Wrong Ways to Deal With the Problem

• Scriptures: Isaiah 45:7; Isaiah 14; Romans 11:22
• God at a Distance, Kerry Duke

• “Are We Born in Sin?”

Transcript

Kerry Duke: Hi, I am Kerry Duke, host of My God and My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee Bible College, where we see the Bible as not just another book, but the Book. Join us in a study of the inspired Word to strengthen your faith and to share what you’ve learned with others.
The problem of evil is a difficult challenge to Christian faith. It can be a heavy burden for Christians to bear, and it can also be an obstacle to people who are thinking about becoming Christians, but they have trouble reconciling all the sin and suffering in the world with the concept of an all-powerful, all-loving God. That’s why it’s called the problem of evil.
It’s a logical problem because we try to harmonize the fact of evil in the world with the existence of a perfect God. It’s a practical problem because we have to endure great pain and heartache in this life without understanding why.
Men have struggled with this issue for thousands of years, and there are different approaches men have to tried to explain this problem. Some choose the path of atheism. They say that there’s no solution to the problem. They claim that there is no way to logically reconcile the existence of God with the presence of evil in the world. Their conclusion is that God does not exist and cannot exist for this very reason.
But we’ve already seen that atheism is a very simplistic approach to the problem. C.S. Lewis is a good example. He was a famous religious writer who lived in England and died in 1963, but many of his books are still quite popular. But he wasn’t always religious. He was an atheist for years. And what led him to change his mind?
Well, he tells us in his book, “Mere Christianity.” He admitted that the reason that he did not believe in God for all those years was because of evil in the world. He said he just could not accept belief in the all-powerful God in the face of all the evil and suffering in the world. But the more he thought about his reasoning, the more he realized it wouldn’t work.
He came face to face with the question that every atheist needs to ask himself. C.S. Lewis said to himself: But where did I get this idea of “good and evil”? He said,you don’t think of a line being crooked unless you have the concept of a straight line. In other words, if there’s no God, then there is no real evil and thus there is no problem to begin with.
And in the end he said that atheism turned out to be in his own words, “too simple,” and he was right. Atheism is simplistic. As a matter of fact, it is illogical because it contradicts itself on this very point.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some say the answer to the problem of evil is that evil doesn’t really exist. Atheism says there is no answer to the problem because God doesn’t exist, but others say the answer to the problem is that there is no evil. I’m talking especially about a religion, if you can call it that, known as Christian science. The name itself is misleading because it is neither Christian nor science.
This teaching claims that the physical world is just an illusion. It doesn’t exist. That means that your body that experiences all that pain doesn’t really exist. Sometimes we jokingly say that pain is just in your head. People in the Christian Science movement really mean that. So to them, there is no sickness. There is no sin. The only sin is the wrong kind of thinking, and the wrong kind of thinking is believing that the physical world does exist.
If you’re laughing out loud or if you’re saying that’s ridiculous, I understand. And if you ask how people could get started down the road of believing something like this, it might help to understand a little bit about the history of this movement.
It began in the 1800s in America when people were looking for help to relieve the suffering in their life. This was the time of traveling medical wagons and shows. Crowds would gather together to hear salesmen talk about potions and elixirs that would supposedly cure their ills. Some people were desperate to find an escape from the sorrows and the pain of life.
Now, during this era, a woman named Mary Baker Eddy thought of a different approach. She was the founder of the Christian Science Movement. The irony is that Mary Baker Eddy had a lot of problems herself as far as her health was concerned and was known to use morphine. It’s amazing that people come up with all kinds of ideas to relieve their pain, even if that means denying reality and living in a dream world.
But pain is no illusion. Suffering is real, and when people complain about God allowing them to suffer, they need to think about Jesus, the Son of God. His suffering was real and he chose to suffer voluntarily so that we could go to a place without suffering. So atheism says there’s no God. Christian Science says there’s no evil.
Then along came John Calvin in the 1500s who said there is a God, there is evil, but there is no problem because God ordains evil as well as good. Calvinism is a horrible doctrine because it says that God is the author of good and evil. That means that moral evil and natural evil, which is physical and emotional pain, are from God.
Calvinism says don’t worry about the problem of evil. Don’t question why things happen or why God allows them. They happen because it is God’s will. Now again, I’m emphasizing that this means that it is the will of God according to Calvinism that sin happens. God’s bringing suffering upon mankind is a different matter that we’re going to talk about more later, but Calvinism argues that God decreed that sin should occur and there’s nothing that can change that.
