J_Edwards said:
Speratus, once said, "God does not command evil." How true is this? How does this need to be understood? First, we need to distinguish what is meant by the term "command." Does command here mean "control," "order," etc.? However, WHO ultimately "controls" and "orders" ALL? Second, another question that needs to be answered is "What is evil?" In Scripture, there seems to be a lot that "many" would call "evil" that is "commanded" by God (Deut 2:34; 3:6; 20:16-18;1 Sam 15:2-3, etc.). God orders the destruction of children, infants! Is this "evil"? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/chatter.gif" alt="" />

In dealing with these questions you may enjoy reading some of these articles.

Do you have other examples from scripture where God (to many) is the author of evil?

Since all children and infants are under a death sentence from conception (Romans 5), it can not be an evil command for God to order their destruction.

Yet, while God controls and even ordains evil events, it is clear in Scripture that He is not the only One involved in bringing those events about.

To recapitulate: God has ordained evil in order to display to all creation, and in particular to humanity, His glory in a way otherwise impossible. Namely, He has ordained man's fall and the resulting evils to demonstrate His righteousness, justice, grace, and mercy as fully as possible.

"God "wills that evil come to pass . . . that good may come of it." What good? And how does the existence of evil serve this good end?

Here is Edwards' stunning answer:

• It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God's glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . .
  
  Thus it is necessary, that God's awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.
  
  If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God's holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God's grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . .
  
  So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.

So the answer to the question in the title of this message, "Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be?" is no, just the opposite. God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. The effort to absolve him by denying his foreknowledge of sin or by denying his control of sin is fatal, and a great dishonor to his word and his wisdom. Evangelicals who are seeking the glory of God, look well to the teaching of your churches and your schools. But most of all, look well to your souls.

If you would see God's glory and savor his glory and magnify his glory in this world, do not remain wavering before the sovereignty of God in the face of great evil. Take his book in your hand, plead for his Spirit of illumination and humility and trust, and settle this matter, that you might be unshakable in the day of your own calamity".

What is evil? Could it have a purpose? Here is a view of evil from an adult rather than a childish perspecitve.

The first step in answering the problem of evil is this: We've got to get clear on what this thing "evil" actually is. It does seem to follow that if God created all things, and evil is a thing, then God created evil. This is a valid syllogism. If the premises are true, then the conclusion would be true as well.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the second premise is not true. Evil is not a thing. The person who probably explained it best was St. Augustine, and then Thomas Aquinas picked up on his solution. Others since them have argued that evil has no ontological status in itself.

The word ontology deals with the nature of existence. When I say that evil has no ontological status, I mean that evil, as a thing in itself, does not exist.

Let me give you an illustration to make this more clear. We talk about things being cold or warm. But coldness is not a thing that exists in itself; it has no ontological status. Coldness is the absence of heat. When we remove heat energy from a system, we say it gets colder.

"Cold" isn't a thing. It's a way of describing the reduction of molecular activity resulting in the sensation of heat. So the more heat we pull out of a system, the colder it gets. Cold itself isn't being "created." Cold is a description of a circumstance in which heat is missing. Heat is energy which can be measured. When you remove heat, the temperature goes down. We call that condition "cold," but there is no cold "stuff" that causes that condition.

Here's another way of looking at it. Did you ever eat a donut hole? I don't mean those little round sugar-coated lumps you buy at the donut shop. I mean the hole itself. Donut holes are actually what's left when the middle is cut out of a donut. There's a space called a hole, a "nothing," the condition that exists when something is taken away. Same thing with a shadow. Shadows don't exist as things in themselves; they're just the absence of light.

Evil is like that. Evil isn't like some black, gooey stuff floating around the universe that gloms onto people and causes them to do awful things. Evil is the absence of good, a privation of good, not a thing in itself.

When God created the universe, he created everything good. He made a universe that was perfectly good. Everything was as it should be. After God was completely done with creating everything, something happened that reduced the good in the world. That loss of good is called evil.

That's why in Genesis 1 we read "it was good" many times. From the record we know that God didn't create evil. But something did happen in which evil-the loss of good-took place, and as a result a lot of other grotesque things came about.

