Romans 8:19-21 -- "The Renewal of all Things"

[The index for the series is here.]

I am using the Pastor's titles for these posts. The appropriate links are:

• Audio file
• Note sheet

The text:

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Vocation and Submission

One of those common misconceptions that I run into is expressed in this comment.

And here we differ because I cannot believe in a loving God who created me with a long size ten foot only so that he can break the arch and bind it into a child's size four.

That is no God of love. It is no deity I can fuel with worship any more than I would willingly feed someone who raped me.

At this moment, I am not sure what exactly what was being commented on. And, frankly, I am not sure its important - this post is about what it provoked in me and not about what it was meant to convey. So, lets look at a couple of things I have posted on in the past:

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The Problem of Evil: Free Will and the Quantity of Evil

Luke at Common Sense Atheism is continuing his series Arguing about Evil with the post "Plantinga’s Free Will Defense". Go read that.

This was started as a comment there, and then got to long-winded to keep as a comment.

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Vox Day vs Luke: Nosing into a Discussion

I have quoted The Irrational Atheist by Vox Day in three major posts:

• "War and Religion" and "The Problem Isn't God" based on Chapter 6: "The War Delusion"
• "Atheism, Utopianism,  and Totalitarianism" based on Chapter 13: "The Red Hand of Atheism"

I added Vox Popoli -- Vox Day's blog -- to my reading list and, lo and behold, ran into the 6th letter (3 from each side) in a dialogue between Day and Luke Muehlhauser at Common Sense Atheism. Apparently, Luke requested this dialogue and kicked it off with his first letter at his blog

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The Problem of Evil: II. Where Did Evil Come From?

I am following Norman Geisler and Ronald Brooks discussion in When Skeptics Ask on the problem of evil.

The comment that started me thinking on this was:

To me, the "problem of theodicy" is one that offers a devastating and unrebuttable logical argument against the notion that a god could be omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omni-benevolent (all-loving) all at the same time, and yet evil in the world could still exist. Few Christians (in my experience), be they Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, or any other variation, would stipulate that their idea of God excludes any of those attributes. Yet when I have presented the theodicy problem to them, I must confess the cognitive dissonance they experience when confronted with the logical inconsistency therein has been painful to watch.

While this issue has never caused my any discernable dissonance - I think he is right that the existence of evil is a difficult theological problem

In the last post I looked at the question of "What is Evil?". I believe evil is not a "thing-in-itself" because is a lack of something - good. This meant that we do not define folks by their evil (what they lack) but by their good (what they have). However, there are many people who lack far more than they have - folks who are "pure evil" or, in other words, lack nearly any good impulse. This brings up the next question:

Where did evil come from?

In the beginning was God and He was perfect. Then the perfect God made a perfect world. How did evil come into play? Let us summarize the problem this way:

1. Every creature God made is perfect
2. Perfect creatures cannot do what is imperfect
3. So, every creature God made cannot do what is imperfect

. . . Some have concluded that there must be some force equal to God or beyond his control. Or maybe God isn't good after all. But maybe the prolem lies with the conception of perfection itself.

1. God made everything perfect
2. One of the perfect things God made was free creatures
3. Free will is the cause of evil
4. So, imperfection (evil) can arise from perfection (not directly, but indirectly through freedom)

Geisler examines the truth that what makes men morally perfect is choice - we are free to chose what we do. This is because it allows us to love freely; because forced love is rape. Also, if we have no choice there is no morality at all - the concepts of moral and immoral are meaningless without choice.

God's moral choice in creating us with moral choices allowed the possibility of evil - because freedom can only really exist if we can chose either good or evil.

That doesn't make Him [God] responsible for evil. He created the fact of freedom; we perform the acts of freedom. He made evil possible; men made evil actual. Imperfection came through our abuse of our moral perfection as free creatures.

Geisler defines free will as follows:

. . . a better definition is that it is the ability to decide be­tween alternatives. Desire is a passion, an emotion; but will is a choice between two or more desires . . . Freedom is not in unlimited options, but in unfettered choice between whatever options there are. As long as the choosing comes from the individual rather than an outside force, the decision is made freely. Free will means the ability to make an unforced decision between two or more alternatives.

The social/political ramifications of this are that we were created to make free choices between good and evil; and we are responsible for those choices.

When we sin, ultimately we (by our wills) are the [first] cause of the evil we do. -- Geisler

Neither the Devil or anybody else forced the act (or it wasn't free - and therefore had no moral content whatsoever). However, God is good and perfect so . . .

The Next Question: Why Can't Evil Be Stopped?
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The Problem of Evil: I. What is Evil?

