The Divine Permission of Evil

From time to time there occurs some great catastrophe—an earthquake, a flood, a rail or plane crash or a shipwreck—which stirs the world out of its complacency and leads some to ask why God permits these things. If God is Love, as the Bible affirms, how is it that He does not do something to prevent such disasters happening? Not only do these untoward tragic events inspire the question, but the whole story of suffering amongst humanity—the ravages of physical disease, mental sickness, all the things that make for unhappiness and despair, the whole catalogue of woes that afflict men and women, which they are powerless to avert. Why does God permit them?

Many Factors

Only too often people ask the question hastily and expect an equally hasty answer. That cannot be. There are a great many factors, things present and things past, which have to be taken into account before the reason for the Divine permission of evil can be understood. Long years ago a man wise in the ways of God said "I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith" (Eccl.1:13), or as Ferrar Fenton renders, "It is a difficult exercise which GOD has imposed upon the sons of Adam, to develop themselves by it." At first sight it seems hard and unfeeling, to say that evil is allowed to be a factor in human life that mankind might be exercised and profited by the experience, but that is principally because we tend to take the keener notice when it affects us personally. "Why should God do this to me—or to mine?" It is not so easily realised that our individual affairs are but part of the entire world situation and it is the greater problem which includes all the lesser ones; the answer to the former becomes also the answer to the latter.

Faith even in Adversity

The story of the ancient patriarch Job is the finest Bible expression of this truth. Job, an upright and honourable man, was stricken with every possible form of adversity until, friendless, deserted, destitute, smitten by loathsome disease and at the point of death, he voiced his faith that God would yet reveal His purpose and restore him to life and health. "God hath delivered me to the ungodly" he said "and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder...and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; not for any injustice in mine hands." (Job 16:11‑17) The whole of the 16th,17th and 19th chapters detail his sufferings and the evil that had come upon him, as people would say, unjustly. But then comes his testimony of faith. "I know that my Redeemer (Vindicator) liveth;" (19:25) he goes on to declare his conviction that in the end, even although his diseased and wasted body be destroyed and go into corruption, he himself shall stand and see God. In other words, Job saw this present human life with all its injustice and disappointment and suffering as one aspect only of a profound experience which at the end would bring him forth into that full perfection of development, the Divine ideal; thus he would "see God."

Direct and indirect effects of sin

All human suffering of whatever kind and however caused is the result of evil. That evil may be the consequence of some natural catastrophe such as a flood or a famine; it may be due to a disruption of the works of man, such as a train or car accident, or it may be because of human avarice or cruelty, in short, sin. Although an evil is not always the direct consequence of sin it is a fact that sin is always evil and there is good reason for thinking that even such evils as natural calamities would not be any menace to human life and therefore no longer evils if sin had not entered the world at first. In order to understand how this can be it is necessary to go right back to the beginning of the Bible.

Man brought sin in and God will remove it

The story of Eden and the Fall enshrines the truth that God created man perfect and sinless, placing him in an environment to which he was completely adapted, with power to live everlastingly provided that he observed the laws of his being and fulfilled the purpose for which he was created. It is logical to think that the perfection of primitive men—a state that cannot be accurately visualised because it has never been seen or known since, apart from the case of those who saw Jesus Christ in the flesh—included the power or instinct to sense the coming of such convulsions of Nature as might be physically harmful and to avoid them. It is common observation that many animals and birds can foresee such things as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and will often spontaneously evacuate a threatened area where humans can discern nothing ominous. Perhaps this is one of the faculties that sin has destroyed. In any case, man transgressed the laws of God, and that transgression introduced death and every manifestation of evil which now exists amongst us. Therefore St. Paul says "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Rom.5:12) It is fundamental to a correct understanding of the purpose of God in permitting evil to realise that man himself brought sin and evil into the world. God, whilst permitting its continuance for a space of time, controls its course so that the outcome might be to the benefit of those who have experienced it. The Psalmist, reflecting upon this fact, expressed it in poetry when he declared "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain." (Psa.76:10) In this modern age man is gaining increasing understanding and control of the forces of Nature, and it may well be concluded that this is part of the commission given to man at the first to "replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion..." (Gen.1:28) Probably, if sin had not entered, this power would have come to its full much earlier so that the cataclysms of Nature which still afflict humankind would long since have lost their terrors. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that when the "new heavens and new earth" which God has ordained have been established, and sin has been removed, there will no more be anything in Nature which humanity needs to fear. "Nothing will hurt or destroy" (Isa.11:9 NLT) is the promise. "The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." (Isa.32:17)

