Poetry, contrary to popular prejudice, is the art of saying the most with as few words as possible. Far from gilding lilies with unnecessary encumbering words, poetry, at least good poetry, encompasses truth with a sharp and swift observation. When considering the gnarled cypresses along the Monterey and Carmel coastline of central California, one poet asked "is it as clearly in our living shown, by slant and twist, which ways the winds have blown?" In that question lies a world of discourse, a host of issues. To exhaust them completely would require many tedious volumes. The poet did it all in eighteen words. Like formulae from great mathematicians or theoretical physicists, profound truth is best expressed in elegant brevity. Thus Archimedes told the world A = pi r2 and Einstein shook the world, literally, by saying E = mc2. Poets go such postulates one better. They add aesthetic beauty.
Poetic truth can be found in the most surprising places. Take, for example, the harsh eloquence of Laura Nyro's lyric made famous by Blood, Sweat and Tears, "And When I Die."
I can swear there ain’t no heaven,
but I pray there ain’t no hell.
These words speak volumes of her life and experience and posit the existence of evil without a single spoken proof. Evil's existence is axiomatic. It is a sure-as-shooting Socratic self-evident syllogistic postulate. And Ms. Nyro does this in an unexpected venue, a rock and roll lyric. With surgical precision she denied a hope of heaven and left only a fear, dare I suggest a near certain fear, of just punishment in the life to come, obviously for evil rendered. And, in yet another case of life imitating art, Laura Nyro learned the answer to her prayers when she died ten years ago of cancer at the age of 49.
Some have suggested the problem of evil is the most serious philosophical challenge to a Christian view of God and the world. Before considering the "problem" it should be pointed out that in fact evil is a problem to every view of God and every view of the world with or without a deity. The problem of evil challenges any and all attempts to argue existence has meaning at all. And though a few hearty souls might insist such is the truth, that existence has no meaning, only sociopaths and the psychotic among us live consistently according to this view. It only takes a holocaust or a national disaster or a single rampant cancer cell to give the lie to such denials. Evil is a reality. Evil is not right, especially when it happens to me. And therefore evil is a problem for everyone.
Christians have wrestled most successfully with this universal human "problem." Mystic pagans try to ignore evil's existence. Stoics and skeptics for millennia have tried to deny evil's existence. The best that pagan minds have come up with are questions about evil's existence. They have little constructive to say about why it exists or how it can be avoided, and nothing effectively to say about how it can be eliminated.
Historically, it seems to me, the problem of evil has been divided by the skeptic into two serious questions for Christian theology. And, after defining the "problem" in terms of these two questions, Christians have historically posited two very satisfactory answers.
Question number one: How could a good and holy God create moral evil?
Question number two: How can an infinite and all powerful God allow evil to exist?
Of course these two questions raise issues that interpenetrate one another, but it is best for the sake of lucid discussion to separate these two points.
As for the first question, no better answer has ever been posted than the answer of Augustine. Doubtless drawing from his pre-Christian Manichaean days and tempered as a Christian with the logic and power of Scripture, Augustine said God did not create evil. Evil is, in a sense, a no thing, nothing. By that, if we can use the language of modern physics, Augustine meant evil does not exist in and of itself. It is not a "thing" to be created. Evil is a "Field-effect." It is the uncreated result generated, if you would, by certain other realities. As sure as dark, the absence of light, is not created per se, evil, the chaos that results from choices and actions contrary to the moral will of a good and holy creator, is not a "thing" but a "result" of other things. With the notorious imprecision of language we may call this or that action "evil." But, in fact, we mean that this or that action causes evil, or comes from other actions that produce evil. And even then, a thing or action is accurately called "evil" only over and against the nature of a holy God who alone defines what is good. God did not create evil. God cannot create evil. That which we call "evil" is the result of creation's inevitable instability and vulnerability. Creation, after all, is finite and capable of imperfection. God, the uncreated perfect one, is not. "Evil" is generated by the moral rebellion of creation's sub-regent, mankind and by the actions of mankind's greatest adversary, Lucifer. Both are created beings. For this reason, as Paul argues clearly in Romans 3:3-9, God holds the evil doer accountable by virtue of His inherent nature as the moral judge of all reality. We alone are the culprits. Paul, in his argument gives the question its time honored title, "theodicy" (the justification of God), when he cites a pastiche of Scripture and declares God is "justified in (his) words," and prevails "when (he is) judged." (v.4) The modern Dutch theologian G.C. Berkower noted the age old question of Latin theologians, "unde malum" ("whence cometh evil"), is a very dangerous question. It is not a question to be directed at God but at man. In demanding God give account for evil it is implied that the questioner is unaware of the answer to the question and is not responsible for the problem. In fact we know from whence evil comes, it comes from us. And, asking the question is, in a certain sense, an attempt to exculpate the questioner. Moreover it is often a thinly veiled accusation levied against the Creator.
Of course this brings us inevitably to the second question: how can an infinite, all powerful God allow evil to exist? The answer is clear in Scripture. It is not found in man's so-called "free will" but in God's sovereignty. God does not "allow evil to exist." In fact, God drives it from his presence. He will not "look" upon it, and, even as I write this, to quote Daniel 9:24, God is finishing "the transgression" and putting "an end to sin" by atoning "for iniquity" and bringing in "everlasting righteousness." As with everything God does, he is doing this for his glory. We can thank John Calvin and a host of clear thinking Puritans who followed his lead for this undeniable view of the God of the Bible. God does everything "sola Gloria Deo" ("for the glory of God.") To the eternal and infinite ever existing Jehovah, evil "is finished." Satan has fallen. Victory has been won. To time-bound creatures, mortal and finite, it appears to be a process. However it is viewed, this bringing an "end" to evil is for God's glory and our good. To borrow the words of Jesus to John the Baptist, when facing the sorrow and pain of evil in the world we must "suffer it to be so to fulfill all righteousness." When noting the sad spectacle of a man born blind in John 9 the disciples asked "Why?" Jesus told them, and so instructs us all. This is so, he said, "that the works of God might be manifest in him." Even the field-event of evil exists for the glory of God.
