Homeschool Helper - April 2009 - (Page 5)

FEATURE ARTICLE CONT. He will make these things right before the end (Psalm 1:6). • He often chooses not to answer our questions, thereby indicating that He wants us to trust Him (Psalm 37:3; Ecclesiastes 12:13; Daniel 3:17−18; Habakkuk 2:20; Romans 9). enables us to trust Him in the dark times (Psalms 37:4−5; 73:16−17). times we do not understand by recalling God’s consistent record of goodness in similar situations in the past (Psalm 78). what Christ Himself has already gone through (1 Peter). He does not want. And that sounds inconsistent with omnipotence.12 Others observe that in places in the Bible—such as Romans 9—where one might expect the free-will defense to be used, it conspicuously is not.13 • Evil as Grace. Some kinds of evil, most • It is our relationship with God that • We can gain confidence during the obviously pain, serve as warnings of danger and thus help to protect us—for example, we quickly snatch our hands from a hot pot, thereby avoiding serious injury. When you or your children express distrust about what God is doing, you are making a statement about the health of your spiritual life. The problem with this idea is that it is at best only a partial solution. How does an earthquake protect us? And could an omniscient, omnipotent God not have designed warning devices that would not injure us in the process? • Evil as Foil. We are designed to live • When we suffer, we are experiencing The Standard Theodicies Believers throughout history have approached the problem of evil in several ways. What follows are a few of the most common.11 • Evil as Necessity. God wanted to create beings who could have a relationship with Him, but for that relationship to be meaningful, these beings cannot be robots; they must have the ability to choose. And that necessarily means that they will be able to choose evil. And since they are the ones who have chosen, evil is not “God’s fault.” Some observe that in this scenario God is then bound by logic outside of Himself; if He wants one thing, He must put up with something else that eternally in a perfect environment. Part of the joy of that environment will be the stark contrast between it and what we lived in before. Sin, pain, and death, then, serve as something for us to escape, and they thereby increase the eventual joy. In 11 For other options, all of which he rejects as unbiblical, see Frame, 155ff. 12 Defenders of the view reply that God is consistent with this logic not because He is bound by it, but because it is His nature to be logical. Thus He conforms to the principles of logic for the same reason that He is good or true or unchanging. 13 Frame, 161–62. 4

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Homeschool Helper - April 2009

Homeschool Helper - April 2009

https://www.nxtbookmedia.com