Homeschool Helper - April 2009 - (Page 4)

FEATURE ARTICLE CONT. even though sometimes it does not look like it. The Biblical Data One should begin, of course, with what the Bible says about the problem of evil. Many Christians are disappointed that the Bible does not have a more clearly organized—according to Western standards— discussion of the subject; some are surprised that the writers of the Bible do not really seem to care much about it. While it is true that theodicy is not a driving theme of Scripture—though the goodness and righteousness of God are often stated and even more often demonstrated—there are a number of passages where the Scripture devotes some space to the fact of evil and the apparent unfairness of it all. The first passage that occurs to anyone familiar with the Bible is the book of Job. Here are the musings of a man facing disaster through no fault of his own. Three other men in the Bible—Joseph, Daniel, and Habakkuk— also help us to learn from “unjust” treatment. Then there are passages that raise the question directly: Psalms He can do as He pleases and owes no one an explanation. • As fallen creatures, we We can gain confidence during the times we do not understand by recalling God’s consistent record of goodness in similar situations in the past. 1, 37, 73; Ecclesiastes; and Jeremiah 12. In Romans 9, in the context of election, Paul obliquely raises the question as well. Together these passages direct our thoughts along several specific lines: • God is sovereign (Job deserve evil, not good (Jeremiah 12; Romans 3); so in one sense evil is not really a “problem”; it is what we should expect.9 knowledge as well as in our ability to understand what we do know (Job 38:1ff). Thus, we should expect to be puzzled by many things in God’s will.10 nature, works out His providential plans for good, even though the path to that good end is often very difficult (Joseph, Daniel). by sin, not by God, and • We are limited in our • God, Who is good by • Evil is directly caused 9 Of course, that raises the question of why an omniscient God would create people who would turn out to be deserving of such evil. 10 And as I often tell my students, this is the God we should expect. Finite minds studying the infinite God should expect to run out of intellectual horsepower at some point. If we could understand God completely, we would have to suspect that He was the creation of a finite mind. 38:1ff; Romans 9:19ff); 3

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Homeschool Helper - April 2009

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