of divine favor. Sin lies instead in the choice and not in the nature of the beings that brought evil into the world. Second, goodness itself has meaning only when the possibility of evil exists. Virtue is not worthy of the name if the option to choose otherwise has been ruled out. This point is as basic to Origen's underlying view of God as it is to his specific understanding of the origin of evil, fighting his battle against the determinism of the Gnostics and others who misinterpret the existence of evil to reflect negatively on God. Third, there is no quick fix for the crisis that arose when evil came to exist contrary to God's will and purpose, as Celsus so condescendingly assumed. "In my opinion he ought to have punished the devil," says Celsus, seeing God easily restricting the devil's range for harming others. But Origen is not fazed by the implied criticism that the God of the Christians lacked the power to put the devil in his place. In his view, there is more depth to God and more subtlety to the nature of evil than for such a crude remedy as power to succeed. "It was necessary for God," Origen answers, "who knows how to use for a needful end even the consequences of evil, to put those who became evil in this way in a particular part of the universe, and to make a school of virtue to be set up for those who wished to strive lawfully in order to obtain it."

-Sigve Tonstad in Andrews University Seminary Studies.

Jonathan Edwards and Positive Agency

dsMany of my friends here at Loma Linda are big fans of the well-known writer and pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, John Piper. One them gave me some of his sermons on a CD last year and I was quite impressed by what I heard. Since then I've been a somewhat regular reader of Piper's blog and have enjoyed what I've read there. My introduction at Loma Linda was not my first to Piper though. When I was at Asbury, Piper was one of "those Calvinists," with whom we loved to disagree. Even at Asbury, the little I knew about Piper caused me to respect him in the same way I respected Al Mohler. I knew I had some serious disagreements and I was convinced that they would probably see my form of Christianity as deficient but I respected them both as bold defenders of Biblical Christianity.

On Sunday, after a week of midterms I was at Barnes and Noble to get a book on surfing but I also decided to browse the Christian section. Piper's Desiring God, a book I've wanted to check out for a while, stood out to me on the shelf so I decided to pick that up also. I've read the first two chapters so far and especially appreciated his chapter on Conversion where he takes on the idea that you can just say a little prayer, and experience no repentance or change in your life and yet somehow that makes you a Christian. But as I've read I've also struggled with a Calvinistic idea that I find very problematic: the complete and utter determinism by God of all events in history that Calvin seems to imply in his Institutes and that Calvinist leaders like Piper seem to embrace today. This blog post is not going to be any sort of in-depth exploration of the matter as I don't have the time to spend on it. But I was impressed by something I read in one of the appendices to Piper's Desiring God yesterday.

The appendix is entitled, "Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?" And the section that I found helpful is called, "Is God the Author of Sin?" Piper quotes Jonathan Edwards quite a bit in this section and adds in some of his own analysis:

Is God the author of sin?

Edwards answers, "If by 'the author of sin,' be meant the sinner, the agent, or the actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing. . .it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the author of sin." But he argues, willing that sin exist in the world is not the same as sinning. God does not commit sin in willing that there be sin. God has established a world in which sin will indeed necessarily come to pass by God's permission, but not by His "positive agency."

God is, Edwards says, "the permitter. . .of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted. . .will most certainly and infallibly follow."

He uses the analogy of the way the sun brings about light and warmth by its essential nature, but brings about dark and cold by dropping below the horizon. "If the sun were the proper cause of cold and darkness," he says, "it would be the fountain of these things, as it is the fountain of light and heat: and then something might be argued from the nature of cold and darkness, to a likeness in the nature in the sun." In other words, "sin is not the fruit of any positive agency or influence of the most High, but on the contrary, arises from the withholding of his action and energy, and under certain circumstances, necessarily follows on the want of his influence.

I have no disagreement with the way Edwards presents sin here and how sin relates to God's "positive agency." It is the idea that God has "positive agency" in the real moral evil of this world that causes me to have serious doubts about what I have understood to be the Calvinist position. Piper frequently reminds us in Desiring God that we should have a God-centered and not a man-centered view of the universe. With this I completely agree but I think part of having this God-centered view is not embracing a theology which in any way infringes upon an important attribute of God, His goodness. And I realize that as sinful humans we have a deficient understanding of what real goodness is but at the same time when we call God "good" that idea of "goodness" must have a strong relation to what we would normally think of as "goodness" or else it is completely meaningless to say that God is good. I know that many of the things that might seem evil to us in this world are really a blessing or a judgment from God but at the same time I don't believe that there is anything in Scripture which would ever cause me to believe that God has any "positive agency" in the horrendous moral evils committed by free creatures in the universe.