So don’t question God. Just accept that everything good or bad is under his control. Now, that’s how Calvinists define the sovereignty of God, and this belief even uses the Bible as proof. For instance, Calvinists point to verses like Isaiah chapter 45 verse seven, where God said, “I make peace and create evil.”
That’s the King James Version. The New King James version renders Isaiah chapter 45, verse seven, “I make peace and create calamity.” Now, we’ve already seen that the word “evil” in the King James Version is used in two ways. It can mean evil in the sense of moral evil, which is sin. That’s usually the way it’s used in the Bible, and that’s the way that we usually understand it.
But the word evil also can refer to calamities of life. That’s how the word evil in the King James Version is used. For instance, in Job chapter two, verse 10, where Job said, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?”
That’s the meaning in the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke chapter 16. In Luke 16:25, Abraham told the rich man, “You need to remember that in your lifetime you received good things. And likewise, Lazarus evil things”—that is, his calamities and afflictions.
In Isaiah chapter 45, God is assuring the Jews in Babylonian captivity that he will bring them back to their homeland in Jerusalem. Throughout this section in Isaiah, God repeatedly reminds them that he is the Creator. He created the earth and the heavens, and if He made and sustains this vast universe, then it’s nothing for Him to intervene in human affairs and see that His people return home. God says many times in Isaiah there is no God equal to Him: “I am the Lord and there is none else” (Isaiah 45, verse five and six). Then in Isaiah 45, verse seven, the Lord said, “I form the light and create darkness.” Now what is the opposite of light? Darkness. Well then He says, I” make peace and create evil.” What is the opposite of peace? War, which is calamity and suffering.
God brought war upon different nations, including the Israelites, but the nations that went to war—and this is the key—fought of their own choice. They made the decision to fight. Now, God created the opportunities or opened the doors knowing that the governments of these countries would react in a certain way, and in that way, He made the calamity happen. But they still made the choice.
Now, God does not desire or decree that man should sin. God cannot be tempted to do evil, and he certainly does not tempt man to sin (James one, verse 13). God wants all men to be saved (First Timothy two, verse four). Calvinism is an extreme doctrine to say the least. Now there’s much more to be said about this, and we do have recordings and resources on this topic, but in this lesson, I’m simply showing the different ways that men approach or try to resolve the problem of evil. And Calvinism is one of those approaches that is not consistent with the Bible.
A much older approach to the problem of evil, which is still present in some religions today, is that good and evil are both eternal. In other words, while atheism says the answer to the problem is that there’s no God and Christian Science says the solution is that there’s no evil, and then Calvinism says the answer is that there is no problem to begin with, this ancient view that we’re going to look at now says that there is no alternative. It says that evil never had a beginning. It has always been and always will be. Good and evil have always coexisted according to this belief. I say that this is an ancient belief because a Persian mystic named Zoroaster in the sixth or maybe the seventh century B.C (it’s really uncertain as to when he lived) but this man said that there has always been an evil god and a good God.
They are co-eternal, he claimed. Then there was a false prophet named Mani who lived a couple of hundred years after Jesus and the apostles. He also said that good and evil never had a beginning, and that evil as well as good was eternal. Now, this kind of belief is present in some religions today, but I’ve also heard Christians discuss the question as to whether the devil could possibly be eternal.
Is that possible? We often ask where the devil came from. I don’t have time to discuss this thoroughly, but let me say just a few words about Satan since he’s the one who started this whole thing called sin. The truth is that the Bible doesn’t say much about where Satan came from. The Bible does say that some of the angels sinned and were cast down to Tartarus in Second Peter 2:7. Then in Jude six we read that some of the angels did not keep their first estate, but left their own domain. And then in Matthew 25 41, Jesus talked about the devil and his angels. Now, if the devil has his angels, that doesn’t mean that he made them or created them. It simply means that he is the leader of those other sinful angels.
Some believe that the sin of these angels, including Satan, was pride. That’s based in part on First Timothy chapter three, verse six, where the Bible says that a bishop or elder in the church is not to be a novice, that is a newcomer to the faith, “lest he being lifted up with pride fall into the condemnation of the devil.”
The New King James Version says, lest he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Now, the translators of the New King James Version added the word “same” and put it in italics because they believed that pride was the original sin of Satan. And that may be true, but at the same time, that doesn’t mean by itself that Paul was talking about that here.