Is the existence of evil an insurmountable "defeater" for belief in God - or more particularly a

logical argument against the notion that a god could be omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omni-benevolent (all-loving) all at the same time

It is not that the "problem of evil" is a new thing - theologians have been discussing it for thousands of years. Indeed, just about as long as folks have believed that God was

omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omni-benevolent (all-loving) all at the same time

Somehow Christians have continued to believe that God is "all that and a bag of chips" even with the evil in the world. Are we fools just waiting for this fate:

Yet when I have presented the theodicy problem to them, I must confess the cognitive dissonance they experience when confronted with the logical inconsistency therein has been painful to watch.

The general theological answer is expressed well here:

My own approach assumes that God can do all things, but not all things at once without doing violence to some of them. For instance, God can't make 2+2=4, and 2+2=5, both be true without fundamentally changing the concept of either 2, 4, 5, plus, or equals. Thus, I conclude that the existence of evil was the byproduct of some other condition that God desired to bring about in creation. The work of theology then would be to attempt to develop an understanding of what that desired condition was, and how it was that the existence of evil was a necessary byproduct thereof.

In the past I have pointed to a list of books recommended to me by one of my pastors. One of those books is When Skeptics Ask, by Norman Geisler and Ronald Brooks. Chapter 4 is "Questions about Evil". I am going to go through Geisler and Brooks arguments in a series of posts; but first I want to deal with what I am trying to accomplish.

I cannot say why God chose how he chose - all I can do is offer one (of many) logical arguments about why He might have done what He did.

All it takes is one in fact, and there are many answers.

As a Christian you really must have an answer beyond "God's ways are not our ways" or "God is beyond our understanding" or some such other anti-intellectual nonsense - these are not answers that fulfill the call to be prepared to show what your hope is based on. Certainly, there are great resources on the issue:

• Geisler's book that I am going to skim
• C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed
• Many others

Indeed, if you want to grapple with this question there are many resourses to use. The first question Geisler contends with is:

What is Evil?

The defeater argument, from the existence of evil, for God not being the creator of all things - or worse yet the creator of evil - is:

1. God is the author of everything
2. Evil is something
3. Therefore, God is the author of Evil

How you understand evil is important. Is it a power in itself? A created thing? If you believe that, and in a creative God, then you have to believe that God created evil. That certainly is a difficulty if you are going to believe in an omni-benevolent God. Or you have to believe that Evil is a separate power - which places you on the very lip of Dualism. That would challenge the notion of monotheism. The general understanding put forward by Geisler and Brooks is that evil is not a thing-in-itself:

The first premise is true. So it appears that in order to deny the conclusion we have to deny the reality of evil (as the pantheists do). But we can deny that evil is a thing, or substance, without saying that it isn't real. It is a lack in things. When good that should be there is missing from something, that is evil. After all, if I am missing a wart on my nose, that is not evil because the wart should not have been there in the first place. However, if a man lacks the ability to see, that is evil. Likewise, if a person lacks the kindness in his heart and respect for human life that should be there, then he may commit murder. Evil is, in reality, a parasite that cannot exist except as a hole in something that should be solid.

In some cases, though, evil is more easily explained as a case of bad relationships. If I pick up a good gun, put in a good bullet, point it at my good head, put my good finger on the good trigger and give it a good pull. . . a bad relationship results. The things involved are not evil in themselves, but the relationship between the good things is definitely lacking something. In this case, the lack comes about because the things are not being used as they ought to be. Guns should not be used for indiscriminate killing, but are fine for recreation. My head was not meant to be used for target practice. Similarly, there is nothing wrong with strong winds moving in a circle, but a bad relationship arises when the funnel of wind goes through a mobile home park. Bad relationships are bad because the relationship is lacking something, so our definition of evil still holds. Evil is a lack of something that should be there in the relationship between good things.

Augustine was a bit more dialectic in his argument than Geisler/Brooks:

What is evil? Perhaps you will reply, Corruption. Undeniably this is a general definition of evil; for corruption implies opposition to nature; and also hurt. But corruption exists not by itself, but in some substance which it corrupts; for corruption itself is not a substance. So the thing which it corrupts is not corruption, is not evil; for what is corrupted suffers loss of integrity and purity. So that which has no purity to lose cannot be corrupted; and what has, is necessarily good by the participation of purity. Again, what is corrupted is perverted; and what is perverted suffers loss of order; and order is good. To be corrupted, then does not imply the absence of good; for in corruption it can be deprived of good, which could not be if there was the absence of good." - Augustine, On the Morals of the Manichaens, 5.7.

