God and “The” Good: An Essay on Morality, Part VI
V. What is “The Good”?
I want to end this exploration into the relationship between God and the good by attempting to define “good” in a way that is consistent with all that is said previously. So far, we have been talking about “the good” without attempting to define it. Nevertheless, a definition is essential to our understanding of what makes a moral action good or bad. Up until now, by arguing that God’s relationship to the good is that the good is grounded in the being of God (or in his nature) and that He is the source of good, we may have run the risk of stating a tautology. In other words, it might be tempting to conclude based on the above considerations that to say that “God is good” is to say nothing more than “God is God.” However, this would not give us any real understanding of what it means for an action to be good, for an action cannot be God.
So far we have said that if God exists, objective values exist. That is, they are objective in the sense that they exist independently of the natural world. Second, we have argued that God commands what is good, but that values are intrinsically personal and must be grounded in a personal being. Therefore they are grounded in God’s nature. Now I want to propose that values such as beauty, love, purity, and so forth, which make up “the good” are good because the promote what the Christian Scriptures call “the fullness of life” and what philosophers call “flourishing.” In other words, I hold to a Welfarist view that the good must be good for someone. Therefore “the good” is that which promotes the well-being, flourishing, or the fullness of life for others.
Does this not, however, work against an understanding of values as objective? In order for “the good” to be objective should it not be independent of anyone’s well-being? Further, is this not itself a naturalistic explanation of “the good” and therefore eliminate a need for the existence of a divine being? I would answer no to both these questions.
As to the first question, we have already concluded that values of any type are intrinsically personal. Personhood is required to make sense of the existence of values of any sort. Therefore, it only makes sense to conclude that these values must also benefit or make possible the life or the flourishing of other persons.[1] To remain objective, in the sense we have defined it, this flourishing would not begin with human life, but with the very life of God. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity makes sense of this. If God is triune being—or a society of persons—then objective values and the good can exist in the being of God, and at the same time, be defined as that which makes flourishing possible, for these values would provide God with the reality of flourishing. We might call this the God-life. From the flourishing of God, based on the unadulterated perpetuation of beauty, love, goodness, purity, and so forth, God lets this flourishing spill out into a creative act, and consequently creates all that is. In this way, “the good” simply gets extended out from the life of God, to the life of creation, and most specifically to the lives of human beings. Therefore, we can affirm that “the good” is an objective reality which can be defined by that which makes flourishing (i.e. the “fullness of life”) or the God-life possible.
As to the second question, I am just not convinced that nature alone can account for flourishing. Flourishing, in the sense I have described it and in the sense that most people would accept it, seems to be more than mere physical sensations of pleasure. Flourshing, in the way I would imagine most people describe it, takes on more of a metaphysical quality, as we hear terms used like “fulfillment,” or the Hebrew word “shalom” implying a wholeness. Thus, I would argue that the very notion of “flourishing” is more than a biological notion, and therefore does not detract from an understanding of “the good” as an objective reality.
VI. Conclusion
The landscape of contemporary ethical theory is a rugged terrain indeed. The issues are filled with complexity and difficulty surrounds every turn. Every theory faces highly rigorous objections, and I am sure that what I have proposed here will be no different. I have stated my claims somewhat tentatively and I have only scratched the surface of a Christian moral framework. Still, I believe good ground has been made. We have seen that nature does not, nor cannot produce objective values—or value of any sort for that matter. Yet, the existence of moral values would seem self-evident to most people and provides the foundation for moral thinking. We have also seen that the objections to objective values are based on the presupposition of a naturalistic worldview, and a theistic worldview can very plausibly respond to such objections. We therefore have a grounds for believing that objective values can and do exist. We have also accounted for how such values can be grounded in the being of the triune God and can be defined by those things which promote the ‘fullness of life’ or the God-life. Thus, I would suggest we have a solid foundation for a robust Christian moral framework.
[1] Though I would argue these values are intrinsically personal, I would not limit their benefit to persons only. Anything that promotes life of any type is “good.”
