God, Sovereignty, and Evil
July 14th, 2008
(By John MacArthur)
If God is sovereign, is He responsible for evil?
No. Scripture says that when God finished His creation, He saw everything and declared it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Many Scriptures affirm that God is not the author of evil: “God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone” (James 1:13). “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). “God is not the author of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33)–and if that is true, He cannot in any way be the author of evil.
Occasionally someone will quote Isaiah 45:7 (KJV) and claim it proves God made evil as a part of His creation: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things” (emphasis added).
But the New American Standard Bible gives the sense of Isaiah 45:6-7 more clearly: “There is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.” In other words, God devises calamity as a judgment for the wicked. But in no sense is He the author of evil.
Evil originates not from God but from the fallen creature. I agree with John Calvin, who wrote,
. . . the Lord had declared that “everything that he had made . . . was exceedingly good” [Gen. 1:31]. Whence, then comes this wickedness to man, that he should fall away from his God? Lest we should think it comes from creation, God had put His stamp of approval on what had come forth from himself. By his own evil intention, then, man corrupted the pure nature he had received from the Lord; and by his fall drew all his posterity with him into destruction. Accordingly, we should contemplate the evident cause of condemnation in the corrupt nature of humanity–which is closer to us–rather than seek a hidden and utterly incomprehensible cause in God’s predestination. [Institutes, 3:23:8]
It is helpful, I think, to understand that sin is not itself a thing created. Sin is neither substance, being, spirit, nor matter. So it is technically not proper to think of sin as something that was created. Sin is simply a lack of moral perfection in a fallen creature. Fallen creatures themselves bear full responsibility for their sin. And all evil in the universe emanates from the sins of fallen creatures.
For example, Romans 5:12 says that death entered the world because of sin. Death, pain, disease, stress, exhaustion, calamity, and all the bad things that happen came as a result of the entrance of sin into the universe (see Genesis 3:14-24). All those evil effects of sin continue to work in the world and will be with us as long as sin is.
First Corinthians 10:13 promises us that God will not permit a greater trial than we can bear. And James 1:13 tells us that God will not tempt us with evil.
God is certainly sovereign over evil. There’s a sense in which it is proper even to say that evil is part of His eternal decree. He planned for it. It did not take Him by surprise. It is not an interruption of His eternal plan. He declared the end from the beginning, and He is still working all things for His good pleasure (Isaiah 46:9-10).
But God’s role with regard to evil is never as its author. He simply permits evil agents to work, then overrules evil for His own wise and holy ends. Ultimately He is able to make all things–including all the fruits of all the evil of all time–work together for a greater good (Romans 8:28).
i agree with much of this, but i would like to see some more depth. it’s quite easy to throw a few scripture verses out there in order to prove a point, but the problem of evil is profound and not so easily answered in this way. to say something like, “But God’s role with regard to evil is never as its author. He simply permits evil agents to work, then overrules evil for His own wise and holy ends” is also standard and simply stated, but, what would your response be to those who wonder about God’s plan for the Holocaust or genocide in any other form in general(Darfur, Burma, etc.)? Do you believe this to be something God simply allows so that his good purposes can be shown, or is it a part of the plan from the beginning? To be honest, neither of these answers would fully jive with the entirety of God’s Plan that we find in the Bible. The answer is incomplete and leaves much room for questioning.
I know these are common questions, but I don’t think it is wise to dismiss them with a few scripture verses. Thank you for your time and I appreciate your willingness to seek answers for the difficult questions that society seeks. Whether I agree or not, I appreciate your desire to stay true to scripture.
That was excellent and thank you. Now if we could just get the world to understand this. Its amazing how God gets the bad rap for everything. One time someone at work had gone into the ditch with the car and then said, ‘Well God must be mad at me’. I said, ‘So, you believe there is God? Then do you believe there is Satan’? The person said yes. To which I said, ‘Then lets think about who the good guy and who the bad guy is here and re-evaluate’. The person said, ‘oh I never thought of it that way before’.
Nice post.
I remember when I first struggled with this question. Interestingly enough, the more I studied the more I realized evil is not a problem for God’s existence, but may even be an evidence for it.