Among the more jaded ministers of the Gospel there is told a old story of a candidate for ordination who was questioned by his session of elders. "Young man," a stern Calvinist elder asked, "would you be willing to be damned for the glory of God?" After due thought, the glib candidate replied "Sir, I would be willing for this entire Presbytery to be damned for the glory of God." Excuse my jaundiced humor, but in a sense both the time honored question and the flippant remark have value. God has solved the problem of Evil for all creation! It is solved by the Lamb of God, "slain before the foundations of the world." Jesus Christ is the answer to the question of evil. In the face of the so-called "problem of evil", this cruel and vexing "no thing," the people of God are to show forth triumphantly their savior's praises and sing of his amazing grace until he returns and "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Chirst."
I was encouraged to think again about the problem of evil by a sermon I recently heard by my son on the temptation of Christ. It was, as usual, an excellent message primarily because he opened up the text and clearly expounded the Word of God. In that familiar story the devil assaults the physically weakened son of God with three temptations. The first temptation attacked the common human fear of want and poverty. This is a fear that rises from suffering and unsatisfied needs. Jesus was hungry. "Turn these stones to bread" the devil cunningly demanded, "if, indeed, you are the Son of God." When we indulge our fears of want and poverty we disobey God who said "fear not, for I am with you." When Satan tempted Jesus it was as if God had never thundered from heaven "Thou art my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." This should prove no surprise to us. The devil has always questioned the Word of God. From the beginning his questions served his evil purpose. Satan desires no answer when he asks as he did of Eve "Hath God said?" He simply wants doubt. He desires the creature to react in panic out of fear and not out of faith in the promises of God. Evil comes from such fear-based actions. Jesus counters effectively reminding the devil that "man must not live by bread alone, but by every word proceeding from God's mouth."
In the second temptation the devil transports Jesus to the highest point of the tallest building in Jerusalem, the pinnacle of the temple. "Jump from here, God has promised to protect you, hasn't he?" At this juncture Satan is probing man's universal fear of his own physical well being. It is a fear that rises from the evil of death and pain. We tremble in the face of human mortality. We mourn when life inevitably ends in death. Whether the humanity of Jesus recoiled from the emotion of fear as he stood on that high place I do not know. What is clear is that Jesus dismisses this temptation to sin by saying "do not tempt the Lord your God!" We should never try to force God's hand nor court the sin of self destruction.
Finally, as if exasperated, the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth, all its glittering prizes. "This is yours if you worship me," he boasts. The blasphemy of this direct remark often overshadows the nature of the sin it invites. The chief end of man, says the Westminster Divines, is to love God. Satan is subverting the very purpose of the creature's existence. We are to "show forth the praises of God's glory." Satan sought to destroy the very soul of the Son of Man by perverting his purpose as a man. What could be said other than what Jesus said in response? "Get thee hence! Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve!" The first commandment is clear: Love God! The command carries an even clearer definition of this duty: true love is true worship in his service. The purpose of the devil's temptations seem to be to enmesh mankind in a web of evil actions and place him under their inevitable consequences at the hands of a just God who most certainly will punish sin. Much like a master chessman Satan would maneuver man into checkmate, so to speak, and accomplish his destruction by the very "rules of the game." This is at the heart of the problem of evil. The wages of sin is death.
At the end of my son's message on the temptation our church came to the Lord's Table and shared communion. It struck me like a thunderbolt. Here is the answer to the question of evil. Here is the solution. Jesus gave us the answer in the very elements of the supper we share together. At the heart of evil is the fear of want and suffering, the fear of pain and death, and the question as to our purpose on earth as conscious created beings. To these three universal problems, want, suffering and the meaning of life, Jesus offers himself. And, in so many words, he takes bread, which signifies to us his body saying "Take! Eat! My body is food indeed. If you eat of me you will never hunger." Again, "Take! Eat! If a man eats my body, he shall never die." And finally, "Take! Eat!" As the Apostle said, "In so doing you show forth the Lord's death." This last remedy declares our purpose. We are to live for "the praise of his glory." In his sacrifice our Lord Jesus solved the problem of evil. In our humble reception of his sacrifice we are delivered from the consequences of our own personal evil and understand at last its resolution.
As with the preacher who wrote in the margin of his sermon "this point is weak, holler!" so the skeptics, who have never successfully shouted down the gospel, simply raise their voices. They hammer at "the horror, the horror" like Conrad's Mister Kurtz. But the Gospel replies, "This horror results from your sin. Repent!" The fall of man into sin jeopardized the entire race. God in infinite mercy and grace has provided a way of escape in the cross of Jesus Christ. The true horror is not that 6 million died at the hands of the Nazis in the death camps; it is not that nearly 2,000 souls perished in a single morning on 9/11. The true horror is that all men will die and the "wage of sin is death." The problem of evil is not the Christian's problem. It is the problem of the one who refuses God's grace and insists on facing his creator at the end of his life with no answer for his own wrong doing and his rebellious heart's defiant attitude.
Labels: Evil, the problem of evil, theodicy imported
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