The social/political implications of this are obvious to me: if you believe Evil is a thing or a separate force then you are almost committed to destroying what you see as evil upon deciding it is such. However, if you believe evil is a lack of good (or a "hole" in the good), or a corruption of good - then you can believe focus on the good and attempt to fill the hole or heal the corruption. C.S. Lewis touched on this in Mere Christianity :

In other words, something inside us, the feeling of resentment, the feeling that wants to get one's own back, must be simply killed. I do not mean that anyone can decide this moment that he will never feel it any more. That is not how things happen. I mean that every time it bobs its head up, day after day, year after year, all our lives long, we must hit it on the head. It is hard work, but the attempt is not impossible. Even while we kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves - to wish that he were not bead, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.

The next question: Where did evil come from?
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On Depravity and Obedience

[Inspired by the comments to this post; and modified from this comment]

Certainly one of those most difficult Christian doctrines is the idea of total depravity

The doctrine of total depravity, rather, holds that by virtue of the Fall, human beings are turned entirely away from God. Augustine understands this in terms of love: humans love God with the love due creatures and love creatures with the kind of love due to God. Luther understood it in terms of trust: we will trust anything with our ultimate well-being other than God. Either way, all of our faculties--even our good ones--are no longer directed at the love, trust, and glorification of God but are rather turned inward towards ourselves or outward at other created things. Moreover, our own power cannot, under any circumstances, turn ourselves back to God. People in this state (i.e., everyone) are entirely capable of doing wonderful things, but they are not capable of turning those wonderful things to the love and glory of God.

I think few Christians today actually believe that "original sin" or our "sin nature" is somehow passed down from generation-to-generation as Augustine apparently did. The idea, shown above, is that we are born with a sin nature as a natural condition. This is a result of the Fall - but it is not, as some outside or inside of Christianity might suggest, some sort of genetic/physical inheritance from our parents.

While disobedience of God would be sin - many people misunderstand why my section of Christianity tries to obey. Many folks seem to think we obey because we fear that God will smite us with some big stick, or not reward us, or that we will not go to Heaven, or that we will go to Hell. At least for my herd of ilk - none of that is a concern: we are "in Christ Jesus":

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

If we are free from the "law of sin and death" - then why do we not just do as we please: why talk about the "rules" at all?

First, because it is the least we owe God and Christ:

John 14:21 The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him.

John 15:8 My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples. 9 Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. 12 My commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you.

Certainly, that passage gives plenty of reason to believe that falling out of Jesus' love is both possible, and dangerous to our salvation. However, the point is that obey because we LOVE Him - and love cannot be coerced by threats or rewards.

We also attempt to obey because the rules are the right thing to do - they protect us, keep us in right relationship with each other, and in right relationship with God. The Garden of Eden illustrates this: Adam and Eve's disobedience certainly led to the Fall; but that was because of the "infection" the disobedience brought and not strictly because the broke a rule. The Fall was not a punishment for disobedience but the natural outcome of the act itself. The rule was meant to protect them from just this outcome.

The root of the word translated "evil" in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil means, at least in one of its definitions,

"to be broken, be broken in pieces, be broken asunder".

The first actions after eating can be taken a couple of ways:

• you can make them becoming aware of their nakedness as a sexual issue;


• you can understand it as an issue of self-focus.

When they make something to cover themselves they do not do it for each other, they do it for themselves. Certainly, God knew they had eaten of the tree because they were now ashamed of their nakedness - so that sudden awareness of self and desire to hide from the rest of the community was not His creative intent. Eating the fruit gave us a (depraved) knowledge and awareness of our own self as "a piece broken off the whole" of humanity. Our fallenness is not some continued punishment for that original disobedience - it is our selfish natures that we gained at that tree.

I think the ongoing sin after the garden is our separation from God and each other - our individualism and desire to serve ourselves at the expense of others; and, of course, relying on our own wisdom instead of God's. Certainly, Christ made it clear that obedience of His commands showed that we loved Him and God - but nearly universally the commands we were to obey had to do with taking our eyes of ourselves and taking ourselves out of the center of our universe by focusing on loving God and loving people. Time after time it is about diminishing ourselves (becoming last to become first) or becoming poor in spirit, etc. It was about letting go of what was important to us to look at what is important to God and other people. And, it is always about the heart behind the action and not necessarily the action itself.

When Paul talks about "sin nature" he talks about it as being an internal struggle between the desires of his own self, and the desires of God:

Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. 15 For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. 21 So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. 23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Paul used "flesh" and "sin nature" almost interchangeably. This is about serving ourselves and our own needs rather than the law of God - which is again those things Christ told us to obey: take our eyes off our self and place it on God and other people.

The "Original" sin, and our continuing sin, is about doing what pleases us at the expense of God and others. The disobedience only comes in because the law of God (which has only been with us since Moses) highlights our love of self and convicts us of that self-love.

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