P and L I hope you’re not saying what the Charismatic types say, which is that if anything bad happens, it’s the devil doing it. in scripture, even when Satan IS doing something, he’s getting the OK from God
i’m sorry david m, but that is simply not true. in the Job narrative, your comment certainly applies, but you don’t really find this thinking throughout the New Testament.
if what you are saying is true, than the possibility that God “okays” atrocities prior to their happening would make God partially responsible for them. it’s like God being the editor of a paper that Satan wrote. he couldn’t publish it until God gave it the approval. this is not sound Biblical interpretation.
Dave, Your second comment leaves me a little confused. Are you saying that God does not personally allow everything (personally sign off on, if I can use that phrase for the sake of clarity), bad (death of a child, divorce, illness, or the type of events that happen to Job), that happens in my life or that of any of His elect?
First, charismatic, and word of faith, are two different things here. All I was saying David M is that people tend to blame God for everything when most of the time, it was their own neglagence. Everyone is at fault but them. Thats what I meant. They don’t want to take any responsibility for their own actions.
Dave…
With all due respect, I believe David M was exactly correct. God is sovereign over all things. Nothing can happen without God’s knowledge and permission. That He gives His permission does not mean that He approves of it in the moral sense, but simply that He is not willing to step in to prevent it from happening. As God, He is totally sovereign over all things, and nothing escapes Him, nothing catches Him by surprise, and nothing is beyond His power to prevent, alter, or commence. That is what Omnipotence and Omniscience mean.
That’s a good clarification, P&L. Every man is tempted when he’s carried away by his own lusts, and so shouldn’t say that God is tempting him.
I think the issue of theodicy is rightly addressed from the vantage point of God’s sovereignty: His utter and unfettered capability and pleasure to carry out everything according to His own will. One must first understand what God wants before he understands what God does, and how those things that come to pass are in accordance with His will.
Full disclosure: God’s will — His eternal and ultimate purpose — is to bring the utmost glory to Himself. Therefore, everything that happens is decreed as a means to that single end. In the mystery of God’s wisdom, He understood that displaying Himself to the fullest (thereby sealing His greatest glory and the creature’s greatest good) meant ordaining evil.
My small group and I are studying Jonathan Edwards’ The End for Which God Created the World. It is a marvelous (and brief!) book in which Edwards discusses God’s chief end (i.e., highest ultimate end) in all that He does. It is a wonderful treatment of the subject — as he uses reason to answer those who object to the rationality of his claim — as well as Scripture to answer those who object to the Biblical soundness of his claim.
Other helpful resources can be found here and here.
P and L, no doubt, no doubt!
Dave, well, I don’t know… God always knows what horrors will transpire (such as in the Hazael incident 2ki 8:12)…He doesn’t stop them. Ergo, He is complicit to some extent. Permissive will and all. God isn’t the editor of Satan’s paper, I tend to think of Satan as God’s weedwacker. His evils ultimately serve God’s purpose.
Let me put John’s argument in human terms using a human example. In George Orwell’s book 1984, Big Brother is an evil character. He represents all the bad about government and society. He spies on everybody, makes up horrible laws, and makes people disappear for the smallest reasons. His character is so vile that we use it to describe many evils in our own world.
But it’s funny how none of us (and I’ve never heard it my whole life) ever blame George Orwell for any of it. Yet he’s the author. Odd how we make exceptions to our own ways of thinking just for God.
Putting words to paper and breathing the breath of life into someone are not anywhere equivalent. Orwell wrote a book – the story was fiction – it never happened. Evil is real – it actually happens. No, it is not odd that we never blame George Orwell for Big Brother. Big Brother never actually existed. Evil does exist. God is credited as the creator of all things. Therefore, it is reasonable to question whether God created evil, or at least whether God is responsible for evil – since He could prevent it, being all-powerful.