God and “The” Good: An Essay on Morality, Part V
IV. The Euthyphro ‘Dilemma’
Once the enquirer has accepted the possibility that objective values could exist, the theist is faced with an immediate and profound dilemma posed effectively by Plato. The dilemma goes something like this: Is something good because God commands it, or does God command something because it is good? If the theist says that something is good because God commands it, he is subject to the charge of arbitrariness. If God commanded rape, would it then be good? Though theists have proposed solutions, this objection presents a strong challenge to the divine command school of ethics.
On the other hand, if the theist answers that God commands something because it is good, then he seems to be admitting that the good can exist a part from God or that something greater than God exists—mainly objective values. In either case, God’s existence is not needed and all the work we have done previously is severely undermined. It may come as a surprise then to find that I answer affirmatively to the second part of the dilemma; I propose that God commands what is good and my explanation is as follows.
Good is a value. So are terms like justice, love, truth, honor, courage, purity, kindness. And I would argue that God commands things because they conform to or make possible these values —these terms all, obviously being part of the good. So, do these values exist independently of God? My answer is no. These values, while objective, I consider to be intrinsically personal. That is, without a person, they cannot exist. Therefore, just as we concluded that values cannot be produced by nature, we must also conclude that values cannot exist independently of personhood. Thus, they do not exist in some ethereal realm, independent of being (i.e. a personal being). I maintain, then, that these values must be grounded in one of two beings—either human beings or the being of God. We have seen the difficulties of grounding them in human beings (in the absence of God) from a naturalistic perspective. Yet, for them to be objective, they must exist independently of human beings. I conclude then that the best explanation of the existence of these values is that they exist or are grounded in the character of a Divine Being (i.e. God.) Something is not good because God commands it, but God commands something, because he is good and commands what is consistent with his character. These values exist in God’s character, and His commands simply reflect what that character is.
God and “The” Good: An Essay On Morality, Part IV
The Argument from Relativity
Following the lead of Mackie, the first obvious objection to the existence of objective values is one that is certainly in vogue currently—mainly the argument from relativity. The argument goes something like this: we now know that there are many different cultures in the world, and each culture has a different set of values, including moral ones. Depending on which culture you were born into makes the difference into set of values you embrace. Therefore, if moral values are supposed to be objective and a fact that can be discovered or known, how is it that so many people who a part of so many different cultures come to such different conclusions about they values they uphold? Is it not rather the case, as Mackie suggests, that “the actual variations in the moral codes are more readily explained by the hypothesis that they reflect ways of life than by the hypothesis that they express perceptions, most of them seriously inadequate and badly distorted, of objective values.”[1]
Before even responding to the issue of presuppositions, it should be noted that there is a simple answer to most forms of the argument from relativity. Yes, it must be acknowledged that cultures differ, though not nearly as widely as is often stated, as to the values that they hold, and this includes moral values. So they may disagree as to what is right or wrong, or good or bad. However, this assumes that there is a right or wrong to begin with! So while cultures disagree as to what constitutes right or wrong, they all fundamentally agree that certain things are right or wrong. This would lend strongly to the existence of a set of values that transcends any particular culture.
Yet, we must acknowledge the force of Mackie’s objection: how have our various cultures so “badly distorted” our perceptions of the right and wrong? Shouldn’t there be a much higher degree of conformity? And this takes us to the issue of presuppositions. Certainly, if naturalism is true, then there is no explanation as to how cultures have come to hold divergent moral systems. In this view, objective morality has already been eliminated as a possibility in the first place. The best theory as to how we come to hold moral views at all would be some sort of social contract theory that is utilitarian in nature. And in this case, then obviously, different societies would hold to different moralities.
