The Problem of Evil (Yes, it IS a Problem)

by Phil Johnson



omeone somewhere recently must have broadcast one of my messages where I mentioned the problem of evil and the sovereignty of God. Because I have been besieged lately by e-mails, Facebook messages, and Tweets from a handful of gung-ho Calvinists (currently veering at breakneck speed into hyper-Calvinism) who want to take issue with something I said. What I said is that God is neither the author, the agent, nor the efficient cause of evil. Evil is not something He created; rather, when He finished creating, He pronounced everything good. Nor does evil in any way emanate from Him, because He is light in whom there is no darkness. The responsibility (as well as the blame) for evil belongs to fallen creatures, not the Creator.

Anyway, these young men (who have recently discovered the doctrines of grace and are evidently still in the cage stage) have been writing me to dispute that point. "There is no 'problem of evil,'" a typical correspondent wrote. "What's the problem? God, who is the Creator of all things and who uses all things in the outworking of His eternal plan, Created evil for His own purpose. That poses no problem because God is above His own law and outside of it. Because He is subject to no law Himself, whatever He does is good, period. He can do anything, and when He does it, it becomes good."

"Can God lie?" I asked?

"Of course," my correspondent replied, flatly contradicting Titus 1:2.

The view that fellow was espousing is the ex lex theodicy—the notion that God can actively and directly cause evil, and that He can violate the moral standards of His own law because he is outside the law (Latin: ex lex) and therefore subject to no law and no set of principles whatsoever.

Let's stipulate that God is subject to no law and is Himself the ultimate Lawgiver, responsible to no one but Himself. (That is, after all, what we mean when we affirm that God is absolutely sovereign.) Nevertheless, it is blasphemous folly to conclude that God can lie, or deny the truth, or otherwise be the agent and efficient cause of evil. He cannot (and will not) do those things because they are contrary to His character. The law forbids such things precisely because the moral standard of the law reflects His character. God may not be subject to the law, but He will not deny Himself or act in a way contrary to His character.

Here's an excerpt from something I wrote and posted on this subject at my original blog several years ago:

ordon Clark wrote a short but very thought-provoking work titled "God and Evil: The problem Solved" (originally a chapter in his book Religion, Reason and Revelation, now also published as a standalone work). The work itself is not on the Web, but a sympathetic review and summary by Gary Crampton may be found here. In some respects, Clark's work is helpful, explaining clearly (for example) the principle of secondary causation and how it relates to the issue of culpability. (This is an important point which, as noted below, Clark then unfortunately proceeds to make moot.) Clark also gives several clear reasons why it's neither biblical nor rational to argue that God merely "permitted" evil without sovereignly decreeing it. (Without getting sidetracked on a secondary issue, let me go on record as saying I believe there is a permissive element in God's decree with respect to evil. That is, His decree doesn't make him the author or efficient cause of evil. But, as Calvin said, God's role in the origin of evil is not bare permission. In other words, it's not permission against His will, but a positive decree. In that respect, I think Clark is absolutely right, and his arguments on this point are cogent and persuasive.) But in the process, Clark makes much of the ex lex argument to absolve God from the charge that He is therefore culpable for the entry of evil into His creation. This, I believe, is not particularly helpful, and a lot of people who have been influenced by Clark and who think he has neatly and easily solved the problem of evil tend to fall into terribly sloppy thinking about divine holiness, God's instrumentality with respect to evil, and the relationship between causality and culpability. Anyway, I think John Frame's assessment of Clark's famous theodicy is helpful. Here it is. Frame's own footnotes are included in braces {and faint type}: [Clark's] argument is that God is ex lex, which means "outside of the law." The idea is that God is outside of or above the laws he prescribes for man. He tells us not to kill, yet he retains for himself the right to take human life. Thus, he is not himself bound to obey the Ten Commandments or any other law given to man in Scripture. Morally, he is on an entirely different level from us. Therefore, he has the right to do many things that seem evil to us, even things which contradict Scriptural norms. For a man to cause evil indirectly might very well be wrong, but it would not be wrong for God. {But on this basis, it would also not be wrong for God to cause evil directly. That is why I said this argument makes the indirect-cause argument beside the point.} Thus Clark neatly finesses any argument against God's justice or goodness. There is some truth in this approach. As we shall see, Scripture does forbid human criticism of God's actions, and the reason is, as Clark implies, divine transcendence. It is also true that God has some prerogatives that he forbids to us, such as the freedom to take human life. Clark forgets, however, or perhaps denies, the Reformed and biblical maxim that the law reflects God's own character. To obey the law is to imitate God, to be like him, to image him (Ex. 20:11; Lev. 11:44-45; Matt. 5:45; 1 Peter 1:15-16). There is in biblical ethics also an imitation of Christ, centered on the atonement (John 13:34-35; Eph. 4:32; 5:1; Phil. 2:3ff.; 1 John 3:16; 4:8-10). Obviously, there is much about God that we cannot imitate, including those prerogatives mentioned earlier. Satan tempted Eve into seeking to become "like God" in the sense of coveting His prerogatives (Gen. 3:5). {John Murray said that the difference between the two ways of seeking God's likeness appears to be a razor's edge, while there is actually a deep chasm between them.} But the overall holiness, justice, and goodness of God is something we can and must imitate on the human level. So God does honor, in general, the same law that he gives to us. He rules out murder because he hates to see one human being murder another, and he intends to reserve for himself the right to control human death. He prohibits adultery because he hates adultery (which is a mirror of idolatry—see Hosea). We can be assured that God will behave according to the same standards of holiness that he prescribes for us, except insofar as Scripture declares a difference between his responsibilities and ours. {Oddly, Clark, who is usually accused of being a Platonic realist, at this point veers into the opposite of realism, namely, nominalism. The extreme nominalists held that the biblical laws were not reflections of God's nature, but merely arbitrary requirements. God could have as easily commanded adultery as forbidden it. I mentioned this once in a letter to Clark, and he appreciated the irony, but did not provide an answer. Why, I wonder, didn't he deal with moral law the same way he dealt with reason and logic in, e.g., The Johannine Logos (Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1972)? There he argued that God's reason/logic was neither above God (Plato) nor below God (nominalism), but God's own rational nature. Why did he not take the same view of God's moral standards?} [From: Apologetics to the Glory of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1994), 166-68.] Frame concludes that Clark's ex lex defense "simply is not biblical." I think he's right.

I hope that helps.

---