Today’s reading is Mark 14.
The Problem of Evil
About three hundred years before Jesus came to earth, a Greek philosopher named Epicurus pushed back against “the gods.” In fact, he is attributed to have developed the strongest argument out there against the existence of an omnibeneficent (all-good) and omnipotent (all-powerful) God.
His basic argument follows:
First Premise: If God is willing to prevent evil, but not able, He is not omnipotent.
Second Premise: If God is able to prevent evil, but not willing, He is not omnibeneficent.
Conclusion: If God is both able (omnipotent) and willing (omnibeneficent), why is there evil?
How would you respond to this?
The Theodicy of Jesus
The attempt to defend God against the Epicurean charge is called “Theodicy.” It comes from combining two Greek words: 1) theos–meaning “God” and 2) dikē–meaning “justice.” In other words, an attempt to justify God against the accusation of evil in the world.
We can perhaps forgive Epicurus his philosophy. Jesus hadn’t come on the scene yet. But since Jesus lived, died, and resurrected, we no longer have to let this problem stump us. We are reminded of Jesus’s response to the Sadducees question attacking the resurrection. Just because they asked a question to which they couldn’t formulate an answer, doesn’t mean there isn’t one. As Jesus provided an answer to the Sadducees’ question, He also provides the answer to Epicurus’s. He provides our theodicy. We see it in his prayer in Gethsemane.*
Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.
–Mark 14:36 (ESV)
Jesus supports Epicurus’s first premise. He plainly states, God is omnipotent. All things are possible for Him. He is able to end all evil. However, Jesus demonstrates Epicurus’s second premise is faulty. Jesus is about to face evil. The leaders of Israel are going to trump up charges of blasphemy and treason against Him. The people who had just earlier in the week hailed Him as the Son of David, the Messiah, will shout “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” He will be falsely accused, falsely tried, falsely convicted, and brutally executed. He knows the Father can stop it. But He recognizes the Father as unwilling to do so.
However (and this is a big HOWEVER!), Jesus does not take the Father’s unwillingness as a charge against God’s goodness. He doesn’t resign Himself to the less-than-supremely-good will of God because He can’t fight against it. He submits Himself to what He believes is the good will of the Father even though it means enduring evil. In His prayer, Jesus asserts that the Father’s will is better than His. Therefore, He is willing to submit to it even if the Father willingly tolerates evil (for a time). Why would Jesus be willing to do that? Because the evil perpetrated against Jesus was going to accomplish an even greater good (see Romans 5:16). Certainly, God was able to stop the evil perpetrated against Jesus. But He was unwilling to stop it because through that evil and sin, God was going to accomplish the sacrifice which would save many from their own evil.
The Flaw in Epicurus’s Second Premise
Of course, someone will ask, “Why did God let evil into the cosmos to begin with? He could have stopped the very first evil and that would have kept all evil from happening. Then Jesus would not have needed to endure evil.” True. Yet, we recognize from Jesus’s prayer the flaw in Epicurus’s second premise. In order to be able to assert his second premise, we have to have the wisdom of an omnipotent God. Only one who can omnipotently and omnisciently see all possible outcomes can know whether the prevention of all evil–moral and natural–is actually the greatest good. Anyone less than an omniscient God is only making an educated, perhaps even biased guess as to whether the prevention of all evil would be the greatest good.
The fact is, even our limited experience in this life argues against Epicurus’s second premise. Would you say that breaking things and causing pain and suffering are evils? No doubt, you would. Yet, in order to grow muscle and increase strength, we have to break muscle fiber and cause pain and suffering. I recall a time when my oldest daughter was learning to walk and figuring out her way in the world. While pushing a rolling toy, she ran into an evil obstacle: a kitchen chair. It frustrated her. She cried. It was clearly causing her emotional pain. A bystander offered to move the obstacle. I refused to allow her. Within 5 minutes, Tessa had figured out how to get around the obstacle and continue in her fun play. No doubt, Tessa in her toddlerhood could not understand why someone didn’t remove the evil obstacle. Yet, even in my finite (often bordering on foolish) wisdom, I could see a greater good came from allowing the evil obstacle to stay, in forcing her to deal with the pain and grow because of it.
The reality is I may be wrong. It may that God doesn’t exist. But the fact that evil is in the world doesn’t prove it. I have to admit an omnipotent, omnibeneficent, omniscient God who sees all possible ends knows better than me when allowing an evil will produce a greater good than preventing the evil will. In the end, Epicurus’s argument is little more than, “If I were an omnipotent, omnibeneficent, omniscient God, I wouldn’t do it like this. Therefore, there is no God.” Yet, since neither Epicurus nor I are God, how can we know how we would behave if we were?
A Glorious Conclusion
Finally, Jesus’s theodicy actually paves the way for glory. He not only dismantles Epicurus’s “problem of evil,” but his entire philosophy. Epicurus taught that the greatest good was tranquil pleasure. His goal was a peaceful, happy life. When we believe the greatest blessing is peace in this life, then most certainly, we will view anything painful, any suffering, any enduring of evil in this life as the worst of all things. However, what if the goal is greater than tranquil pleasure? What if the goal is greater than a peaceful, happy life on this earth? What if something grander than this life is ahead of us?
Let me take you back to the situation with my daughter. If all she was ever going to face was moving a rolling toy around a room as a one year old, then forcing her to deal with the evil of the kitchen chair that had gotten in her way would have been cruel. But I understood something. My daughter wasn’t going to be one year old forever. One day, she would be twenty-eight. One day, she would be an adult. As an adult, she could enjoy great successes and victories that a one-year-old couldn’t even imagine. But in order to do so, she would have to grow, learn to solve problems, learn to deal with frustrations, learn to overcome obstacles. Leaving that “evil chair” in the way of her toy and her fun was not cruel because there was so much more than playing with toys ahead of her and learning to deal with that one-year-old frustration would prepare her for greater accomplishments and greater joys as she grew.
And that gets to the important point. If this present, earthly, seen realm is all that exists or all God has planned for us, making us endure the evil in this world might well be considered cruelty. After all, if the only blessings are the temporal ones in this life, then every evil thing we experience limits our blessings. But if something more exists, something unseen, something we can’t fathom or appreciate until we are there, something the glory of which makes what we suffer pale in comparison (see Romans 8:18), then perhaps enduring the evil here is actually a great benefit to us. Just as I was fashioning my toddler daughter for adulthood, God fashions us terrestrial beings for unseen, heavenly realms. When those who allow the evil of this world to fashion them for godliness experience the ultimate good in the resurrection, then the evil we have experienced here will pale. In fact, we may even forget the evil we have experienced here as my daughter Tessa has no doubt forgotten about that evil chair that caused her tremendous frustration and emotional pain twenty-seven years ago.
I don’t want to dismiss or minimize the evil, pain, suffering many have endured. But rather than this evil, pain, and suffering demonstrating an omnipotent, omnibeneficent God doesn’t exist, rather it indicates that the true God has something amazing in store for us if we will allow this life to fashion us for greater things.
Praise the Lord!
Tomorrow’s reading is Mark 14.
PODCAST!!!
PATHS:
Discuss Today’s Meditation with Your Family
How does Mark 14 prompt or improve your trust in God?
*Credit to Sharyn Dowd in her brief commentary Reading Mark: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Second Gospel [Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc., Macon, GA, 2000, pp 148-153] for putting me on to this incredible theodicy of Jesus.
Read the Bible 