If we presuppose a theistic view, on the other hand, we can easily account for the divergence in moral views between cultures and uphold the commonsensical notion that there are objective values, which is bolstered by the fact that all cultures agree that there is a right and wrong (or good or bad) in the first place. Take the Christian understanding of the fall for instance. In the Christian worldview, moral values do not change from culture to culture or person to person, but because we have broken moral faculties, and have closed our ears and eyes to the good, we are fairly stunted in our perception of what is right or wrong, good or bad from the outset. This, though more explanation would be needed, could validly account for the difference in moral values from culture to culture.
Further, whereas cultural relativism dissolves any notion of good and evil, right and wrong altogether, so that objectively speaking there is no difference between an Adolf Hitler and an Abraham Lincoln, a Christian worldview can account for the differences (see above) while also proposing that all cultures and peoples do agree on some basic fundamental moral principles, and that this would lend even further credence to the acceptance of objective moral values. For example, I can think of no culture that thinks it is a morally virtuous thing to rape another man’s wife. This would be patently condemned by all cultures. Sure, one could appeal to utilitarian principles as a way of explaining this, but this would not undermine objective values; it would simply confirm that morality is also useful. As societies and cultures we most certainly seem to be saying more than that raping another man’s wife is un-useful to society. Rather, we are condemning it as morally repugnant and objectively wrong. How the Christian worldview can explain the convergence of moral thinking from culture to culture will be explained in the next section. For now, let it suffice to say that the argument from moral relativism poses no real threat to objective values, unless naturalism is presupposed in the first place.
The Argument from ‘Queerness’
In Mackie’s own words, this argument is as follows:
Even more important, however, and certainly more generally applicable, is the argument from queerness. This has two parts, one metaphysical, the other epistemological. If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. Correspondingly, if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else.[2]
Mackie’s main objection to objective values based on this argument seems to be that to accept that objective values are apprehended by some “special faculty of moral perception” would be a “travesty” to actual moral thinking. For our purposes here, this is really beside the point, but it will also be dealt with shortly. Presently, we should notice just how much Mackie’s naturalistic presupposition factors into the supposed strength of this argument.
It is certainly true that if naturalism is correct, then objective values of any sort would be utterly inexplicable. We have dealt with this already. Because by definition they would need to exist beyond the natural universe, as purely natural creatures, we would have no way to move beyond our physical boundaries to discover them. So from a naturalistic perspective, intuitionism is simply impossible. Point for Mackie.
Yet, what if we presuppose a theistic worldview? Would not the problem given by the argument from queerness vanish? Objective values may be utterly different than the universe, but God himself is “wholly other”—to use a theological phrase—from the universe. And while objective values disembodied from a divine being would be impossible to convey to beings such as humans, a theistic worldview of the Christian sort provides just the sort of “special faculty of moral perception” needed to perceive or apprehend moral truth in the doctrines of the Imago Dei and the idea of revelation. First, Christian doctrine affirms that God creates humanity in the divine image, capable of receiving divine truth. By the sheer fact of being created, we have God’s moral faculties built into us. Second, God, being personal in nature, can reveal these objective values through the moral faculties that he’s given us. In fact, this would go far in explaining why, though there are some disagreements across cultures about what is right or wrong, there is also a great deal of convergence on the most fundamental issues of morality (e.g., we may disagree as to whether terminating a fetus is right or wrong, but we all agree that to murder a child is unequivocally wrong). At the same time, because our moral faculties have been damaged by rebellion, we do get morality wrong sometimes, and now we can see why God would need to reveal his objective values in the form of divine commands.
As to Mackie’s objection that to accept that objective values might be built into us and perceived by intuition is a travesty to moral thinking, I will say two things. First, I cannot see how the plain denial of objective values is, itself, not a travesty of moral thinking. I would argue that in the absence of objective morals—which is almost assumed these days—ethical theory has become ever more convoluted as it attempts to ground morality in the always changing fads of culture. Second, I am not certain we need to go so far. If morality is indeed an attempt to live the good, then it would need to be of such a nature that we could also come to it through another faculty, mainly that of reason. I, therefore do not think intuitionism and moral thinking are mutually exclusive. Again, intuitionism grounded in a theistic worldview simply suggests that we all have a sense of right and wrong built into us. How we come to explicate it is open to discussion.
