on the problem of evil

here's a spill of thoughts from my head:

evil...what is evil? it's something bad. something that destroys good. what is good? without God can evil and good exist? can we differentiate between the two w/o Him? without one can we understand and recognize the other? if we didn't have evil would we know good?

in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. there weren't two trees. one a tree of the knowledge of good and another the tree of the knowledge of evil. it seems like you cannot know one without the other. so what about in eternity past? when only God existed. before the creation of the world, before even the creation of angels. was there good and evil? i think the right answer would be "no" because there was only God and God is in no way evil. Evil is the absence of good. maybe God can know good apart from evil because He is all-knowing? if evil is truly the absence of good (as darkness is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat...neither dark nor cold are actually self-existent, they are merely the absence of something)...but if evil truly is the absence (or willful ignorance) of good, and since God is good, then before anything else existed there was no evil. because there was only God. and if evil is something that destroys good, then when only God existed nothing could work against the good that was in Him.

...that was eternity past, what about now? ...I believe in total depravity (the idea that the only good any man can do is because of God's common grace or because of God's specific grace and working through our lives)...i believe in total depravity so I believe that all good we see and do is from God. but evil can exist because we have free will to quench the Spirit (I Thess. 5:19) or grieve the Spirit (Eph 4:30).

I was brought to an understanding of good and evil through the logic of Ravi Zacharias (look him up if you don't know who that is...he's a great apologist). Ravi has many people ask him about the problem of evil, "why can a good God allow evil?" Ravi responds by saying that if you believe in evil then you must believe in good. if you believe in good you must believe in ultimate good and in a moral law. In believeing in a moral law you must believe in a moral law giver and you then have just proved what you were arguing against. you have shown that there is a moral law giver (i.e. God) when you were arguing against Him by asking why He could allow evil.

i agree with that logic. and it's helpful to prove that there is a God, the moral law giver. but i still don't see how it answers the question of "why evil?" it answers the question "since there is evil, can there be a good God?" the answer is "yes". but it doesn't explain the "why" of it all.

so...why? why is there evil? there is evil because we have free will. there is evil because we can quench the Spirit, we can grieve the Spirit. and we did. Adam and Eve grieved the Spirit by choosing to decide for themselves how life should be lived. The same thing we do today. we choose to tell God that His ways are inferior to our ways: "God, You did say not to eat from the tree because the day we eat from it, dying we shall die. But I'm going to eat from it anyway because I feel the value of eating it outweighs the value of believing You." Adam wanted to become like God. The serpent said "...you shall be like God..." if you eat it. And our sin (in Adam) resulted in God's punishment and curse coming upon the earth.

But why? Why did God punish Adam (and us) and bring a curse upon the earth? What if He didn't curse the earth? What if He didn't punish Adam? Well then He would not be just. He would not be Holy. If God did not punish sin He would not be good. He would be encouraging evil by not punishing it. If He let us get away with evil then He would be passively encouraging evil. A good God must punish evil in order to be good. So, God, by nature and because of His inexorable character, HAD to punish Adam (and us) and bring a curse upon the earth. The curse is the punishment. it is also a reminder that we are sinners.

what the curse also does is cause us to consider "this is not the way things should be." and we are right. this is not the creation God called "very good". This is the creation God wanted to destroy over and over again, but He has not because He is patient (2 Pet 3:9). it causes us to ask "why are things this way?". and hopefully we will come to the right conclusion: things are this way because we are sinners and God is holy: we decided to sin and God inflicted a curse upon the earth because He must punish sin. And hopefully we will not stop there. the truth of a previous perfect world (before the Fall) and the truth of a currently cursed world into which a Reedemer came, give us hope of a future perfect and completely redeemed world--the new Heavens and new Earth! (why do we so often confine redemption to only our souls? God desired to have a perfect world for His people. That is what He created in the first place. Why should we think that He will let our sin and Satan take that away from Him? Heaven will be a redeemed physical earth where we will live in redeemed physical bodies. For more info on this read Randy Alcorn's book "Heaven"...it's a great read!)

God is good. evil exists because we quench and grieve the Spirit because we have free will to do so. if we didn't have free will God would have simply created us to follow Him and have no choice...but then we wouldn't really love Him. true love must be a choice otherwise how does it show value if you could not choose to love something else instead? love proves what you value. if there is no choice, there is no love. Adam grieved the Spirit because he was not all-knowing. He was decieved. He believed a lie: "...did God really say...?" He had a choice of what to value and he chose himself rather than God (i say that he chose himself because really he wanted to be like God...he wanted to lift himself up instead of lift God up). We grieve the Spirit in the same way by believing lies, by thinking our ways are better than God's. And God must punish our sins and all of mankind's sins to prove His justice.

huh. no wonder entire books are written on that subject.

grief

last night at Phase2 (high school youth group) a student, Miranda, walked in while Leilani and I were setting up for worship in song. A friend of hers had gotten in a car accident and passed away. 4 or so other guys were in the car. We prayed for her then and there.

after Phase2 we were hanging out in the parking lot and a student was on and off the phone getting updates about the accident. students and leaders gathered around to mourn and comfort and pray.

this morning when i woke up there was a voice message on my phone from a counselor at the high school (who also goes to our church) asking me to come down to the high school to join them in the library where students and counselors were gathered to mourn Ibrahim Kabbani, the high schooler who died in the car accident last night. another teenager is in a coma, the driver of the vehicle might lose his left hand and I heard that another guy broke his legs.

the library was filled with all kinds of students. from freshmen to seniors. from all different cliques. mourning Ibrahim. either they knew him personally or had a friend who knew him. students were crying, hugging each other, comforting each other, passing out flyers with Ibrahim's picture on it. Sharing stories of what they remembered about him. even running to get some kleenex for their friend. one guy was playing his guitar. in the picture on the flyer ibrahim was playing bass. i wonder if they played together. a good majority of the youth pastors from the area were there. we said 'hi' to each other and were glad that we were there to help comfort these students together. but mostly we spent time comforting and listening to the students. finding out how they knew him. listening to memories. or just sitting in silence with them. some were crying. some couldn't cry but didn't know why. one student told me he couldn't cry, i told him that was normal. and he very well might cry in a few days.

grief.

i saw students i hadn't seen in a long time. they were glad to see me. i was glad to see them. and talk to them and pray with them and tell them i was just across the street if they wanted to come talk or hang out.

after most of the students i knew went back to class and i had talked to the rest...i walked away. sobered. pensive. wondering what i could do for them. to help them find comfort and peace in this truly difficult time.

it's almost surreal. yet death is as real as it gets. death may be more real than life here on earth.

please pray for these students as they mourn. please pray they will turn to Christ, our comfort, in these times. pray that they are sobered to the truth of how fragile life is. how life here is not the end. how there is more to this life than partying and having fun. how there is more than what we see. there is something beyond. pray that they would see it and come to Christ through this.

more thoughts are tumbling around in my head. maybe i'll let them tumble onto my blog later...