Verse seven goes on to warn about the reproach and snare of the devil. Well, that’s not the snare that he fell into. That’s the snare that he sets for us. So we really can’t make a direct and firm case on the word “same” in the New King James Version in that verse.
Now many go to the Old Testament, especially to Isaiah chapter 14, where God talks about the king of Babylon. And in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12, where the Bible calls this king Lucifer, that word in Hebrew simply means a day star or a morning star. The morning star is a symbol of light, though Satan is the prince of darkness. So it wouldn’t be fitting to refer to him as a morning star.
The truth is that the word Lucifer in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12, has nothing to do with Satan, although that is a very popular view. If you just read the context of Isaiah chapter 13 and 14, God is talking about Babylon in chapter 13. And He is talking specifically to and about the king of Babylon in chapter 14. That includes verse 12. He describes him in some ways that are to us very symbolic.
Another passage is Ezekiel chapter 28. Now again, the context is the key, and yet many people disregard the context. In Ezekiel chapters 26 through 28, God is talking to and about the city of Tyre. Tyre was a fabulously wealthy city In Old Testament times. God said that he would judge them though.
In Ezekiel chapter 28, God is talking to the Prince of Tyre, that is, the ruler of Tyre. And as He talks to him, it’s obvious that He is using highly symbolic language. He speaks with a note of irony, that is, what I would call godly sarcasm. In verse three, when He says that the prince of Tyre is wiser than Daniel, now He can’t mean that literally. The Prince of Tyre was an ungodly, foolish man, but God is as the Bible says in Proverbs 26 verse five “answering a fool according to his folly.” In the mind of the ruler of Tyre, he was wiser than Daniel or anyone else. Now, God then begins to tell the prince of Tyre that He is the One who gave the city the opportunity to acquire its wealth. Had it not been for the grace of God, the city of Tyre would never have attained the status that it had in the world. But the city was ungrateful. It abused its wealth. It became very prideful. So again, in very figurative language, which is common in the prophets of the Old Testament, God describes the sin of the ruler of Tyre. He said that this ruler had been in Eden, the Garden of God. Now, He’s not saying that literally. He’s saying that the blessings and the surroundings of the city of Tyre were, symbolically speaking, like the paradise of Genesis three. Not that all the conditions were the same. He’s using a symbolic illustration. It’s not any different than God’s saying in Isaiah chapter one, verse 10 that the Jews in Isaiah’s day had become like Sodom and Gomorrah (in a bad sense, of course).
God also said in Ezekiel chapter 28 that the Prince of Tyre was perfect from the day He created him until iniquity was found in him. Now, that may sound like Satan, but Satan is nowhere under discussion. God is simply saying that He provided the opportunity for Tyre to rise as a city to a level of prominence that it had, but their pride was about to bring them down.
Another passage is Luke chapter 10, verse 18, where Jesus said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” Many people think this refers to Jesus seeing Satan fall and being cast out of heaven, but that is not the context. The context is that Jesus gave 70 disciples power to cast out demons and heal the sick and do other miracles. If you go back and start reading in verse one, you’ll see that that’s the setting.
When the disciples came back, they rejoice that, as they said, “even the demons are subject to us through your name.” They were talking about the fact that they were able to cast out demons from people by the spirit of God. That’s when Jesus said that He was beholding Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
He’s talking about the fact that as the disciples cast out these demons that were under Satan’s power, Satan was losing his grip. He was losing his power and influence because these messengers, these demons of his, were being cast out of people. So He wasn’t talking about Satan himself falling. He’s talking about Satan’s workers or his messengers.
So this only leaves two possibilities about where the devil came from. Either he is eternal, like God, or God created him and at some point he sinned against God. What we read in the Bible points to the devil being a created being, an angel who rebelled against the Creator. It’s not consistent with the Bible to say that God created Satan as an evil being, that God made him sinful and made him to sin. That goes against everything that we see in the Scriptures about the nature of God and also the nature of free will in sin.
But is it possible that Satan has always existed? Could it be that he is eternal like God? The answer is no. If Satan were eternal, that would mean that he would be equal to God because he would not be dependent then upon God for his existence. He would be self existent. But if there’s one thing that we see from nature and the Bible, it is that everything outside of God owes its existence to Him. God is the only one who is eternal.