The Humean Psychological View
A third argument against objective values is based on the Humean understanding of the role of desires in motivating a person in action. Hume famously showed us that it is not our beliefs that primarily motivate us to action, but our desires. Yet, according to a theory of objective values, it should be our belief in their existence that motivates us to act. In other words, a belief in a domain of objective facts outside of our subjective states does not square well with current understandings of psychological states, especially in regards to desires and their motivating force.
Again though, without a great deal of argumentation, the Humean view implicitly presupposes a naturalistic worldview. For Hume, desires are a purely natural phenomenon. Smith writes, “Desires are unlike beliefs in that they do not even purport to represent the way the world is. They are therefore not accessible in terms of truth and falsehood. Indeed, according to the standard picture, our desires are at bottom not subject to any rational criticism at. The fact that we have a certain desire is…simply a fact to be acknowledged.”[3] In other words, desires are just natural occurrences and are not, therefore, subject to rational—or moral—scrutiny. So objective values, in this view, would be irrelevant, thus strongly arguing against their existence.
Of course, within a Christian framework, we can gladly acknowledge that desires do occur “naturally” (i.e., we do not rationally decide to desire something), but that our desires, like our moral faculties have been marred and thus do not work properly. In this view, objective values would not be moot; rather, our desires would be flawed. Yet, while in the Humean view, morality is reduced to preference, and the human is mechanically determined to follow his or her desires, in the Christian view, humans can resist their impulses or instincts and choose the good. This would not happen without the Christian doctrine of grace, but even so, the Christian view does not ignore the role of desire in moral action, but neither does it reduce all moral action to desire.
In my responses to these objections, I have also made a case for objective values. My claim has been simple: if we accept the possibility of God’s existence, then a strong case can be made for objective values existing as well. I would even go so far as to say that a theistic framework does better justice to the issues than does alternative explanations. Now that the groundwork has been laid, we may proceed more quickly in laying a specifically Christian framework for ethics.
God and “The” Good: An Essay On Morality, Part III
III. A Case for Objective Values
Throughout the history of ethical philosophy, there have always been those who argue that there are no objective values—Protagoras, for example—and those, such as Plato, who argued that objective values do, in fact, exist. Yet, even with this being the case, a claim such as Mackie’s remains as provocative as ever, for it seems to go against every intuition that humans have to deny the existence of such values.[1] What I mean is that the “typical” person who is not versed in the intricacies of academic moral theory is likely to believe that an objective right or wrong (or good or bad) do exist, whether or not they can explain how they know it to be so. To most people, it seems self-evident that there is such a thing as morality and that we are in some sense obligated to be people who behave morally. Michael Smith in his essay on Moral Realism captures this point well: “It is commonplace that we appraise each other’s behavior and attitudes from the moral point of view. We say, for example, that we did the wrong thing when we refused to give to famine relief this year, though perhaps we did the right thing when we handed in the wallet we found on the street.”[2]
C. S. Lewis, the famous modern defender of the “moral argument” begins his case for Mere Christianity, by also confirming the ‘commonsensical’ nature of what we call moral argument and deserves to be quoted at length:
Everyone has heard of quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like this: ‘How’d you like it if anyone did the same to you?’—‘That’s my seat, I was there first’—‘Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm’…’Come on, you promised.’ People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups…Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: ‘To hell with your standard.’[3]
To state the obvious, Lewis makes the point that the majority of people take it for granted that moral values exist or are real. And this is precisely the point of Mackie’s statement denying their existence. Though there are moral theories, such as emotivism, which proposes that moral statements (i.e. “It is wrong to do such and such”) are simply expressions of pleasure or displeasure (which Lewis denies), or prescriptivism, which states that moral statements are basically imperatives (i.e. “Murder is wrong” in a prescriptivist sense would mean “Do not murder”) that could be settled by utilitarian discussions but have no objective basis, Mackie in agreement with Smith, Lewis, and others, argues that when people say “Murder is wrong,” they most typically mean that there is a wrongness in the act of murder that is an objective reality; or, it is a fact that murder is wrong. Therefore, the belief—whether rightly as Lewis believes, or wrongly as Mackie believes—that moral values do exist is the “layperson’s” view of objective values and moral argument.
