I was thrilled the other day, and encouraged to be able to take part in a live question forum done by Randy Alcorn. His new book "If God is Good" is now high on my want to read list. However, I did not feel that my ultimate question got answered, though he was doing a fantastic job of answering questions. I could not be right there and say more specifically what I wanted to understand. That being: Where did evil originate? If it was in existence it had to begin existing somewhere.
Before I begin though I have to tell one thing I love about God. He never lets us settle for less with Him. What I mean by that is this:
I use to think that heaven was going to be one long and boring church singing service (ironically the OTHER main problem in my thinking that Randy's book "Heaven" blew my mind wide open on!:). Though this bothered me, I had come to a point where I said to the Lord "Okay, if that is it, I trust you to make that the definition of my complete fulfillment" or that if it was going to be that way, I was okay with it because I trusted God to change the way I felt about it when the time comes. He could have left it at that you know. Nope, he longs to blow our minds and even, YES...give us answers to our deepest questions about Him. He delights in our seeking!
My new question is one I've had for many many years. It's one of those ones you never think you will get an answer to. I tend to go right to questions that go all the way down in my thinking. If something came from this, then I want to know where the "this" was from. Know what I mean? In other words, the Big Bang theory would never have been enough for me even if I did not know God because my next question would be "Well, who caused the Big Bang? Who Banged? What was there before it went Bang?"
So, just as the heaven misconception I had, I had settled on the issue of evil as well. It was incorrect though and the Lord was not going to let me settle on less with Him. I had decided that if God was the source of all things, EVERYTHING, then somehow evil would have to have come in it's conception from Him. What other options are there if He is the beginning of all? I asked Randy if it was true then that evil was created by God not as a reflection of his character but as a tool he would use to actually show his goodness. Randy said that he agreed that God permits and uses evil to show his goodness, but not that God was the source of evil. So I chatted with something like: "Well, then where does it come from?". He had other questions at the time and did not get to answering mine anymore than that. It was good for me though because it led me to searching.
On his discussion, and in response to other questions, he talked about how the original sin was actually BEFORE the creation, and took place in heaven when sin entered in the heart of Satan (Isiah 14:12-15). So, I naturally thought that out to mean that if it entered, it had to COME from somewhere outside of him right? Well, not really.
Let me just skip all my processes and take you conveniently to my answer from God.
Sin does not originate in the mind of God, it originates and has all to do with the fact of free will. He created the angels before us but like us, he gave them free will. He was 100% goodness. The was no evil in him. But, the moment he created a free will creature, he allowed and permitted the possibility and the opportunity for evil. Evil would therefore be defined as the opposite of what God is, everything he is. Though he did not create that bad, he allowed the option for it. When we say "free will" we mean that there has to be a choice and in order for there to be a good choice there had to be a bad choice. The moment that bad choice was made by one, evil was born. I should say Sin was born because sin is the rejection of God, the rebelling against the way he wants his creation to be, the disobedience of him (which we wrongly link bad connotations in our mind to like a child but we don't realize that obedience is not "do what I say" as much as it is "let me show you the way to joyful fulfillment") and evil is the result of that sin. Evil is the action word that takes place as sin displays itself. Evil is the spontaneous combustion so to speak from the sinful heart.
Ironically after these things began to come together in my thinking and as I searched deeper and deeper in my logic for the beginning of sin and evil in a truthful way (meaning in a definition that would not contradict scripture or the basis that God IS good, as my stupid settling assumption above had been), I read the very next day in Mere Christianity, C.S Lewis mirroring my very thoughts and conclusions:
(I must note that to fully understand this statement you really need to go back and read book 2 chapter, in the book entitled "The Invasion")
"And do you now begin to see why Christianity has always said that the devil is a fallen angel? That is not a mere story for the children. It is a real recognition of the fact that evil is a parasite, not an original thing."
So, then, the obvious next step in our questioning would be "How can it be God's will for evil to have been born then?"
Lewis addresses this wonderfully also:
"....how can anything happen contrary to the will of a being with absolute power?
But anyone who has been in authority knows how a thing can be in accordance with your will in one way and not in another. It may be quite sensible for a mother to say to the children, 'I'm not going to go and make you tidy the schoolroom every night. You've got to learn to keep it tidy on your own.' Then she goes up one night and finds the Teddy bear and the ink and the French Grammar all lying in the grate. That is against her will. She would prefer the children to be tidy. But on the other hand, it is her will which has left the children free to be untidy. The same thing arises in any regiment, or trade union, or school. You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.
It is probably the same in the universe. God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way; apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on. If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will-....then we may take it is worth paying."
He goes on to talk about how Satan could have gone wrong in the first place and issues of how if there is a self, and free will, then that free will has the option to put itself first, wanting to be the center. Read on if you can...it's great stuff.
So, you can see that I only had my reasoning confirmed and cleared. Thank you Mr. Lewis! Thank you Lord for opening his eyes to such logical Christian truth.
Does that mean that the whole world scheme of good and bad and those who will choose well and those who won't is the way he wants it? Yes. Does it also mean that He wills all would choose well? Yes. Once sin began, He chose to permit it. He could have snuffed it out immediately. From then on He has again and again decided when it should be permitted and when it should be held back or stopped. His allowance of suffering is purposeful as well to demonstrate how He will overcome it. If he does not wish to use it, or overcome it after the fact, He does not allow it to begin with. This is what it means when we say that God works all things for good. There is no evil, and no suffering allowed that He will not work for good. The pain we see in the world that turns many people from God because they cannot bring themselves to submit to a God who allows it, is permitted by Him. Whether we want to submit to that God or not is not an issue really, but if only we would remember that His every permission of it is for good, we would stop defining Him other than what He is. In fact we don't define Him at all, He defines Himself. We can only agree with Him by submitting to His definition of himself, or define him incorrectly, there is not other option. But, that is another blog post isn't it!?:)
As we follow this logical trail we end at one startling place. IF FREE WILL CAN DESTROY THINGS ONE TIME, WHY CAN'T IT DO IT AGAIN IN ETERNITY?
Here I have a four word answer: God says it won't.
The angels were the first to play this out in heaven . They were all created and given free will. One made the wrong choice and many made the wrong choice to follow the fallen one. All the rest chose to remain with God. Then, we have us, the created on earth. Right now the time of choice is playing itself out. We get once chance to choose. Once we do, and all of human history plays out, the books will close. The eternal choices will have been made. God promises that after that time, sin will be cast out forever and it will not be...that's right PERMITTED again. We have to remember that it is not some crazy thing that has it's own will and works out it's evil when it wants. GOD says when it can and cannot have it's way. He says in eternity it will be no more. He promises not to permit it again. We have to take Him at His word! Just as he told Noah with the rainbow "I won't allow the world to be flooded again Noah, and that is a promise", Noah knew God would keep his word. This is the same simple answer.
At the beginning free will was given. The choice was offered. Once the choices have been made, we still will be the free will creatures, we will just be the decided ones.
What is your choice?
PS: Christians- get your mental hands dirty and dig for truths. Read the WORD, read Lewis, and stop wasting your time on petty legalistic mumbo jumbo. Find out the deepest questions of the universe. Be ready to give an answer. Exercise your brain and Love God with all your mind. That does not mean knowing all the rules, it means knowing the truth. The truth will set you oh, so free.