Help, please. From MacArthur’s writing, at the top:
Evil originates not from God but from the fallen creature. I agree with John Calvin, who wrote,
. . . the Lord had declared that “everything that he had made
. . . was exceedingly good” [Gen. 1:31]. Whence, then comes this
wickedness to man, that he should fall away from his God? Lest
we should think it comes from creation, God had put His stamp of
approval on what had come forth from himself. By his own evil
intention, then, man corrupted the pure nature he had
received from the Lord; …
From where does this evil intention come? Did Adam make himself? Or did God? Is Adam responsible for the attributes he possesses, or is God, his Maker? Evil is not a thing, like a rock; it is an intention. And it is evil whether the intention gets carried out as behavior or not (Man looks on the outside – behavior; God looks on the heart – intention). Evil is an intention. Adam was obviously created with the ability to have that intention. Unless Adam had the ability to add something to himself that God did not place there.
Adam was created with the ability to have an intention to do evil (and still God called it good). Could God have made Adam without the ability to intend evil? I think the answer is yes. The fact is, God did make mankind with the ability to intend evil. Most folks understand that evil originates in man, not God. To argue that evil does not come from God is to completely subvert the point. The point is whether God could have created a world in which evil could not and did not exist. If God can do anything He wants to do, then the answer to that question has to be yes. And because reasonable people understand that the answer has to be yes, they cringe when people try to argue that God is not responsible for the existance of evil in this world. If God can do anything He wants to, then He could have made a world in which evil could not and did not exist. If He wanted to. Obviously, God did not want to. Why? That question why is where the discussion about evil should actually take place. What does God get out of allowing evil to exist? And to their credit, some of the posters above make an effort to answer that question.
hi skip,
i appreciate your explanation, but there are some glaring problems with it from a theological (and philosophical) standpoint. i hate when people write a book in comment sections, so i won’t do that, but i would suggest that you read some of the passages that you believe support your view a little more carefully.
what it comes down to is that we can never know why things happen the way they do, whether it be the result of Satan’s work or humanity’s sinfulness (this is a message found in Job), but whatever happens, we know that God will work whatever possible good can come OUT of a situation. He does not use evil to work good purposes. God, in his soveriengty, creates good out of evil.
Evil is all relative (in a sense). What may seem evil to us, may not be “evil” to God in that sense. Can we fully comprehend his purposes and Will?
Let’s not forget God ordered complete annihilation of entire peoples! Today, we call that genocide. Yes, God ordered genocide. Do we call that “evil”?
jr,
That’s a great point. We need to remember that people doing bad things to people is sin. Why? Because that’s God’s perogative not ours.
When Paul says “Shall the clay say to the potter,’ What have you done?’?” That’s his exact point. It would be sin for me to kill you, but not for God, he made you, he can do what he wants with you.
Let’s not impute sin for humans to God. (A good, earthy, example is this, where it is wrong for kids to eat in the living room does that mean it’s also wrong for the parents? Hardly)
To look at the problem of evil is it fair to, for the sake of discussion, equate evil in terms of being good, humanly speaking? If so to answer this one must properly understand what is meant by the word good in terms of the action that is being looked at. The first use of “good” in Scripture is Gen 1:4 and according to Strong’s is use “in the widest sense possible” and it is also the same word ascribed to the tree of knowledge by Eve in Gen 3. So we must ask, is it 1 “reaching or conforming to God’s perfect standard,” or is it 2 “fit for the purpose designed?”
It is easy to achieve good in the sight of most men for the standard is subjective and ever changing. However, it is another matter to be good in the sight of God which is unchanging and objective i.e. it is conforming or not. The Scriptures declare that none “do good” and our best efforts are “filthy rags” (Ps 14: 1-3; Isa 64:6 Rom 3:10-12). We must however, allow for the good that men do as a result of being regenerated but even this, it must be remembered, is a work of the Holy Spirit and not of the individual (Gal 5:22 [as opposed to Gal 5:19]; Eph 5:9).
So this leaves us with the second position “fit for the purpose designed.” If we understand that from (before) the foundation of the world, Christ was slain (Rev 13:8) then the fall of Adam must have been good. Again not in terms of God’s perfect standard but in that it fit His purposes. Likewise, Judas’s betrayal of Jesus was good in that it was the catalyst for the crucifixion leading to the salvation of the world, generally speaking. But neither Adam nor Judas will stand before God and proclaim what a wonderful work they preformed not because they in performing sinful acts did not further God’s plan, which was good; but because they did not rise to God’s perfect standard.