We seem to be at an impasse here. On the one hand, if naturalism is true, then moral objectives do not exist, Mackie is right, and regardless of how self-evident moral truths seem, we are in “error.” On the other hand, there seems to be a strong, “commonsense” pull toward acknowledging that these values, however we come to explain them, do exist and that they provide the ground for our moral intuitions and the framework for our moral deliberations. As I have also suggested, if we are inclined to believe that these values do, in fact, exist, then we must strongly consider the likelihood that God exists, for they would be, necessarily part of a metaphysical reality, by the sheer fact that nature is inherently value-neutral. This would, thus, be the initial building block for a theistic ethical theory in describing God’s relationship to the good and/or right: God must exist for the good to exist.
I wish in the rest of this section, therefore, to offer a brief defense of objective values. I must confess, however, that because objective values would fall under the category of metaphysical reality, empirical verification of them is impossible. It is for this reason that I have been using the conditional “if” throughout this paper. I do not presume to be able to provide compelling evidence for the existence of moral values—or of God for that matter. What I am convinced of is that our acceptance or denial of objective values is not based on any sound evidence either way, but upon the presuppositions that we hold; mainly the presupposition that there is a God or that there is not a God. A response to three of the most common objections to objective values will demonstrate this.
[1] Hence the once popular ethical theory of Intuitionism proposed by some philosophers such as G. E. Moore.
[2] Michael Smith, “Realism,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1993), 399.
[3] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), 3.
God’s Relationship to “The” Good: An Essay on Morality, Part II
II. The Implications of Naturalism: A Defense of Mackie
It might sound odd for a Christian theist to defend Mackie’s basic claim for the case that objective values do not exist, but that is what I intend to do. Actually, what I hope to do is leave only two worldviews in which to view morality from: that of naturalism, in which case objective values do not exist, and that of theism in which case objective values do exist.
If there is no God, then nature is all that there is. The naturalist view proposes, “the natural world is complete in itself, self-oriented and self-sufficient. According to naturalism, everything which exists or occurs lies entirely within the domain of natural processes.”[1] Yet, by any admission, nature is value-neutral. Nature—consisting or combinations of particles and matter—regardless of how sophisticated, is not a source of value. Thus, nature is morally (which is inherently value-laden) neutral as well. A common example from the animal kingdom may clarify this position.
Take the lion (or any other predator). Each day the lion goes out to hunt prey. In what is often very vicious ways, the lion hunts down other weaker animals. It matters not to the lion if the animal being hunted is an adult, a female, or a child. The prey is merely food for the hungry lion. Yet, never once do we consider imposing moral values onto the lion or any other participant in the natural order. We do not say, concerning the lion, it is wrong to hunt the baby zebra and viciously kill it for food. We simply assume that this is a reality of the natural order; it is instinct and nothing more.
I do not intend to sound facetious with such a basic example. My aim is to point out that when we observe the natural order, from the existence of particles to the more sophisticated forms of life, we never once suggest that it is subject to a moral order. We acknowledge that animals are no more capable of moral deliberation than are stars and thus we would never hold an animal morally responsible for any act it may commit, regardless of how vicious. We may consider an act by an animal heinous or evil, but this would simply describe the effects of the act. We would never consider an animal morally heinous or evil.
Yet, if naturalism is true, then is it not the case that human beings are merely sophisticated forms of animals—which are themselves merely sophisticated combinations of particles? Certainly, for some inexplicable reason, we have developed brains that are able to reason; yet, at the bottom of things these brains are nothing more than “self-operating computers,” and that the “thoughts and other mental properties of humans are simply properties of highly complex, highly organized physical [emphasis mine] systems.”[2] Humans are ultimately nothing more than products of the natural order, and as such, there is nothing intrinsically special about us. We may have developed the capacity to value certain experiences that occur in our natural existence; for instance, we may value the chemical reaction in our brain that creates an emotion that we call “love,” but this is nothing more than a subjective response on our part, which consequently is also simply a mechanical process of our physical brains. There is nothing intrinsically valuable in the natural world, for as I have said, nature does not produce value.