But there’s another problem with saying that Satan is eternal. This is like the old Zoroastrian and Manichean views of good and evil because this would mean that good and evil are co-eternal.
And that brings on another question. If good and evil are both eternal, then how would you ever know which one is good and which one is evil? Both are eternal according to that view. That would mean that there would have to be some standard of good and bad outside of this so-called eternal good and eternal evil so that we could know which one was good and which one was bad. Do you see the problems that emerge when you go down this path that we’re discussing?
Good has always existed because God has always existed, but evil did not and cannot come from God. That means that evil had to come from the beings that God created: first, some of the angels that sinned and second, mankind.
So some look at the problem of evil and say there is no God. Others say there is no evil. Still others say there is no problem. Then others say there is no other possible scenario.
But there’s another approach to this problem. It’s the idea that there is no hell. Some believe this alleviates some of the burden of trying to reconcile the suffering of this life with the power of God.
These people say that eternal punishment in hell is incompatible with the love of God. They say that if souls are in hell forever, then that means that they will always be evil souls and they will always be suffering. As a result, some preachers and some churches tell us that hell does not exist. Some people who say that there’s no hell believe that the souls of the wicked will be annihilated. They usually say that souls will be punished for a time, but that time will be limited and the suffering will come to an end.
Others believe that there is no such thing as hell at all, or they believe that even if some are punished in hell, God will eventually save everybody. In other words, they believe in universal salvation. They believe that everyone will be saved. Now, some of them even take that to the point of saying that the devil and his angels will eventually be redeemed.
Now, how is this an answer or a solution to the problem of evil? Well, it doesn’t remove the suffering of this life. It doesn’t explain why God made the world and allows man to sin, even if there is no hell and God is going to save everybody in heaven.
There is still a great amount of evil and suffering in this present time. Those who deny that there’s a hell admit this. What they’re saying is that if there’s no hell after this life and everybody goes to heaven, then all the pain and sin of this world will fade away into nothingness in eternity.
Now, there’s an element of truth in that comparison. Not that we have to deny eternal punishment to see it, but that when we compare heaven to all the suffering in this life, it will seem as nothing in heaven. Paul said “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans eight, verse 28). I
In fact, Paul said, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (Second Corinthians chapter four, verse 17). But it’s not necessary or Scriptural to deny hell in order to have this perspective.
Now this view is obviously contrary to what the Bible says. Jesus said that on the judgment day He will say to the lost “Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25, verse 46). That chapter ends with him saying, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.” Paul said that Jesus will come “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power” (Second Thessalonians one verses eight and nine).
Some people cringe at verses like these. They cannot imagine a God who is perfect in love punishing people in hell for all eternity. In fact, this is the more serious part of the problem of evil to them. Some of these people are atheists for this very reason in their thinking. It’s one of their strongest arguments against God. On the other hand, some of them are religious. They see the idea of a perfectly loving God and the doctrine of eternal torment in hell as being absolutely incompatible.
Being religious, they don’t want to give up the idea of God, so they reject the doctrine of eternal punishment. Now, the main problem with these religious people is that they define love the way that they want to define it. That’s the issue. When they say a loving God would never punish people in hell, they’re talking about a different kind of love than we see in the Bible.
In fact, they’re talking about a different kind of God. The Bible says that God is a God of justice, not just a God of mercy and love. Paul talks about the goodness and severity of God in Romans 11, verse 22. God is good, but He is also severe. He is just as good as He is severe, and He is just as severe as He is good.
Now, think of what it means to deny divine punishment after this life. If there is no hell, then that means that every Adolf Hitler or Jack the Ripper can lie, torture and murder innocent people and never be punished for it in this life, and then die like everybody else.
People who give up the idea of hell change the very concept of God himself. God is a just God, but He decides the proper punishment for sin. We do not, and we cannot say what that punishment ought to be. That’s why it is preposterous for mere human beings to tell God how He can and how He cannot punish sinners. We are all sinners ourselves in the sense that we have all sinned, and for that reason, we are poor judges to say the least of how sin ought to be punished.
So in the end, when people try to resolve the [00:25:00] problem of evil by denying what the Bible says about hell, they end up changing the definition of God himself.
But that brings us to another question about the nature of God. Did God know before He created the world, that man would sin and bring all this suffering into the world?
Could it be that God is perfect in power, perfect in love, but He did not foresee the evil in the world when He created it? Now, that is the answer that some people give to the problem of evil. They recognize God’s love and his power. They take evil and suffering in this life seriously, but they just say that God didn’t know this would happen.