So donut holes don't exist; they're just the absence of donut. Shadows don't exist; they're just the absence of light. And evil doesn't exist; it's just the absence of good.

J_Edwards said:
Lam 3:38, Jer 18:11, Is 45:7, Amos 3:6, Ezek 20:25. Please provide exegesis of the texts.

God is not commanding evil (the author of evil) in these verses but is commanding good according to His nature and purposes.

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown write:

I Samuel 16:14 The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him--His own gloomy reflections, the consciousness that he had not acted up to the character of an Israelitish king, the loss of his throne, and the extinction of his royal house, made him jealous, irritable, vindictive, and subject to fits of morbid melancholy.

Mattthew Henry writes:

Here is Saul made a terror to himself (v. 14): The Spirit of the Lord departed from him. He having forsaken God and his duty, God, in a way of righteous judgment, withdrew from him those assistances of the good Spirit with which he was directed, animated, and encouraged in his government and wars. He lost all his good qualities. This was the effect of his rejecting God, and an evidence of his being rejected by him. Now God took his mercy from Saul (as it is expressed, 2 Sa. 7:15); for, when the Spirit of the Lord departs from us, all good goes. When men grieve and quench the Spirit, by wilful sin, he departs, and will not always strive. The consequence of this was that an evil spirit from God troubled him. Those that drive the good Spirit away from them do of course become prey to the evil spirit. If God and his grace do not rule us, sin and Satan will have possession of us. The devil, by the divine permission, troubled and terrified Saul, by means of the corrupt humours of his body and passions of his mind. He grew fretful, and peevish, and discontented, timorous and suspicious, ever and anon starting and trembling; he was sometimes, says Josephus, as if he had been choked or strangled, and a perfect demoniac by fits. This made him unfit for business, precipitate in his counsels, the contempt of his enemies, and a burden to all about him.

J_Edwards said:
Is God the first or primary cause of ALL things?

speratus said:
Yes, I think that can be inferred from the fact that He created all things. John 1:3; Col. 1:16. How does that relate to the topic, "God does not command evil?" Are you saying that creation was an evil command and not a good command?

Isaiah 45:7 (KJV) "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things]."

Pilgrim said:
Let's get one thing absolutely clear.... God is not the Author of evil! okay? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Having established that fact we can then move on to the subject at hand by asking a few salient questions:

1) Did God ordain the fall of Satan and those angels who joined with him in rebellion against Him?

2) Did God ordain the Fall of Adam and consequently all of mankind?

3) Did God ordain the crucifixion of Christ, including the acts of the actual men who physically nailed Him to the cross?

4) Does God ordain such things as rape, murder, child molestation, in fact all the wicked acts of men which happen to both believers and unbelievers?

speratus said:
How do you define "ordain"? To order by virtue of superior authority; decree or enact? To prearrange unalterably; predestine?

Pilgrim said:
<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/rolleyes2.gif" alt="" /> Ordain: To order by divine decree. In this case, to determine the existence and end of all things by God's immutable counsel from eternity according to His good pleasure and without influence from the things created. All that God ordains He also providentially directs and brings them to their appointed end.

To believe anything less than this, as R.C. Sproul has said, thrusts one into the arena of the Atheist. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

All the answers, which were questions, that you gave in response to my questions that followed were irrelevant, e.g., whether or not the angels had a "free-will", whether men are "free-agents".

My questions therefore remain and I would appreciate a yes or no answer. It's very simple really. Such questions have been asked of countless people and they were all able to answer them quite easily. I'm sure you can do it if you really try. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/giggle.gif" alt="" />

1) Did God ordain the fall of Satan and those angels who joined with him in rebellion against Him?

2) Did God ordain the Fall of Adam and consequently all of mankind?

3) Did God ordain the crucifixion of Christ, including the acts of the actual men who physically nailed Him to the cross?

4) Does God ordain such things as rape, murder, child molestation, in fact all the wicked acts of men which happen to both believers and unbelievers?

speratus said:
My questions on your questions were all revelant to the topic. Here's my answers to my questions: God did not command the fall of the devils or of Adam. Gen. 2:17; 2 Peter 2:4. God does not command evil works of fallen men. James 1:13-15.

speratus sputtered:
Yes, to all with the understanding that "ordain" does not mean that God causes, authors, predestinates, or commands evil.

