Dear beloved explorers: due to the length of this post, I have decided to break it into two parts. This is part one, and ends in the midst of a discussion on the “problem of evil” and the philosophical question: “Is God the Author of evil?” Part two will pick up the discussion where it left off and discuss “The Biblical meaning of Evil.” Enjoy your exploration!
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Dr. Morey draws the reader to the very beginning of the Bible and says “[t]he very first thing that God wants us to understand about Himself is that He is the Creator of heaven and earth. Thus the very first attribute is that God is the Creator.”
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth – Genesis 1:1
In this chapter, Dr. Morey explains how the early Church understood this. He says that “they understood it in a very deep and profound way.” This truly was profound because they faced a pagan world that believed the universe was eternal and whatever gods existed were only finite parts of this world. Dr. Morey says:
Thus, according to the early Church, the first essential difference between the Christian God and the gods of the pagans was that He was the “Maker of Heaven and Earth.”
It can be seen in the theology, hymns, and creeds of the early Church, that the doctrine of creation was viewed as the beginning point of all theology. All of the other attributes of God made sense only in the context of a God who existed prior to, independent of, and apart from the space – time universe that He created out of nothing for His own glory. Dr. Morey adds:
If God is not the Creator, then He is not GOD.
Maker of heaven and earth as the first essential attribute of God is the first attribute that one must accept in order to continue an exploration of God’s attributes. If the creation of the universe is attributed to something else, or someone else, then that something, or someone else, is God. Perhaps this is why Morey began the book with the guiding principles of allowing the Bible to determine our theology rather than our reason, feelings, experience, faith etc.
Scripture will not allow any other legitimate doctrine to develop other than God created everything out of nothing (ex nihilo). Even the idea that everything is eternal cannot be acceptable when tested by Scripture because if there were no beginning of time, then time would have existed alongside God, and as we’ll see later in the book, eternality is also an essential attribute of God. Morey calls this a “rival god.” That everything was created by God distinguishes Him from everything that is not God. This brings up the popular “problem of evil.” One may believe that good and evil are rivals with each other, both being eternal and equal. But the doctrine of creation refutes the Zoroastrian concept of the eternal battle of good and evil, also known as “dualism.”
A popular philosophical question is: “Is God the Author of evil?” Recognizing the importance of a solid biblical answer, Morey takes some time to discuss this issue here in chapter four.
When dealing with the “problem of evil,” the first step taken by Scripture is to affirm that “evil” is not eternal and thus it did not coexist with God as a rival god. The Zoroastrian idea of an eternal conflict between good and evil is refuted by the doctrine of creation. Evil is a finite part of the world God made.
So-called “Christian” philosophers do not generally accept this biblical fact. Instead, they attempt to solve the “problem of evil” by inserting an unbiblical concept: “free will.” The most vicious form of this indisputably unbiblical concept is called “Libertarian Free Will.” This is the idea that man is sovereign, and free from any outside cause when making choices, preserving man’s freedom and justifying God’s righteousness. Many good and godly men and women have agreed with the concept of Libertarian Free Will, but not a one of them ever derived it from the Bible. It is a pagan concept from Greek philosophy that is believed as true prior to reading the Bible, and then fallaciously read back into the text of Scripture. Before we continue the discussion on whether or not the Bible teaches the idea of Libertarian Free Will, let’s return to Dr. Morey’s section addressing the question: Is God the Author of evil?
If by “author” one asks if God is the “agent” of evil, the Biblical answer is no. When we sin, we do the sinning, not God. He does not force or tempt anyone into evil according to James 1:13-17. We sin because we choose to do so.
The following few paragraphs is such an essential element of Morey’s argument that I have decided to post the entire section.
If by “author” one asks if God is “responsible” for evil, the answer is still no. The word responsible means accountability to a higher power to whom something is owed and who can demand payment of it. But there is no “higher power” to whom God is accountable. God is not accountable to anyone or anything outside Himself. God has no “Day of Judgment.” Whatever God does or says is always consistent with His own immutable nature.
If by the word evil, one means “an accident of chance or luck,” the answer is no. There is no such thing as “luck” or “chance.” Sin is not an “accident” that we can blame on God, the stars, the cards, or on Lady Luck. The concept of chance totally removes any human responsibility.
But while the Bible clearly teaches that God is not the “author of evil,” at the same time, dozens of passages speak of God creating, sending, planning, and foreordaining evil! These passages are enough to show that while God is not the “author of evil” in the sense of being the agent ,of it, or of being accountable for it, yet, in some sense God “creates evil,” “sends evil,” “means it for good,” etc. Surely these passages mean something and not nothing! (See: Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Job 2:10; Genesis 50:20; Deuteronomy 29:21; Joshua 23:15; Judges 2:15; Judges 9:23-24; 1 Samuel 18:10, 11; 1 Kings 9:9; 1 Kings 21:21, 29; 2 Kings 6:33; Exodus 4:11; 1 Samuel 2:6-7; Proverbs 16:4; Romans 11:36.)