Could this be true? No. The Bible shows that God knew before He ever created the world that man would sin, and He knew that He would send His son to die for our sins. In First Peter chapter one, verse 20, the Bible says that Jesus indeed was “foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” God knows the future. He always has and always will. Our feeble finite minds cannot comprehend this, but it’s foolish to deny what God has said just because we don’t understand it. We can’t comprehend the eternity of God either, but that is no reason to deny it.
There are other beliefs in Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism that try to lessen the problem of evil and suffering. Now, one of these views is pantheism, the belief that God is everything and everything is God. If that’s true, then there is nothing really evil. Evil is just an illusion. The world and everything in it is just a manifestation or an extension of deity. It’s tragic that hundreds of millions of people still believe this. The Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. (Genesis Chapter one, verse one). The Bible also warns against worshiping nature instead of worshiping the One who made it (Romans one, verse 25).
Then there is the idea also in these religions called reincarnation, the idea that the spirit or soul of a person comes back after death in another form or another body—a human being, an animal, or some other form. This is actually a cycle of rewards and punishments. If you do well, according to these religions, you will come back in a better form. If you do wrong, you will come back in a lower state. Now this cycle continues until a person climbs higher and higher and ultimately reaches the state of nirvana.
There is a lot of suffering in cultures who believe this, and its relationship to the problem of evil is that it lessens the problem of human suffering and evil because eventually people are said to reach the stage of nirvana. But this is nothing more than superstition. The story of the rich man in Lazarus in Luke Chapter 16 shows that departed spirits do not come back to the earth. Ecclesiastes nine verse five and six say that the dead do not see what we’re doing on the earth. They certainly don’t come back to it in another form. But again, I emphasize that one reason these beliefs began in the first place is because people were looking for some relief to the pain and suffering of this life.
Now, these are some of the theories, beliefs, and even superstitions that seek to somehow resolve this perplexing question that we’re looking at. There are also some practical, everyday selfish ways that people respond to the problem of evil.
For instance, we say that life is unfair, and that’s true. How do we feel about that and what do we do about it? Do we try to fix things or make things right? Well, obviously we should amend our bad ways. That’s the whole idea of repentance. But many people practice another kind of approach when life has been unfair to them. They tried to get even with life. Now we think of Cain in Genesis chapter four. He offered a sacrifice to God that the Lord didn’t approve of.
And what was his response? He was angry. He felt that it was unfair that God would accept his brother’s offering and reject his, so he got even and took vengeance by killing his own brother. Then when God told him about his punishment, Cain said that his punishment was greater than he could bear (Genesis four, verse 13). In other words, he’s telling God that this is not fair. Isn’t it amazing how a person’s view of justice changes from how he sees others to how he sees himself?
People try to get even with life in a lot of ways. If they grow up poor and have nothing, they think life owes them. They think they have the right to steal from other people. They think the government should give them entitlement not to have to work like other people. After all, they’ve been victims and it’s time to get even. Or it may be that they’re disadvantaged in some way. To put it in a better way, they see that others have things that they don’t have—money, intelligence, talent, or beauty—and their thought is that this is not fair.
Life is not fair, so they decide to set things right and get even. They live a life of envy and hate. They try to destroy people who are or who have things that they don’t by gossiping and even doing physical harm to the people they resent. Then others try to get even with life because of a disease or accident that robs them of a normal life. “It’s not fair for others to enjoy good health when I don’t,” they say to themselves, so they try to make others pay. They try to make others miserable.
And on a wider scale, communism is really no different. Marxism seeks to do away with social classes and put an end to class conflict. Now Communism calls for the abolition of the family. It calls for the abolition of private property. It teaches that there is no God, no soul, no heaven or hell, and by implication, no real standard of right and wrong. And yet Marxism makes the grandiose claim that by forcibly putting everyone on the same social level, the world will be a much better place.
How absurd and ungodly. The Bible teaches us to be happy for those who are blessed (Romans 12, verse 15). The Bible teaches us to be content with what we have. One of the most deceitful and destructive feelings in the world is envy, but one of the most powerful things in the world is the love that God shows us and teaches us to have for one another.
These are just a few of the ways not to respond to the problem of evil. Lord willing, in the weeks to come, we will look to God and let the Bible tell us how to think and feel about the problem of evil and suffering in the world.
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