(the picture in the video is from Tim Challies)
H.
Excursus on problem of evil, suffering, and the reality of hell and its
consequences
1. These are the strongest arguments against God’s
existence and the most brought up objection to God’s existence
2. Evil and
suffering from a Christian perspective
a. 2 Corinthians 1:3-10: Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who
comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who
are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted
by God. For as we share abundantly in
Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort
and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you
experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know
that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. For we
do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in
Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of
life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had
received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves
but on God who raises the dead. He
delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have
set our hope that he will deliver us again.
b. 2 Corinthians 4:7-18: But we have this treasure in
jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to
us. We are afflicted in every way, but
not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not
forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death
of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over
to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in
our mortal flesh. So death is at work in
us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what
has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also
speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus
and bring us with you into his presence.
For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more
people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose
heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed
day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal
weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are
seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are
transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal
3. There are 3 general forms
a. Logical: God’s existence/attributes are
incompatible with the reality of evil
b.
Evidential: probabilistic argument that God doesn’t exist b/c evil does
c. Existential: not an argument, but the personal
problem due to suffering or evil
4. Inadequate responses
to the problem of evil and suffering
a. Have some
good, got to have some evil
i. If I were the only person in the world,
would I be tall?
ii. Evil is a relational property; good is an
absolute property
iii. God existed alone as a Trinity before creation
with no evil present
b. All
suffering is punishment from God
i. Some punishment is natural consequence of sin; some
remedial on God’s part
5. Logical argument
a.
Belief in God is positively irrational
b.
B/c of evil, God does not exist
c. Tries to introduce a logical contradiction b/w
attributes of God and presence of evil
d.
Syllogism
i. God exists.
ii. He is omnipotent.
iii. He is omniscient.
iv. He is omnibenevolent.
v. Evil exists.
vi. A good being always eliminates evil as
far as it can.
vii. There are no limits to what an
omnipotent being can do.
viiia. Therefore, God does not exist.
viiib. Therefore, God isn’t omnipotent and/or
omniscient and/or omnibenevolent.
e.
as Christians, we must hold to premises 1-5
f.
Premise 2: When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Kushner
i. Decided God was not omnipotent
g.
Premise 3: Open theists
i. Deny God’s foreknowledge in an attempt to excuse
God from evil like the Holocaust
h.
Premise 4: Islam
i. A God to be feared, not worshipped
i.
Premise 5: Christian Science, Buddhism
i. Evil does not exist
j.
Attack premise 6
i. God would have to eliminate free will
(Alvin Plantinga 1970’s)
ii. God will eliminate evil in the end
k.
Attack premise 7
i. There are limits to what God can do
ii. He can’t make free creatures not sin
l. Just show God’s existence is not logically
incompatible with evil (moral or natural)
i. Possible reason(s) evil X is allowed, not
actual
ii. Skeptic then must claim omniscience themselves to
answer back
-I know there is no
reason for evil X!
iii. The non-theist must show that it is impossible
logically that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil in
the world that is due to natural disasters.
6. Evidential argument
a. Preponderance of evidence from evil suggests beyond
a reasonable doubt that God does not exist
b.
Gratuitous evil
i. Natural evil: A fawn in a forest breaks its leg. 5
days later a fire starts and the fawn suffocates.
ii. Moral evil: A 9-year-old girl is
tortured, raped, and murdered.
iii. There are no good reasons we know of that come
out of these scenarios. So, why does God allow them?
c. Syllogism
i.
If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist.
ii.
Gratuitous evil exists.
iii.
Therefore, God does not exist.
d.
Short answer
i.
Deny premise 2
-Requires omniscience to say that no good will arise
from these evils
-Takes an inferential leap from inscrutable evil
(cannot understand) to pointless evil (no reason)
e.
Other answers
i. Soul-making defense (Irenaeus, John Hick)
-Suffering develops
virtue in us
ii. Free will/process defense
-God cannot make morally
free creatures not commit evil
-God has allowed the world to be affected by sin (disease,
natural disasters, etc.)
iii. G. E. Moore shift
-Negate the consequent
-If
there is evil, God doesn’t exist
-It
is not the case that God doesn’t exist.
-Therefore, it is not the case that the existence of
evil undermines the case for God’s existence.
-Build a cumulative case
that God exists
-I have many good reasons, despite evil’s existence,
to believe God exists.