Evil due to human sin

That aspect of the burden of evil which is due to human sin is in rather a different category. Sorrow, pain, suffering and death continues with the human race all the time that sin reigns unchecked amongst men. It is inevitable that the innocent suffer with the guilty; disease, pestilence, famine, affecting individuals or communities, have their origin in sin, either of omission or commission, either on the part of contemporary men and women or perhaps long antecedent generations. All are interdependent; the actions of any one react upon others, and the end of the process no one can foresee. So, the Scriptures lay down as a maxim that all are involved in the sin of Adam which became the sin of the whole world. "None of us liveth to himself" says Paul in Rom.14:7. Each one is a member of that unity which is the human race, and the entire race is one component part of a greater entity which is the earth with all its variety of sentient life, plant life, and so on, all of which are interrelated and must function together to maintain their joint existence. This is why the sin of Adam of necessity affects all his posterity and why the sin of any man affects his fellows.

There is in this connection a very general misunderstanding of the statements in Exodus and Deuteronomy to the effect that God visits "the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation." This declaration is all too often taken to be a general expression of Divine action, as though God contributes to the impact of evil upon otherwise innocent people by punishing them for their parents’ sins. This is totally incorrect. The words appear five times in the books of Moses, nowhere else, and they refer always and only to the condemnation which came upon the faithless generation of the Exodus, whose children had to remain in the wilderness of Sinai with them until that generation had passed away. Until then their children, to the third and fourth generation, who were destined eventually to enter the land, must wander with them and share their hardships. Remembering that the condemned generation could themselves have entered Canaan had they maintained faith in God it is clear that the children, innocently involved in their parents’ failure, thus had the sin of their fathers visited upon them. Says Num.14:27‑35* concerning this "Ye shall not come into the land…but your little ones…them will I bring in, and they shall know the land…and your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness." In no other sense and at no other time has it been said that God will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. But it is true that individuals of every generation are liable to suffer for the misdeeds of their fathers, in the way of inherited disease and tendency to wrong‑doing; all are sons of Adam and cannot but be affected by much of what has occurred in past generations. As Ezekiel was told (Ezek.18:2) "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge," but this general condition among men and women subsists not by reason of Divine ordinance but by reason of man’s sin. It will eventually come to an end. "As I live, saith, the Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel… The soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right,...he shall save his soul alive." (Ezek.18:3‑9,27)

Freewill in Garden of Eden

Some may be tempted to ask why God had to make man this way. Why not have made him so that he could do naught else but right, and so sin would never have entered? A little reflection will show that the bondage of such a constraint would be more than any intelligent mind could endure. To live at all under that condition would relegate humanity to the level of the animals, who live out their lives under the direction of instinct and cannot be credited with any sense of moral responsibility. Of man the Psalmist says "Thou made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour." (Psa.8:5) The picture in the Garden of Eden story is that of a creature of freewill, having complete power to accept or reject for himself his offered place in creation. That must involve the possibility of his choosing evil, as in fact man did do, but it does not mean that the cause is lost.

The Millennial Age

God still has control of the springs of life, and He has declared that in His own due time He will intervene to bring people to a realisation of the effect of their choice. The day comes when God will say to all "I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil;…choose life, that you...may live." (Deut.30:15,19 RSV) In that wonderful vision of the Millennial world which was seen by John and recorded in the twenty‑first chapter of Revelation the promise is that "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." (v.4) Speaking of the same time the Psalmist says "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." (Psa.30:5) The history of evil, which he there likens to the anger of God, is, he says, but for a moment, and that is how it will appear when at last the power and effects of sin have been broken and man has attained his destiny. "The creature itself" says Paul, "shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God," adding as it were in an afterthought "for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." (Rom.8:21‑22) Thus this general experience with evil, which is the lot of all people, is in the economy of God to be turned to good account, in that man, having at the first chosen sin, is allowed to learn at first hand the consequence of that choice in the wreck of his life and his world and the degeneration of his moral character, being then presented with an experience of the world under Divine mandate, having every opportunity to be recovered from his sin stricken condition, thus seeing the world as it can be if conducted according to Divine Law. Thus, can he make an intelligent choice and take up his place in God’s creation, if he elects to take it at all, as of free will and in full allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he must and will recognise as the One through whom all life comes and in whom all things subsist.

AOH