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God’s Purpose in
Permitting Evil By Massimo Lorenzini For ages man has been perplexed over the existence of evil. Philosophers and theologians have agonized to understand why God would allow evil to exist. Is evil something that God has no control over and is just trying to make the best of a fallen world? Or, does evil somehow fit into God’s overall purpose for creation? This study is an attempt to answer the question of why does God permit evil? And, what difference should this make in my life? According to Scripture, we currently live in a world characterized by evil. 3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen (Gal 1:3-5, emphasis added).[1] But God is allowing evil to run its course for His own good and holy purposes. 11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory (Eph 1:11-12, emphasis added). Divine Decrees God’s purpose in history is described as His “decree.” Louis Berkhof, in his Manual of Christian Doctrine, defined God’s decree this way: “The decree of God is His eternal plan or purpose, in which He has foreordained all things that come to pass.” The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 7, defines the decree of God similarly: “The decrees of God are, His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby, for His own glory, He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.” The Westminster Confession of Faith (ch. 3:1) explains a bit further about God’s decree saying: God from all eternity did by the most and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. The Westminster Standards carefully assert that God is not the author of sin. The origin of sin was neither in God, nor from His decree in any productive or efficient way. God simply permits sin and at the same time bounds and controls it for His wise and holy ends, even though these ends are inscrutable to men. Similarly, the free agency of the creature is not violated by the purpose of God. Men are free agents and the will of any man is not subject to any sort of coercion by the Creator, even though the acts of men as free agents, fully foreknown by God, can and do accomplish God’s purpose and are therefore certain. The reality of second causes, with their dependent efficiency, is not destroyed, but rather established by the eternal purpose. The reason for this is that God’s plan includes means and ends in their relation to each other, so that both are alike related to the divine decree, and the result shall surely come to pass. So God has a purpose in history and that purpose is designed to inspire worship and praise. Even the reality of evil, though God hates it in itself, serves the ultimate purpose of glorifying God. 11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory (Eph 1:11-12, emphasis added). God rules over all events in history, including evil, for our good and His glory. John Piper says that God is not like a firefighter who gets calls to show up at calamities when the damage is already happening. He is more like the surgeon who plans the cutting he must do and plans it for good purposes. God rules over the beginning of our troubles as well as their end. But to believe this takes genuine trust in God’s power and goodness. It forces one to come to grips with the Creator/creature distinction. The apostle Paul helps us to realize our place in God’s universe: 14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth." 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. 19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?" 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? 22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (Romans 9:14-24). Why has God decreed the entrance of sin and evil? According to Paul, God has a double purpose: First, to reveal His wrath against sin; second, to reveal the wealth of His grace as He saves “vessels of mercy.” What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory (Rom 9:22-23). More of God is known by the entrance of sin and how He deals with it than would have been possible without the entrance of sin. We must come to accept the fact that God always acts in His own interest. God is the most God-centered person in the universe. Everything He does in history is to magnify and display His glory. You and I exist for God’s purposes, not for ourselves. Fallen man loves to question God. In Romans 9, Paul gives a stern rebuke to those who do so. In this evil age, men give no thought to their creaturely status and their just condemnation before God. They arrogantly question God’s right to ordain events and to judge. This kind of back-talk by the creature to his Creator is as absurd as a clay pot arguing with the potter. God has absolute sovereignty over His works. He answers to no one. The unbeliever falsely calls this fatalism. Such a charge displays one’s ignorance. For man’s acts are free acts. Men act out of who and what they are. Men are not robots. God does not compel or coerce them against their desires. Every choice man makes is a free choice (of course, one that is limited by his nature and therefore, fallen man cannot freely choose righteouness apart from the new birth). The universe was made for God. He filled it with angelic beings to be an audience to His work in history. The angels are witness to all of God’s activity in the creation, fall, and redemption of man. Each stage in God’s redemptive plan is part of this “grand demonstration.” The salvation of God’s elect astonishes the angels.
10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12 To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven--things which angels desire to look into (1 Pet 1:10-12, emphasis added). This presents a very humbling view of man’s significance. Man exists for God’s glory and pleasure. God is making His wisdom known to the angelic hosts through His redemptive work with the church.
