Meticulous Providence
For those who hold to meticulous providence, or that God fore-ordains every thing that will ever happen, even the fact that I am writing these words and you are reading them, how does one who holds this view explain the problem of evil? If God ordains everything, does this make him the author of evil? I know some of you 5-pointers are itching to touch this one, so go ahead. I'm not trying to pick a fight, just would like to see how the converation goes.
posted by Charlie Wallace at
7:50 PM
3 Comments:
You are not a Calvinist?
That's good. The Calvinists seem to domminate the bogsphere.
I think they would say that God foreordained evil so that He could show His gracious nature by saving the elect and His just nature by condemning the rest. They would argue that if you deny that God ordained evil, you believe in a weak god who is not really sovereign.
Am I right, Calvinists?
Every Blessing in Christ
Matthew
Quoting Wayne Grudem in his "Systematic Theology":
Does God actually cause the evil actions that people do? If he does, then is God not responsible for sin?...We can begin by looking at several passages that affirm that God did, indeed cause evil events to come about and evil deeds to be done...it is very clear that Scripture nowhere shows God as directly doing anything evil, but rather as bringing about evil deeds through the willing actions of moral creatures. Moreover, Scripture never blames God for evil or shows God as taking pleasure in evil...However we understand God's relationship to evil, we must never come to the point where wee think that we are not responsible for the evil that we do, or that God takes pleasure in evil or is to be blamed for it...The most evil deed of all history, the crucifixion of Christ, was ordained by God--not just the fact that it would occur, but also all the individual actions connected with it. [See Acts 4:27]
I know that this is a huge comment, but that should give you a classically Reformed synopsis of God's relation to evil. By and large, I agree with Dyspraxic Fundamentalist.
Thanks...we can always rely on Grudem to give a solid answer.
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