These thoughts are formulated with the assurance of Thomas Warren’s book Have Atheists Proved There is No God?, which I have read three times, the few books I have read that many times.
Sin is the only “inherent” evil and it is defined as a violation of the two greatest commandments: to love God supremely and to serve our fellowman sacrificially (Matthew 22:37-38). The Bible also gives other definitions of sin and teaches that sin is universal among mankind: 1 John 3:4; Romans 3:19; 5:15.
So, evil is when men fail to do what God has commanded or they go beyond what God has commanded and do more than is lawful.
God also expects man to serve man. Matthew 7:12; Galatians 6:10; 1 John 3:17-18; Prov. 3:27-28. God expects man to live in a “filial” (“child”) relationship with Him and in a fraternal (“brotherly”) relationship with one another.
Men, of course, do what they ought not to do. That is, they sin. Look at Romans 1:28-32. Anything that God categorically condemns is therefore, inherently sinful. Now, some things are sinful based on their covenant. For example, multiple wives or divorce and remarriage for non-sexual reasons were allowed under the old law but not under the new. These matters are not inherently sinful but they are sinful based on the law under which mankind is living in relationship with God. Murder is not inherently sinful. Both under the old law and under the new law, your intentions, motivations, and proper authorities are taken into account before murder is considered sin against God.
Here is the problem… Theism accepts the conviction that both an all-powerful and an all-loving God exists and yet He allows evil to exist. Why?
First, based on the Bible’s description of the nature of God, God cannot / did not produce sin.
Second, God cannot promote sin.
Third, God can permit sin if He has a higher / holy purpose in allowing sin to exist. For example, God allowed Joseph’s brothers to sin against him in order to bring a greater good for the family of Jacob in the land of Egypt (Gen. 50:20).
A father will give the keys for the car to his teenage son. The greater good is to teach the son responsibility in learning to drive. But, in the process, the father accepts that some evil may also occur. He allows one for the greater good relative to the other.
God created man to reflect His nature so that man is a moral being (cf. Gen. 2:16; NASV, NRSV, KJV, NKJV, NIV all have “freely” or “free” eat; last words in the Hebrew text). That means man makes moral decisions. Moral decisions can either be consistent with the laws of God or inconsistent with the laws of God.
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Adam’s choice (indeed, all our choices) are self-determined. No one forced Adam to make the choice he made. Adam was free to either obey God, out of love, and not eat the forbidden fruit or he could have chosen to disobey God, out of misdirected love, and eat of the forbidden fruit, which he did. It is clear, then, that Adam’s choice was not inevitable. In other words, Adam could have chosen not to sin. If we look at Gen. 2:17, God tells Adam he “shall not” eat of it, implying the exercise of Adam’s will. That choice by Adam brought moral choices into the world and sin with them (Romans 5:12).
Since “love is as strong as death,” (Song of Solomon 8:6), it is possible for someone to express love in a way that violates the filial (“child-like”) relationship with God and fraternal (“brotherly”) relationship with man and cause death. To put it another way, someone could – since love is as strong as death – love himself more than the other person (a violation of Matthew 22:38) and rape that person and even kill that person. That is love for himself, his own passions and desires more than love for the other person. If a person can love someone enough to die for that person, it is equally possible for someone to love in a sinful manner so that he, instead, kills that person. It is then violation of God’s will.
God, thus, could not have created a moral being and then created an environment in which that moral being could not exercise that morality! Once God chose to create a moral being, He also knew He would have to provide a plan for that moral being, once he or she sinned, to be forgiven of that sin.
To put it simply:
God is all-loving and wants to defeat evil.
God is all-powerful and can defeat evil.
Evil, obviously, is not yet defeated.
Therefore, evil will yet be defeated in the future. Read Revelation 20.
I pray these thoughts are helpful to you in your faith. God loves man. Jesus died for man. Because God wants man in heaven. You and I need to love God supremely and serve our fellow man sacrificially.
Paul Holland
