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THE PERMISSION OF EVIL
AND ITS RELATION TO GOD’S PLAN
Part 1
Adapted from chapter seven of The Divine Plan of the
Ages
International Bible Students Association, 1914
edition
All Scripture references
in this article are to the New International Version, UK
edition
THIS ARTICLE not only inquires regarding human ailments, sorrows, pains, weaknesses and death, but goes behind them to consider their primary cause — sin — and its remedy. Since sin is the cause of evil, its removal is the only method of permanently curing the malady.
We put forward the following questions:
Why did God permit evil?
Why did He permit Satan to tempt Adam and Eve?
Why did He allow the forbidden tree to have a place among the good?
The Fall Not
Inevitable
Could God have prevented all possibility of man’s fall? Yes, He could have, but the fact that He did not is strong proof to us that its existence is designed ultimately to work out some greater good. We believe that God’s plans, seen in their completeness, will prove His Wisdom.
Some might ask, Could not God, with whom all things are possible, have blocked Satan’s actions? Yes, He could have, but that would have worked against His own purposes. His overall purpose is to demonstrate the perfection, majesty and righteous authority of His law — to prove both to men and to angels the evil results of violating it.
God Desires Only to
Bless
The Scriptures declare that all things were created for the Lord’s pleasure (Revelation 4: 11):
You are worthy, our Lord and our God to receive glory
and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were
created and have their being.
God delights to bless and exercise the attributes of His
glorious being. And though, in the working out of His benevolent designs, He
permits evil and evildoers for a time to play an active part, yet it is not for
evil’s sake, nor because He is in league with sin. He declares that He is ‘not a
God who takes pleasure in evil’ (Psalm 5: 4). Though opposed to evil in every
sense, God allows
it for a time, because He sees that it may be made a
lasting and valuable lesson to His creatures.
Good and Bad, Right and
Wrong
It is a self-evident truth that for every right
principle there is a corresponding wrong principle. For instance,
truth and
falsehood, love and
hatred, justice and injustice. We distinguish these opposite principles as right or wrong by their effects when put into action. The principle which is
beneficial and which results in ultimate order, harmony and happiness, we call a
right principle; and the opposite, which produces unhappiness and
destruction, we call a wrong principle. The intelligent being, capable of discerning the right
principle from the wrong, and voluntarily governed by the one or the other, we
call virtuous or sinful.
This faculty of discerning between right and wrong
principles is called the moral
sense, or conscience. It is to this moral sense that God always appeals to prove His
righteousness or justice and by the same moral sense Adam could discern sin, or
unrighteousness, to be evil, even before he knew all its
consequences.
The lower orders of God’s creatures are not endowed with
this moral sense. A dog has some intelligence, but not to this degree, though he
may learn that certain actions bring the approval and reward of his master, and
certain others his disapproval. He might steal or take life, but would not be
termed a sinner; or he might protect property and life, but would not be called
virtuous, because he is ignorant of the moral quality of his actions.
Alternatives
Considered
God could have created mankind devoid of ability to discern between right and wrong, or able only to do right, but he would then have been merely a living machine, a programmed computer, and certainly not a mental image of his Creator.
Or God might have made man perfect and a free agent, as He did, and have guarded him from Satan’s temptations. In that case, man’s experience being limited to good he would have been continually liable to suggestions of evil from without, or to ambitions from within, which would have made his everlasting future uncertain, and an outbreak of disobedience and disorder would always have been a possibility.
God first acquainted Adam and Eve with good, surrounding them with it in Eden. Later, as a penalty for disobedience, gave them a severe knowledge of evil. Expelled from Eden and deprived of fellowship with their Maker, the exiles experienced sickness, pain and death, that they might come to understand the nature of evil and the disastrous effects of sin. From a comparison of results they came to an appreciation and proper estimate of both (Genesis 3: 22):
And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us,
knowing good and evil.’
Sin
Inherited
In this understanding of evil their offspring share, except that they will not fully understand the power of good until they experience it in the future Kingdom of God, as a result of their redemption by Christ, who will then be their Judge and King.
The moral sense, or judgement of right and wrong, and the liberty to use it, which Adam possessed, were important features of his likeness to God. The law of right and wrong was written into his natural constitution. It was a part of his nature, just as it is a part of the Divine nature.
But we must remember that this image or likeness of God
has lost much of its clear outline through the degrading influence of sin. As
already noted, the ability to love implies the ability to hate. Hence we may
reason that the Creator could not make man in His own likeness, with power to
love and to do right, without the corresponding ability to hate or to do wrong.
This liberty of choice, termed free moral agency, or free will, was a part of man’s original nature, and this, together with the
full measure of his mental and moral faculties, constituted him an image of his
Creator. Today, after over 6,000 years of deterioration, much of that original
likeness has been lost. We are now less free in our wills, and more or less bound by sin — sin
is now easier and agreeable to the fallen race than is
righteousness.
God could have given Adam such a vivid impression of the many evil results of
sin as would have deterred him from it, but He knew that experience of the evil would be the most thorough lesson for him
and his offspring, all mankind. For this reason He did not prevent but allowed
man to make his choice, and to feel the consequences. Had an opportunity to sin
never been presented, man could not have resisted it, consequently there would
have been neither virtue nor merit in any future right-doing. God desires
intelligent and willing obedience, rather than ignorant, mechanical
service.
The Value of
Experience
The principles of right and wrong, as
principles, have always existed, and will always exist. And all perfect,
intelligent creatures in God’s likeness must be free to choose either. But the
Scriptures tell us that when the activity of the evil principle has been
permitted long enough to accomplish God’s purpose, it will forever cease to
be active, and that all who continue to submit to its control shall forever
cease to exist (1 Corinthians 15: 25, 26):
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under
his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Right-doing and right-doers, only, shall be allowed to live
forever.
But the question recurs in another form: Could man have
been made acquainted with evil in some other way than by
experience?
Generally, there are four ways by which man can learn.
1. Intuition
2. Observation
3. Information
4. Experience
Each of these methods plays a part in our cumulative understanding, but experience is the most thorough teacher.
(To be
continued in the mid-October Newsletter)
______________
This
adaptation only: copyrighted October 2009
ukbiblestudents.co.uk
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