Job offers another example in that Satan in whom there is no “good (1),” did “good (2)” in performing exactly God’s plan for Job which brought to the surface Job’s pride before God. Yet, Satan will not be able to say to God “I just did what You wanted” for his intent was evil from the beginning, yet God’s purpose was fulfilled.
It is a question of sovereignty, the will of God will always be accomplished making His methods and the actions of those He uses good (2), and yet He holds accountable those who defy His perfect standard (1). That God performs His sovereign will through the suburbanite will of others seems clear, for to say otherwise makes Him impotent or makes Him an unjust tyrant in that He holds accountable those who violate 1 when they had no choice in performing 2.
We are left with a thorny question at the end of the day however, that is, if God ordained some to disobey Him does that not excuse them from the penalty of that disobedience? To this question, we must give a resounding NO! Dr. D. James Kennedy provides an excellent summation on God’s divinely decreeing and man’s free will choices in terms of salvation by stating (paraphrase), “God has divinely elected man to salvation [and others not] in such a way as to allow for the exercise of their free will thereby rendering each accountable for their own choice in spite of God’s having elected them or not.”
Dave…
I hope we are dealing with semantics, here, but I fear it is more than that. What I am saying is that God is entirely sovereign in all that He created. He can do anything He wants to do, whenever he wants, for whatever reason He wants — and anything He does will by definition be perfect, totally untainted by evil.
Evil comes from the intent of the heart of fallen men. God can allow their evil to be done or He can choose to prevent it from happening — there are Scriptural examples of both. The bottom line is that nothing can happen, no evil can occur, without the permission of the Sovereign God of the Universe.
God can use the evil deeds and plans of both men and even Satan himself for good according to His purposes — Joseph said it best when he said to his brothers “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” it is the same idea that Paul speaks of in Romans 8:28 — “We know that God works all things to the good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
God never in any way instigates evil — that would be against His character. It is always the individual who conceives the evil even though God can use it for His own purposes. The most extreme example of that is the most evil deed in history — the murder of Christ on the cross. Judas and the Pharisees and all the others involved all meant it for evil, but God, as an act of His own sovereignty, turned that evil into the most important event in history — the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus. All those who killed Him are eternally guilty of their sin, and it was Satan, not God, who put that evil in their hearts. But God used their evil to bring about the basis of our salvation, and made it available to all of us. Out of their evil came the most utterly good event in the history of the universe, all due to the power of God and our Lord Jesus.
By the way, calamitous events, like earthquakes, floods, tidal waves, etc., are in and of themselves, amoral — neither good nor evil. We have to always remember that they are a direct result of the fall and sin, but also remember that God, in His sovereignty, can use such events as an instrument of His Wrath. Again, they can never occur without His permission, and unlike Evil, God sometimes (not always) causes calamities Himself.
hi skip,
i can now officially confirm that most of this was semantics. while i definitely do not see the world through a Calvinist lens, i can say that we mostly agree on this issue.
there are some disagreements, but this is not the place.
thanks for clarifying.
Dave…
Glad to hear it. It can be difficult to explain doctrine while keeping the post short enough. The end result of being more thorough, though, is that God is Glorified and His Sovereignty affirmed.
My the Lord bless you.
Skip said: All those who killed Him are eternally guilty of their sin …
Maybe just semantics again???
Does guilt linger after forgiveness has been granted? Didn’t Jesus say from the Cross Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.? (Luke 23:34) Wasn’t He referring to “all those who killed Him” in that plea for forgiveness?
Richard…
Good question, and one which I had not really thought about before, even though I have read the familiar quote from Luke many times.
Jesus almost certainly did not ask the Father to “forgive” them in the sense of Salvation, for that always is by grace through faith, and also because salvation is always a personal experience between an individual and God, not a group event. So what was Jesus asking the Father to do??