-Frank Turek: Does God
exist? (from Stealing from God)
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Yes
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No
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Beginning of the Universe
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Evil
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Fine-tuning of the
Universe
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Consistent Laws of Nature
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Reason: Logic and Math
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Information (DNA) &
Intentionality
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Life
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Mind and Consciousness
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Free Will
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Objective Morality
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Beauty and Pleasure
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OT Prophecy
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Life and Resurrection of
Jesus
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7. Existential problem
a.
Personal, intense suffering or the remembrance of that suffering
b. Job
i.
The proper response
-Job 2:11-13: Now when Job's three friends heard of
all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place,
Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made
an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance, they
did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore
their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. And they sat with him on the ground seven
days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his
suffering was very great.
ii. Bildad (3), Eliphaz (3), Zophar (2) speak
in 3 cycles after…
iii. Try to get him to confess his sin
(suffering=punishment)
iv. Elihu says that God is teaching Job something,
learn and the suffering will end
-wrong
about Job, but not wrong overall
-only
friend not condemned (Job 42:7)
v.
God’s doesn’t answer why, but who
-our
power and knowledge is limited
-trust
Him
8. The argument for God
from evil
a.
If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.
b. Evil exists.
c. Therefore, objective moral values do exist.
d. Therefore, God exists.
9. The reality of Hell
a. Hell is a place of eternal conscious punishment for
the wicked. (Wayne Grudem, Systematic
Theology, pg. 1149)
i. conscious: Matthew 25:30: And cast the worthless
servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.’
ii. eternal: Matthew 25:41: “Then he will say to those
on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels.
iii. punishment: Matthew 25:46: And these will go away
into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
b. Punishment in hell is variable based on the
knowledge and actions of the condemned
i. Luke 12:47-48: And that servant who knew his
master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive
a severe beating. But the one who did
not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating.
Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to
whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.
10. What can we say
about the punishment of those in Hell?
a. In our treatment of the subject of eternal
punishment we must remember that false doctrine is often a reaction from the
unscriptural and repulsive over-statements of Christian apologists. We freely
concede: 1. that future punishment does not necessarily consist of physical
torments,—it may be wholly internal and spiritual; 2. that the pain and
suffering of the future are not necessarily due to positive inflictions of
God,—they may result entirely from the soul’s sense of loss, and from the
accusations of conscience; and 3. that eternal punishment does not necessarily
involve endless successions of suffering,—as God’s eternity is not mere
endlessness, so we may not be forever subject to the law of time. (Augustus Strong,
Systematic Theology, pg. 1035)
b. Hell is the negation or absence in the soul of all
that is meant by heaven. As heaven is the fruition of all right desire, so hell
is the frustration of all such desire. Heaven is the fulfilment of love. Hell
is the fulfilment of selfishness. Heaven is the ripened fruit of the regenerate
life which has been created anew in Christ. Hell is the reverse of all that is
implied in Christian experience. As moral and spiritual causes begin to operate
by faith, which in the end produce the essential elements of heaven, so also
moral and spiritual causes operate in the soul through unbelief to produce the essential
elements of hell. (Edgar Young Mullins, The
Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression, pg. 488–489)
11. How is it just for
God to punish people eternally for temporal sins?
a. All sin
is against God
i. Psalm 51:4: Against you, you only, have I sinned and
done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and
blameless in your judgment.
ii. Our fundamental obligation is to God because He is
our creator, sustainer, and sovereign Lord
iii. God is the ultimate authority
iv. All other obligations derive from our obligation
to God
v. Violation of any obligation is to violate our
fundamental obligation to God
b. God’s
status as an eternal being makes rejection of Him eternal
i. Those who do not find forgiveness in Jesus Christ
are guilty of an eternal sin against an eternal being
ii. Mark 3:28-29: “Truly, I say to you, all sins will
be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but
whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty
of an eternal sin”
c. It is
plausible to think that people keep on sinning in hell
iii. Revelation 16:10-11: The fifth angel poured out
his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness.
People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their
pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.
12. What about those who
have never heard the gospel?
a. General revelation in nature makes everyone morally
culpable to God already (Romans 1:18-20)
b. God’s providence was done in part so that men might
seek God (Acts 17:26-27)
c. If people seek God they will find Him (Matthew 7:7)
d. This makes it impossible to say that people don’t
have an opportunity to believe in Jesus Christ
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