Remember, the subtitle of the book is: An Apologetic of the Doctrine of God. At first, this is a difficult reality to accept. But since we are exploring God’s attributes, let’s slow it down and take a look at some of these passages to see if what Dr. Morey is saying is in accordance with the Bible.
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
Amos 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
Job 2:10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Genesis 50:20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
1 Kings 9:9 And men shall say, Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought out their fathers from Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and they attached themselves to strange gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore the Lord has brought this evil upon them.
Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
In the passages from the Old Testament quoted above, the Hebrew word that is translated “evil” is [r; - ra` {rah}, meaning evil, distress, misery, injury, calamity, disaster, wickedness. It is an adjective used to describe the things that Scripture says was brought in by sin (Rom. 5:12). As we mature as Christians, we must accept more and more of the biblical concepts while shedding more and more of the unbiblical concepts. This causes for one to sometimes become fearful and feel ungrounded in their faith. But as we shall see, faith is belief and hope in things unseen. Many maturing Christians look to Dr. Robert Morey and his ministry, Faith Defenders, for education in Christian apologetics, evangelism, and theology, because Dr. Morey has the gift from God to take difficult Bible concepts that are no doubt taught in Scripture, and instead of reconciling difficulty with pagan philosophy, he trusts that God’s word provides the foundation for all of life’s big questions answers. This next section is too important for me to try and summarize, so here’s the section in full:
Some theologians have tried to avoid the force of these and many other like passages by arguing that the “evil” spoken of is only “nonmoral evil.” It is assumed that nonmoral evil is not real evil and hence not part of the issue of the problem of evil per se.
Several serious problems are found with this approach. First of all, the concept of nonmoral evil cannot be found anywhere in the text of Scripture. The Bible uses the same Hebrew and Greek words for “evil” whether speaking of sin or sickness. No exegetical basis for the distinction between moral and non-moral evil exists. The distinction between moral and nonmoral evil was a refinement of medieval theology and should not be arbitrarily read back into the text of Scripture.
The second problem with the idea of nonmoral evil is that this does not lessen the reality or gravity of the evils in view. Since the Bible calls all these things “evil,” how these things are not really evil has yet to be explained.
We cannot imagine trying to comfort someone whose child was born blind by claiming that this was not a real evil, or, that the pain and suffering caused by a hurricane or an earthquake are not really evil.
While all evil is not sin per se, all evil comes from sin. For example, while sickness and death are not sins, they are “evils” that come from the Fall of man into sin (Romans 5:12).
Third, when the problem of evil is discussed, the kinds of evils that are raised as objections to God’s foreknowledge, power, goodness, and existence are the exact evils mentioned in the texts. Anything that causes pain and suffering is assumed to be an “evil.” Such things as disease, birth defects, blindness, lameness, ignorance, poverty, deception, war, and death are all considered as “evils.”
The obvious solution is that what the Bible means by the word “evil” is not what pagan philosophers such as Epicurus meant. This never seems to occur to modern theologians. They assume the humanistic definitions of all the key terms used in the “problem of evil.” Like Pavlov’s dogs, whenever they see the word “evil” in the Bible, they yelp that it means “chance-produced evil.” They never bother to exegete the text to see what the Bible means by such words.
Thus when they see the word evil in the above texts, this throws them into a state of confusion because God is pictured as sending evil upon people. In fact the Bible states many times that God predestines and predetermines evil. Evil is apart of His plan, called “His-story.” Thus evil is not “chance-produced.” It is planned by God Almighty!
Do you see how he sticks to the Bible and allows the Bible to speak for itself? He just as easily could have attempted to repeat some Greek philosopher’s answer to the “problem of evil.” But if he did, he would be violating the principles he laid out in the first two chapters this book. Morey knows that the philosophers didn’t have the answers because they didn’t know God, nor did they have access to the Scriptures! In fact, Scripture forbids the Christian to think like the Gentiles who were in pitch-black darkness, in the futility of their minds. Dr. Morey is currently working on a book that refutes Natural Theology, and when it comes out we’ll address these issues more fully.
As this exploration comes to an end, let us be reminded that Paul said “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” If evil is not included in the “all things” that Paul attributes to being from and through God, then either this verse makes a truth claim that is false, or God is not Maker of ALL THINGS, and is not GOD! Consider these things carefully, and join me next time as we explore the second half of chapter four. We will look at “The Biblical Meaning of Evil.” You won’t want to miss this one!