It is clear by the testimony of Jesus that Judas was not forgiven, and of course he knew (or should have known) exactly what he was doing. The same should be true of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes who had the testimony of both Jesus Himself (authenticated by His miracles), and the Scriptures to guide them, so they should have known also. I have always assumed that Jesus was speaking of the Roman soldiers and perhaps the average “Jew in the street” who switched from laying down palm fronds one day and screamed “crucify Him” on the next.
The statement is certainly a fulfillment of both His command to “Love your enemy” and of the prophesy in Isaiah 53 saying that He would “make intercession for the transgressors,” but other than the above, little else comes to mind — I would like to hear more ideas on that one.
“Two extremes are to he avoided. First, that of defect, when an otiose permission of sin is ascribed to God. Second, that of excess, when the causality of sin is ascribed to him. Between these extremes, the orthodox hold the mean, who contend that the providence of God extends to sin in such way that he does not involuntarily permit it, as the Pelagians say, nor actively cause it as the Libertines assert, but voluntarily ordains and controls it”. — (Taken from Colin Maxwell’s “HOW CAN GOD ORDAIN SIN AND YET NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR IT?”–Turretin (V1. vii. i)
dave, I believe that God did permissively will some things from His eternal decree before the foundations of the world, making them sure, not because of foresight, but because He is all knowing. And this is in hamony with scripture.
I agree with the OP. In short…”A house divided against itself cannot stand”
Dave
Re. Skip’s response at July 17 above: this is intended as a gentle drawing out of the issue, not as gist for an argument. I also understand that this is a slight deviation away from the topic of this thread.
First question: Was salvation ever a corporate/group affair while the Jews were subject to the law? I’ve seen debates on these boards where some propose that the answer to this is “yes”. This comes up in discussions of salvation where the answer to “what must I do to be saved” is “believe and be baptized and you shall be saved, and your household.” This sequence has been used on these boards to support the notion that infants (and children?) are saved by the belief of a parent. To me, this is group, or corporate salvation – if this interpretation is correct. I realize that these statements were spoken in the Bible after Jesus was crucified, but they were spoken by Jews accustomed to thinking in terms of the rules of the Temple for salvation.
Next question: At what point did the Law and the rules of the Temple cease to be controlling? That is, at what point did the Pauline view of salvation take over from the Jewish view of salvation? I’ve always been taught that this happened at the moment the Veil in the Temple was torn from top to bottom. If this is correct, then Jesus was saying “Father, forgive them …” as a fully Jewish christian, under control of the rules of the Temple – not as a Pauline christian. He hadn’t died yet, and the veil had not yet been torn in the Temple.
Does that trigger any thoughts?
In my post above, I mean to constrast the mechanics of getting and being saved before the last grand sacrifice for all was made and the mechanics of getting and being saved after that sacrifice was made. One of the differences is that we are free to approach God without going through the priest, which is something the pre-sacrifice Jew could not do. What other differences can we point to? Does the fact that Jesus said “Father, forgive them …” as a Jew bound by the rules of the Temple help us understand what He meant and to whom the requested forgiveness was meant to apply?
The mystery of iniquity cannot be resolved by the finite, fallen man. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of His law.” (Deut.29:29). God taught Job that sufferings, calamities, and evil are not based on WHY? but on WHO? Job’s confession of God’s sovereignty in Job 42:1-6 says it all, Then Job answered the Lord and said, “I know that You can do all things and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Hear now and I will speak, I will ask You and You instruct me. I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; BUT now my eyes sees You; Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.”
Gentlemen,
I’m sorry my comments are a bit late, unfortunately I am a new reader of these articles.
It is my understanding of Jesus’ comment on the cross, “Father, forgive them…, that it was a prayer to the Father and not an exercise of His sovereign power and will to forgive, (and might I add, a great example of how we should pray to those who have sinned against us). The actual forgiveness however, did not come until Pentecost and only to those “elect” who repented and received the gift of Faith and the Grace of our Sovereign God.
I am therefore in full support of Dr. MacArthur’s article and like always, highly respect his teaching and understanding of the Scriptures.
Respectfully,
Joe