God Ordained that Evil Be

I recently read a very intriguing article entitled, ‘Is God less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?’ by John Piper. The paper seeks to reconcile a Sovereign God and the inescapable presence of evil in the world; without implying that God is not fully in control, or that he does not see all ends. The following is a summary of the article (including direct quotation).

“God does not delight in evil as evil; rather, he wills that evil come to pass” (as evidenced by his control over natural and moral evil in this world) that good may come of it.

What good?

“It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionally effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all…

Thus it is necessary that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not e, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also that the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.

If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God’s holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . .”

But is this beneficial to us? Piper explains that because our happiness consists in the knowledge of God and the sense of his love (he made it that way), evil is necessary as the means by which we gain the greatest insight and knowledge of God.

But if God ordains evil, is he evil himself? The short answer is no. “God has established a world in which sin will indeed necessarily come to pass by God’s permission, but not by his ‘positive agency’”.

But is permitting evil, evil? Again, Piper explains: “God may hate a thing as it is in itself, and considered simply as evil, and yet . . . it may be his will it should come to pass, considering all consequences. . . . God doesn’t will sin as sin or for the sake of anything evil; though it be his pleasure so to order things, that he permitting, sin will come to pass; for the sake of the great good that by his disposal shall be the consequence. His willing to order things so that evil should come to pass, for the sake of the contrary good, is no argument that he doesn’t hate evil, as evil: and if so, then it is no reason why he may not reasonably forbid evil as evil, and punish it as such.”

So we have a God who is in control of everything, and knows everything that will pass; who, in his perfection ordained that evil come to pass in order that his character may be perfectly manifest, resulting in his highest glory, and our greatest capacity for happiness. In that light, it seems possible to conclude that (considering all ends) the entirety of human history has been wrought by God to display his glory in the most perfect manner.

Remarkable – and challenging at that! It is not easy to accept first hand; so please study the topic further if you need to. Let me know what you think…