The Purpose of Death - Part 4 - The Problem of Evil

We have previously seen that God has a fuller purpose in death than just the judgment of sin. We have also seen that YEC and OEC are really not that far off in their models. We move now to the problem of evil. When reading this section of CAT – we can not help but see the authors trying to make a link between death and evil.

Why did God send physical death to the world He gave Adam to rule? Many people are frightened of death. Most non-Christians look at the suffering and death in our world and conclude that God must not really be good or loving or even all-powerful. Why would God create a world filled with suffering and death? (CAT-19)

We see here a hint of equating death and evil in the first phrase of the section,

“Why did God send physical death to the world…?" We pause here in agreement with the CAT authors. They basically recognize correctly that God was the cause. We are going to differ on the question of WHEN God sent or allowed physical death, but let’s start from the point of agreement - God is the ultimate cause.

Then we have the language of "many people are frightened by death" and the classical non-Christian objection to a good, loving, all-powerful God. In this we see the continued equating that death is a bad thing (evil). By equating death and evil – what we really find here is just a modified version of the classic question of a good God and His relation to suffering, evil, and death. The reconciling of these two entities (God/evil) is called THEODICY in theological terms.

Epicurus (341BC to 270BC see picture above) is generally credited with being the first to lay out the problem of evil. (see here for more information) His riddle is thus:

If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to then He is not omnipotent.
If He is able, but not willing then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and willing then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor willing then why call Him God?

Atheists think that this is a compelling argument. They fail to see that they have borrowed from the Christian worldview to even account for the dilemma. This is because atheism can not account for morality or the laws of logic – yet this dilemma assumes the evil is something that can be quantified. Without morality you can not define what is evil. This is a subject for another time – that is presuppositional apologetics and the argument of the absurdity of the contrary.[1]
However, ignoring this for now – atheists often try to stump the Christian with the problem of evil, and to the unlearned Christian, it can often be a stumper. There are valid responses to this dilemma – some better than others. The answer to the problem of evil is generally answered in two ways.

CAT and many evidential apologists rely on pointing out that God did not really create things the way we see them today. This is generally the answer given by Arminian based apologetics that rely on the (libertarian) free will choices of man.

A better and fuller answer comes from the Calvinistic perspective and that is that God is sovereign over everything - even evil actions - and that He has a purpose and a plan that He is working out in time for His own glory. We will look at these approaches more closely in the entries that follow.

Notes:

[1] The issue of atheism and its failure to account for logic and morality is basically set forth in the apologetic method known as Presuppositional Apologetics. For an in-depth audio primer on this topic I recommend Gene Cook and The Narrow Mind radio show at unchainedradio.com. In particular – please look for the 9 part series on Presuppositional Apologetics. See http://tnma.blogspot.com/search/label/Apologetics