At the risk of oversimplifying the case of philosophical naturalism, my point was simply to confirm Mackie’s bold statement: there are no objective values—if nature is all that there is. I imagine that are many who would applaud my defense of naturalism and Mackie’s claim, for this would seem so patently obvious. However, there are also undoubtedly a great many people for whom this claim would strike the most uneasy of chords. In fact, I would daresay that there are many people who would consider such a claim downright preposterous. Can all of reality be reduced to pure physical matter they would ask? Are our moral convictions nothing more than simple survival mechanisms of an evolutionary sort? Is there really no such thing as good? Beauty? Love? Evil?
God’s Relationship to “The” Good: an Essay on Morality, Part I
So far the magnus opus of my graduate career (which my professor proceeded to dismantle! 
).
God’s Relationship to the Good: No God; No Good
I. Introduction
In what is easily one of the most provocative statements in ethical literature, J. L. Mackie makes the following claim: There are no objective values.[1] That is, at the very bottom of things, there is no existence of things such as moral goodness or badness, or even other non-moral values such as beauty or love.[2] For any person at all interested in morality from an ethical perspective, or even more importantly, for persons hoping to be morally good persons in general, this is an enormous claim indeed, for if it is true, then there is no such thing as good and evil or right and wrong. In Mackie’s view, though we, as human beings are strongly inclined to believe in the existence of right and wrong, we have simply gotten it wrong.
My aim in the following essay is not to dissect Mackie’s utterly fascinating proposal, but instead to use it as a springboard to discuss a framework for Christian ethics and God’s relationship to the (if there is any such thing) good. Nevertheless, I introduce Mackie for the purpose of beginning my exploration of a Christian ethical framework with an admission and a commendation of sorts. My admission: If God does not exist, then Mackie is undoubtedly correct and has done the philosophy of ethics a great service for disbanding the myth of objective values. My commendation: I am delighted to see an atheist be so straightforwardly consistent in denying the existence of objective values. For now the lines are drawn a little more clearly—to deny objective values is to affirm atheism (or naturalism) and to affirm objective values is to be inclined toward the reality of a personal divine being.[3] Thus, I want to begin my ethical exploration with an equally strong claim: In regards to the enquiry of what God’s relationship is to the good, I want to suggest that if “the good” exists, then so does God. More to the point, if objective values—both moral and non-moral—can be said to exist, then it would supply strong evidence that God exists.
However, while the issue of the existence of objective moral values is the primary aim of this essay, it is also only a starting point towards a more comprehensive framework for Christian ethics. So, while establishing objective values is a valid starting point of Christian ethics, we must go further. For example, a Christian theist must wrestle with Plato’s famous Euthyphro dilemma: Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? We must also answer the question, what is it for something to be good in such an objective sense—that is, apart from the mere subjective opinions of human beings? I intend to explore these questions from what is hopefully a biblically faithful perspective. In other words, I am presupposing a Christian worldview for the remainder of this essay. However, it must be admitted up front that an essay of this limited scope cannot deal with the many intricacies of moral discussion. It is, therefore, a broad strokes essay.
[1] J. L. Mackie, Inventing Right and Wrong (New York, NY: Penguin Publishing, 1977), 15.
[2] Mackie writes, “The claim that values are not objective, are not part of the fabric of the world, is meant to include not only moral goodness, which might be most naturally equated with moral value, but also other things that could be more loosely called moral values or disvalues—rightness and wrongness, duty, obligation, an action’s being contemptible and so on. It also includes non-moral values, notably aesthetic ones, beauty and various kinds of artistic merit,” 15. Therefore, I do not go too far in stating that Mackie would deny the objective existence of ‘values’ such as love and beauty.