Pilgrim said:
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, although you shall be judged for holding error. The most wicked act ever committed by men was crucifixion of the Lord Christ. And it is CLEARLY said to have occurred and it could have only occurred due to the eternal determinate counsel of God.

It is by God's foreordination that ALL THINGS, right down to the movement of the smallest particle of matter, the very thoughts of men and creatures, come to be and are providentially guided to their appointed ends.

You simply can't choose to change the definition of a biblical term to suit your own preconceived ideas! <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/rolleyes2.gif" alt="" /> This fictitious "god" of yours doesn't meet the biblical definition of deity.

For, you have a "god" who has no power over what comes to pass but who can only react to the evil acts of devils and men after they occur since according to you, these acts have not been preordained. Thus devils and wicked men act apart from the sovereign power and authority of God. Sure sounds like Dualism to me. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/igiveup.gif" alt="" />

R.C. Sproul was 100% correct... reject the biblical teaching on God's absolute sovereignty over all things in both power and AUTHORITY, whereby all things have been foreordained by His perfect and immutable counsel and you fall headlong into Atheism. What I find most ironic about you, dear speratus, is that you reject any and all biblical teaching concerning the free-agency of man in regard to salvation but equally reject the sovereignty of God over fallen angels and men. You have created the proverbial puppets that are saved by God's sovereign power but these same puppets, who you have said on many an occasion don't even have the freedom of will to sin, that are doing wickedness which God has nothing to do with. Sorry... but that's not only illogical, it is utterly irrational. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bingo.gif" alt="" />

I quoted:
Acts 4:26-28 (ASV) "The kings of the earth set themselves in array, And the rulers were gathered together, Against the Lord, and against his Anointed: for of a truth in this city against thy holy Servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy council foreordained to come to pass."

And you responded with:
Where do you see, in that passage, God commanding the soldiers to execute Christ?

However, contradicting yourself you affirm:
"It is by God's foreordination that ALL THINGS, right down to the movement of the smallest particle of matter, the very thoughts of men and creatures, come to be and are providentially guided to their appointed ends."

Yes, where did I dispute that?

speratus again sputtered:
I did not change your definition of ordain. You now wish to change your definition so that God does evil.

And you blurt out yet another total illogical contradiction:
No. It is your god that is powerless. He must issue evil commands inorder to accomplish his purposes. If God ordains something (and He ordains everything), it is good not evil by definition. But you have set up a god who is the author of good and evil. Now that's dualism.

Lastly, going off topic you wrote:
I see your view as illogical. Unregenerate men are in bondage to Satan so they have no free will to do good or evil. They will inevitably do evil because of their bound will. But, according to your view, they are in bondage to God and He is holding the strings commanding them to sin and yet they still have free-will to do evil.

Pilgrim said:
You're kidding, right? First of all, I never said that God commanded the soldiers to execute Christ.

God does not command evil works of fallen men. James 1:13-15.

However, contradicting yourself you affirm:
Unless you also what to redefine what ALL THINGS means, then there is nothing which has existence nor events that occur that God has not eternally decreed.

My very first statement when I entered this discussion was, "God is not the Author of evil!" And I will affirm additionally that God does no evil. Your attempt to put words into my mouth doesn't help you here.

Yes, to all with the understanding that "ordain" does not mean that God causes, authors, predestinates, or commands evil.

And you blurt out yet another total illogical contradiction:Which is it? God ordains everything? or He ordains only somethings? Unless you can establish that "evil" is nothing, then logically it must be that God ordains this as well.

thesumo said:
I like to put it this way: Say we take, for metaphor only, literaly God is an Author. When a human author writes that a character is doing an evil act, the author himself, while not committing evil, is ORDAINING evil. I realize this illistration falls through in that an author, to some extent, controls EVERY moment of each characters life, which is precisely why I brought the sovereignty point up.

jadeitedrake0 said:
Time out! Before we go on, can we please define (and identify the limits) of these terms and how they apply to both man and God.

Evil...
Free will...
Sovereignty...
Predestination...
Ordain...
Decree (action verb)...
Election...
Foreknowledge...
Holy...

...or would this be a new topic?