I look forward to continuing on in Desiring God, a book which one of my housemates called the most influential book in his life, second only to the Bible. I also expect more theological conversations with my classmates and more posts like this one as a result of my reading.

God's Power in the Darkness

I just finished reading an excellent book last night. It is one that had been recommended to me many times and perhaps because of the many recommendations I had held off on reading it until now. But this book overwhelmed me again and again by its testimonies of God's love and power, much like The Cross and the Switchblade has done as I've read and re-read that book. The book is The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. If you've read my blog for very long, you know that one of the philosophical issues I'm most interested in is the problem of theodicy, that is, justifying a good and all-powerful God in a world where so many horrible evils occur. I feel like this book adds something to the whole theodicy conversation. It is clear that God was at work even in the midst of the worst evil of the last century. God did not step in and limit the freedom of the Nazis as they committed their heinous crimes but God did use those who would be obedient even to the point of death to save some of His chosen people, the Jews, and to bring comfort and salvation to some of those in concentration camps who were about to go to the gas chambers. I was struck by the centrality of Scripture for the ten Boom family, how the Bible was the authority when it came to life and belief. I was also struck by a statement by Caspar, Corrie's father when, as a little girl, she asked him what "sexual sin" was. Caspar said something like, that is a knowledge that is too dark for you to be burdened with. Later that same line of thought is applied by Corrie to the problem of evil itself. I think that is one of the hardest things for us in this scientific age to accept that in this life we may not get pat and satisfying answers to our deepest, darkest questions. Even in the midst of this ambiguity we must find the ability to live a life of trust in God. If we can't learn to live with the things that don't make sense, I think we can only go down the road of despair or of dishonesty where we try to convince ourselves that the easy answers really satisfy us. When it comes to things like horrible diseases or the holocaust, no answer really satisfies me. But we must continue on, seeking to bring God's light, love and healing into the dark places and believing that these "present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

Opening Doors She May Not Enter

A reflection on sorrow from George MacDonald.

…at that moment, some strange melodious bird took up its song, and sang, not an ordinary bird-song, with constant repetitions of the same melody, but what sounded like a continuous strain, in which one thought was expressed, deepening in intensity as it evolved in progress. It sounded like a welcome already overshadowed with the coming farewell. As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy. Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may not enter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.

From his “fairy tale,” Phantastes

Evil Revisited

Well, the two comments I got on my last post inspired me to write again. So thanks Northern Plains Anglican and Anna! I was thinking of just letting my blog slip into hibernation mode, which still might happen, but right now I'm just going to try to post every week or two. Medical school is going well. The amount of information presented in lectures does make it somewhat like "drinking from a fire-hydrant" but I think, with God's help, I'll make it.

So my topic as you can see from my title is the problem of evil, theodicy. Just in reading my textbooks I'm constantly being confronted with "clinical correlates" which is basically every rare and horrible disease or syndrome you can imagine. Which leads me to cry out, "why God?" To some extent I know the answer: sin and separation from God. But I am still unsatisfied with my understanding of some of the horrible evils that occur as a result of little things like genetic mutations.

Here at Loma Linda we have required religion classes. So far they have been pretty good. We usually have some Scripture-reading assigned along with an article or two to read. We've also had two patients share. Both are Christians and both have a lot of suffering in their lives to deal with. The response of these two people were different but I found both inspiring. One of them feels robbed by what happened to him and he was unwilling to accept any simple explanations like Satan did it or that it was somehow God's will. I think he might still have some anger about it but with all of that he was still able to say that he has a close relationship with God. The other patient was actually able to see her circumstance as a gift from God, that had caused her to draw closer to God and witness to many. As she talked I was amazed by the amount of trust in God that she showed. She said something like, "if I stay here God will take care of me and if I don't stay here I go to my true home." Both of these people live with the "evil" in their lives in different ways and I'm not going to judge if one is better.