8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph 3:8-11, emphasis added). It seems, from this passage of Scripture, that God has a point to make to the angels and this lesson is an additional feature of God's plan to manifest and magnify His glory.
God’s
Three “Wills” 1. Preceptive will (Revealed will) Conditional purpose with pleasure, sometimes broken. Related to man’s responsibility. "Preceptive" has to do with God's precepts or commands and instructions directed to His creatures (man) and the fulfillment of which is conditioned upon man's obedience. This is sometimes referred to as God's "will of command." We see in Scripture that it is sometimes possible that God’s will is not accomplished. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him (Luke 7:30). This is easily seen in the fact that God’s commands, such as the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:1-17) are consistently violated. Is this God’s only will? If so, we would be faced with the following problems: 1. God could not predict the future. A parent gives commands or responsibilities to his or her children, but can a parent infallibly predict what course of action the child will take? No. The government can create laws, but can public officials know how the citizens will react to them? No. So, if God only had a preceptive will, then he would not be able to determine and foreknow the future. 2. Any redemptive plan of God could possibly fail. If God’s only activity in the universe was to instruct men of their duty, without willing to accomplish any definite result, His government might fall into chaos and collapse. It would be possible that God’s will could be thwarted in every case and He would not be able to control His creation. 3. Righteous people would live in uncertainty, fear, and doubt because evil might eventually triumph. They would be serving a God who either could not or would not ensure a victorious outcome in history. 2. Decretive will (Sovereign or Secret will) (efficient vs.
permissive) Unconditional purpose with pleasure, never broken. God has determined the ultimate outcome. God's decretive will has to do with His "decrees" or direct ordering of certain events in time. This is not conditioned upon man's obedience since God's decree has to do with things that shall infallibly come to pass because God directly wills it into being. Again, Louis Berkhof's definition of God's decree is helpful at this point: “The decree of God is His eternal plan or purpose, in which He has foreordained all things that come to pass.” This aspect of God’s will is to be distinguished from His “permissive will” in which He permits sinful men to do evil acts. God’s decretive will can be described as His “efficient” will, that is to say, His willing something to be directly puts it into effect. God may decree evils acts, like the crucifixion of Christ, even though He is not directly effecting the act, but rather permitting sinful men to accomplish it (see Acts 2:22-23; 4:27-28). But even this is can fall under God’s decretive will. See the following for Scriptural support: Isa 14:24-27; Dan 4:35; Luke 1:37; Eph 3:11; Eph 1:10. Examples of God’s decretive will are: Creation, inspiration of the Bible, the work of Christ (incarnation, atonement, second coming), salvation (election, regeneration, preservation), future conversion of Israel (Zech 12:10-11; Rom 11). 3. Permissive will Conditional purpose with displeasure; allowing evil and sin. See Ps 81:12; Acts 14:16; Rom 1:24. God is utterly holy and cannot even look upon sin (Hab 1:13). God tempts no man (Jas 1:13). At times, God chooses not to interfere with the sinful intentions of His creatures. Evil is the absence or perversion of good. So all that is needed for evil to occur is for God to withdraw from the sinner and permit it to come to pass (God’s judgment upon the unrepentant Gentiles is His “giving them over” to their sinfulness in Rom 1). God is never the active agent in evil. To ascribe such to God is blasphemy. An analogy: The sun brings light and warmth by its essential nature. Darkness and cold exist only in the absence of the sun. So too, God is the source of all goodness and beauty. Evil exists only in the absence of God’s direct influence. The objective of God’s will (preceptive, decretive, permissive) is the manifestation of His glory (the beauty of His divine perfections). All history is moving to this end:
For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea (Hab 2:14; cf. Isa 11:9). Providence Providence is the term used to describe the outworking in history of the three wills of God. Providence is the capital of the state of Rhode Island. In 1636 Roger Williams, banished from Boston by the Massachusetts Bay Company because of his religious and political beliefs, established Providence as a haven for those who shared his religious liberty. In 1636 he purchased land from the Narragansett Indians. Together with a few companions he established the settlement of Providence and the colony of Rhode Island, naming the settlement in gratitude “for God's merciful providence unto me in my distress.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines providence as:
Reformed Theologian Louis Berkhof defined providence as: “that work of God by which He preserves all His creatures, is active in all that transpires in the world, and directs all things to their appointed end.” He further explained that this definition indicates that there are three elements in divine providence, namely, preservation, concurrence or cooperation, and government. The first has reference primarily to being, the second to activity, and the third to the guidance of all things. Practical