[3] I will use the word “inclined” here to allow for the obvious reality that many non-theists do, in fact, affirm objective values. I merely think that Mackie is more consistent with his worldview than are other non-theists.
“The Triune God’s Answer to Evil,” Part V
V. The Kingdom of God as God’s Reigning, Conquering Love
Though the incarnation demonstrates that God is for us and not against us, it is what Christ brings with him that shows God’s plan for the overcoming of evil. When Jesus came preaching, his gospel was that “the kingdom of God” had drawn near—that in Him, God’s reign had fully come. I propose that the doctrine of the kingdom of God, in a sense, encompasses these other doctrines into one unified whole.
Going back to the doctrine of the Trinity, we have established that God is a triune community of everlasting love. Before creation, love was the reigning ruling presence, because it defined God’s very essence. As we know, God’s love (agape) does not reign in a dictatorial fashion, for it seeks the well-being of the other. God’s reign is a sacrificial, loving reign. When God created mankind, the goal of creation was that of love—the love that always existed within the Godhead. In this sense, God has always sought to reign (i.e. His kingdom) over creation with a rule of love. Thus when mankind (and the rest of creation) fell, God’s goal and agenda did not change—he still sought to come and reign over us. This is the kingdom of God.
As I have mentioned, because of rebellion, there are now two competing factions in the universe. When God in Christ came into creation, he came claiming that he was bringing forth God’s kingdom. Though the world, up to that point was ruled by a kingdom of darkness, God’s kingdom—defined by the ministry of Jesus—was instituted. The bringing of the kingdom of God—ushered in by its king, is the good news—or the gospel—of God’s answer to sin, death, rebellion, and evil. In a sense, Jesus is the kingdom of God, for in his ministry, death, and resurrection, he demonstrates who God really is, what his reign really looks like, and guarantees that it will be consummated fully at the end of time.
If we want to know what God’s response is to the evil and suffering in this world, then we need look no further than Jesus Christ. It might be objected that while what God did in Jesus was certainly beautiful, it cannot and does not answer the suffering that have taken place in the two thousand years since he came. Yet, God’s plan for his loving reign does not end with Christ’s death and resurrection. In fact, Jesus himself, said it was a good thing that he was going back to the Father. This is so, because God’s plan is to fill his followers—those who have become citizens of his loving kingdom—with the kingdom itself, and that the people of God, or the church, would demonstrate and carry out the spread of God’s kingdom throughout the earth.
We must not confuse our human understanding of kingdoms and rulers with the kingdom of God. While the rulers of this world seek to rule over people, often using power and force, to accomplish their ends, God’s kingdom looks most clearly like Christ giving his life on a cross. God’s kingdom is defined by selfless, sacrificial, love. Because of our superficial western views of love, this may sound fluffy and trite, but that could not be anything further from the truth. What else besides sacrificial Christ-like love can bring peace and healing to this broken world (let us not forget that most of the evil is because of human wickedness)? Imagine if a million people began to actually live like Jesus? What kind of effect would that have in our world? We can at least catch a glimmer of what God’s kingdom in its fullness would look like.
And so, the hope of Christianity, is that God’s kingdom will some day fully reign in this world. One day, the love of God’s reign will finally vanquish all sin, selfishness, hatred, greed, pride, lovelessness, and thus the vast majority of evil. In fact, the cross and the resurrection of Christ is God’s way guarantee of such a victory. Christ’s victory on the cross of sin, death, and Satan, is God’s assurance that His final and complete victory is unavoidable. In the meantime, God’s people are commissioned with the task of being his kingdom “ambassadors” in ministries of reconciliation as we seek to have his reign made complete in our own lives and then spilling into the world. The famous prayer, “Let your kingdom come, and let your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” will someday come to pass.