So when it comes down to it, the only thing in Scripture that completely defeats any "problem" of evil is Romans 8:18. Paul says, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Paul suffered a lot, which to me makes this statement all the stronger. Of course this statement only does away with the problem of evil for a person with enough faith to believe it. This level of trust in God is not always easy to have and I admit that I have struggled with it at times on my Christian journey. The wrongs and evils that are experienced in this world are, for the most part, not righted here. All we can do with them is give them to God, trusting in his Victory, Justice and Love which is being and will be revealed.

Amen

And Now for Something Completely Different

I'll be mountain climbing for the next few days so I wanted to post something before I left. I was thinking about posting a cool quote from John Calvin on holiness, which I will probably post later, but I decided to post something I've wanted to put on here for a long time. I read a lot of good books my last semester at Asbury. But one quote from one book has stayed with me. It is from a book I read in Jerry Walls' class on theodicy called "The Doors of the Sea." It is by Eastern Orthodox theologian, David Bentley Hart...

Until that final glory, however, the world remains divided between two kingdom, where light and darkness, life and death grow up together and await the harvest. In such a world, our portion is charity, and our sustenance is faith, and so it will be until the end of days. As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy. Such faith might never seem credible to someone like Ivan Karamazov, or still the disquiet of his conscience, or give him peace in place of rebellion, but neither is it a faith that his arguments can defeat: for it is a faith that set us free from optimism long ago and taught us hope instead. Now we are able to rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history's many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes - and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, "Behold, I make all things new."

Obviously I am not a Calvinist. Dr. Walls cured me of that. Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for John Calvin and I like many Calvinists. My favorite line is, "God will not unite all of history's many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable." There are things in this world that happen and exist and are contrary to the will of God. It is only a hope in God's victory in the Eschaton that can make sense of the world we live in. I thank God for the tokens of His promise that we receive in this life.

End of Semester Insanity

The end of my last semester at Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky draws near and my attention is focused on three large term papers I must finish by May 13th. I've taken some of the best classes I've ever had in any university setting this semester and all three papers should prove interesting. My classes this semester were "The Philosophy of C.S. Lewis" and "The Problem of Evil" with Dr. Walls and "The Theology of John Calvin" with Dr. O'Malley. Doctors Walls and O'Malley are two of my favorite professors here and the content of the courses has been quite good. I thought the subjects of my term papers might interest some of you so I describe them here below along with the appropriate illustrations:It's been cool taking a Calvin course at an Arminian seminary. I haven't yet taken our systematic theology (Basic Christian Doctrine) so the only systematic I will have taken on campus will have been John Calvin's. For class we've read the majority of The Institutes and a good biography by Wendell. My paper will focus on Calvin's idea of the third use of the law, how that theology affected his pastoral ministry and then compare that to Luther's concept of the law and how that affected his ministry. I'm not a fan of all of Calvin's theology but I do like his third use of the law. Basically, Calvin said that the law was useful to instruct Christians to lead a holy life. This is contrary to Luther's view where after a person is saved the law no longer has any claim on a person's life. “If I look to myself,” said Luther, “then all is flesh, all is sin. If I look to Christ, I am completely holy and pure, and I know nothing at all about the Law.”
I chose the cover of David Bentley Hart's book The Doors of the Sea as the illustration for my Problem of Evil class because I thought it was such a poetic and profound account of the problem of evil and theodicy. I highly recommend this book! This class has been the best I've taken at Asbury. The readings have been intensely interesting and the class discussions enlightening. I became interested in one theme from The Doors of the Sea - that of the problem of natural evil. Hart suggests that natural evil could be the result of demonic activity. I'm going to go at this problem, trying to defend the thesis that natural evil is actually the result of a corruption of creation resulting from the fall. I'm going to check out some commentaries on Romans 8:20-21, "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God," and go from there. I've started on my Lewis term paper and hope to finish it tomorrow. I'm exploring some ideas surrounding one of the characters from Lewis' The Great Divorce. The character is the liberal Episcopal bishop. The bishop has taken a bus ride from hell into heaven and has a discussion with a former friend and classmate who is in heaven. The chapter is a wonderful indictment of liberal theology and I would say also much of postmodern thought. Let's just say I bring a lot of passion to this subject - I grew up in a liberal church and I'm still recovering. I think a lot of Christians, epecially those who have always been around evangelicals or fundies, are very ignorant of the serious dangers of liberal theology. I love what one of my professor's Lawson Stone had to say about liberalism, "I personally believe it to be the most effective heresy Satan ever fomented on the church."

Well, now I've spent another hour procrastinating. God's Peace.