Concerns 1. The relation of God’s foreknowledge and purpose. Foreknowledge is not to be equated with mere foresight. Rather, God’s foreknowledge of events is based on His pre-determination and is designed with a view to His eternal purpose to display the fullness of His glory. 2. God’s will and secondary means or causes. All God’s plans include secondary causes and the free choices of men. God planned to destroy the island city of Tyre (Ezek 26), but He used the army of Alexander the Great to accomplish it. 3. The use and abuse of predestination. God’s sovereign control over all the events of history should comfort the people of God. But it should never be used as an excuse to neglect our duties before God. The truth of divine sovereignty should be kept in balance with the biblical truth of human responsibility (see John 6:37; Acts 2:22-23; 4:27-28). The doctrine of God’s decree is no excuse for anyone to not believe the gospel on the basis that God has predetermined all things. 4. What about free will? We don’t have absolute freedom, we have relative freedom. Our wills are limited by our sin nature, our upbringing, our circumstances, our mental/physical states, other people, demonic spirits, and God Himself. 5. Is God the author of Sin? As concerns sin, God is not the author of sin, He is the author of relatively free, moral beings who are themselves the authors of sin. God is not efficiently the cause of sin, but permits it for His good and holy purposes. 5. We must humbly believe this doctrine. We are not to reason apart from Scripture and concoct false views of God. We must hold the doctrines of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility in balance. 6. We should give our attention to God’s preceptive will rather than what He has secretly decreed. What He has decreed is His concern, what He commands and promises us is our concern (Deut 29:29). 7. We can have confidence that God is guiding all of the affairs of the world and even the details of our own life for His glory and our good. God is always on His throne and He allows everything that happens because He loves us and wants to make us find the greatest pleasure that can be had. Why
Then Does God Permit Evil? God permits evil but it is not because he delights in evil as evil. Rather, in the words of Jonathan Edwards, He “wills that evil come to pass . . . that good may come of it.” What good? And how does the existence of evil serve this good end? Here is Jonathan Edwards’ stunning answer: It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God's glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . . Thus it is necessary, that God's awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all. If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God's holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God's grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . . So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.[2] God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. If God obliterated Satan, demons, and sin from the universe right now, His sheer power would be seen as glorious, but His superior beauty and worth would not shine so brightly as when God’s people renounce the empty promises of Satan and sin, and instead trust in Christ’s promises. God is more glorified when His people take pleasure in the greater glory of Jesus over Satan and sin. This means that our treasuring Christ above all the promises of sin and Satan is part of the triumph that God designs for this age. This doesn’t mean it won’t be costly. To truly delight in Christ and share His love with this fallen world will entail suffering on our part. But when we willingly endure suffering for the glory of Christ, He is seen as even more glorious. One of the greatest blows against the power of darkness comes from the blood of the martyrs: And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death (Rev 12:11). Conclusion So when you experience suffering, how does God want you to view it? We are appointed to suffering for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom in the world. God intends to present the afflictions of Christ to the world through the afflictions of His people. John Piper wrote, “In the pursuit of joy through suffering, we magnify the all-satisfying worth of the Source of our joy.”[3] In other words, when we continue to seek first the kingdom of God because of the joy to be gained in doing so, even at the expense of personal suffering, we demonstrate that God is infinitely desirable and worthy of our relentless allegiance. This is so because what we gain in Him is immeasurably beyond comparison any personal sacrifice we suffer as a result. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor 4:17). It is a true statement: Only
one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last. What should be the focus of our lives here on earth? The apostle Paul gives us a proper perspective: 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed-- 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." 55 "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord (1 Cor 15:51-58).
[1] All Scripture taken from the New King James Version. [2] Jonathan Edwards, “Concerning the Divine Decrees,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), p. 528 [3] John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah Books, 1996), 238. I encourage the reader to see Piper’s chapter on suffering in Desiring God for further explanation. Note, this chapter is not in the first edition of 1986. Go to Part 3 Sizing Up the Enemy: What the Bible Teaches about Satan
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