Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
If you have ever seen Sponge Bob Square Pants, then you would know why I put evil the way I did. If Mermaid Man hears his side kick, Barnacle Boy say something about evil then he yells EEEVIILLL. You have to see it to completely understand, and I am guessing a lot of you do know, because who doesn’t watch Sponge Bob.
This is always a tough topic to discuss, because we have all had to deal with some sort of evil in our lives. It is a very personal experience and no one person tends to experience it the same way as another. How can there be any purpose to evil? How could an All-Loving, All-Good God allow such a thing as evil in this world? Doesn’t that demonstrate He cannot possibly exist? These are issues we are discussing at Ransomed right now, and I will try to deal with them generally here in the next two blogs.
I want to talk about what some words truly mean as we move into the discussion of evil.
Most people think of evil as a substance or having some form, but it is not either of those. Because all being is either the Creator or His creatures and He is All-Good, then things are not evil in themselves. Peter Kreeft says, “Evil is in the will, the choice, the intent, the movement of the soul, which puts a wrong order into the physical world of things and acts.” Then can we say that the devil is good? Yes there is good in the devil, as he is a being, though that is about all that is good about him.
Evil is not something that can exist in and of itself. It is a privation, or a lack of something that should be there. Dr. Norman Geisler use to use the car with us in class. A rust spot on a car is where the car should be; it is a lack. Just as evil is a lack in the human. Blindness is a privation of sight, which what should be there. For something to be 100% evil would to be nothing, as you cannot lack something 100%. 100% of nothing is nothing.
Doesn’t God want me to be happy? Evil makes me unhappy and thus there should not be evil if God really loved me and wanted my happiness. There are two meanings to happiness, and the more shallow meaning is what the questions are referring to above. The shallow meaning is subjective and is only temporary. These feelings come and go and usually happen from outside stimulus, i.e. winning the lottery, a promotion, sex, power, and whatever creates that feeling.
A deeper meaning to happiness is objective and not just feeling oriented, meaning it is not based on outside stimulus. This type of happiness is like health to the body, as it impacts our very soul. This type of happiness is eternal and not having more money or more power. This true happiness comes from wisdom and the means of suffering, as a lot of wisdom comes through the trials of suffering. Our God, the true God, is loving and good, but this does not mean He will make us happy in the shallow sense, as He is concerned more with our deeper happiness that comes out of evil. Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, “The man who has not suffered, what can he possibly know, anyway?” Teresa of Avilla said that the most miserable earthly life, seen from the perspective of heaven, looks like one night in an inconvenient hotel.
Lastly, I want to talk about goodness, since I mentioned above that God is good, and He is the perfect good. Goodness has to mean more then just being kind, because if this was the case then a God that allows evil would not be an all-good God. God let Job suffer not because He is not good, but because of it. It brought Job to the Beatific Vision, face to face with God (Job 42:5). This would be the supremacy of happiness and goodness in Job’s life. Job 42:5, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.”
God allows us to suffer and will deprive us of some lesser good in order to help us attain the greater good. The greater good would be to teach us moral and spiritual truths that draw us closer to our Savior. Our suffering will create in us a whole that will allow us to fill it with God and create in us joy and happiness. In the end suffering is turned into good. “Not all that we do is good, but all that God does is good, including not miraculously interfering to deliver us from all evil. That would be like parents doing all their children’s homework problems for them.” – Peter Kreeft
Now that we have some truer definitions to words that are used against the Christian in regards to evil, we will talk in more depth how evil could be used for any kind of purpose in our lives. In my next blog I will talk about this very thing.
Hebrews 3:12, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God;”
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