VI. Conclusion
There is no way for me to fully answer the problem of evil. Though I think it is incredibly important for philosophers and theologians to continue to dialogue and seek ever more faithful answers, I am under no illusions that we will one day finally discover the “solution.” However, in Christianity, I see not only many intellectually fulfilling responses to it, but infinitely more, I see a God who takes the brokenness, evil, and sin of this world with the utmost seriousness. I see a God who has always wanted to have his love reign over all. I see a God who must take freedom seriously if he is to have his creation and creatures dwell in his unfathomable love. I see a God who is irrevocably committed to his creation, and goes to unimaginable lengths to suffer with and for us, by entering into our suffering and bearing it upon himself. And I see a kingdom and way of reigning that is most clearly expressed in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And I am convinced that one day the King will return in his fullness, and we will partake of what God always intended for us—that we would exist, live, and revel in his unending love.
“The Triune God’s Answer to Evil,” Part IV
IV. The Incarnation as God’s Willingess to Suffer Because of, With, and For Creation[1]
One set of question that is constantly raised in regards to the presence of so much evil in the world is Why didn’t God just stop it once it happened? Why didn’t he just start over? Why doesn’t he simply put an end to right this moment? Though any satisfying answers to these questions exceed the scope of this essay, I do propose that the incarnation of God in Christ does give us some insight into what an answer would look like. This insight is found by proceeding deductively.
Without trivializing the tragic situation that all of creation finds itself it, let us assume for the moment that God’s response to man’s fallen condition, and therefore the presence of a vast amount of evil in the world is to come and enter into our condition, take on human flesh, and so on. The question we must immediately ask is why would God do it this way? If, in his omnipotence he could simply start over, then why go through all the trouble? One obvious response is that he wants to demonstrate his love for us. And I certainly see the veracity of this response, but it actually deserves some more exploring. It would seem that not only does he want to demonstrate his love to us, but his love compels him to irrevocably commit himself to his creation. In other words, once God creates, he will not renege on his commitment to continue loving—for that is what love does. Love never fails. However, I would argue that there is a more fundamental and necessary reason for God to respond to evil as He has done. Because God’s love is the goal of creation, and freedom is the means, God must, in a sense, honor the freedom of his creatures by not putting an end to the creation once sin has entered in. For freedom that is revoked is not really freedom at all. The incarnation suggest that God must work from within the parameters of his creation to bring about its redemption. He must enter into it in order to rescue it. However, this goes far beyond a mere need—God longs, in his love, to come to the rescue of those whom he loves.
What does this have to do with suffering? First, God was well aware of the tremendous risk He must take in expressing his love in creating. We are unaccustomed to think of God as one who suffers; however, if God is the essence of love, then how could he not suffer infinitely more than even we do when he sees his loved ones inviting sin, death, and evil (thus destruction) into their (our) lives. Therefore, God suffers because he has chosen to express his love to a creation that rebels.
In this sense, God’s decision to come in Jesus Christ is his overwhelming commitment to join in solidarity with us in our suffering. Christ leaves heaven, enters into a fallen creation (and a “war-torn” one), takes on human flesh, and begins the journey of suffering, sacrificial love that leads all the way to Calvary and the cross—God suffers for us. Therefore, God’s first response to the horrible situation we find ourselves in, is to enter as fully as possible into the thick of, with us and for us. The doctrine of the Incarnation proves that God does not sit off in some different dimension of space, passively observing all that ensues in his broken creation; rather, from the Fall onward, he initiates the process of entering into our suffering, taking it upon himself. Though this does not eliminate the suffering we must go through (in the short-run), we may take solace and comfort in the fact that God is and has always been deeply involved in every instance of our suffering. The incarnation merely demonstrates this reality to us.
[1] I have chosen to forego the use of extensive footnotes, in attempting as much as possible to express these doctrines in my own words. Of course, most of this is not original to me but has been absorbed by my various readings on the problem of evil. However, this idea of God suffering because of, with, and for creation comes directly from the work of Terence Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philidelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984).
“The Triune God’s Answer to Evil,” Part III
III. The Fall as Warlike Rebellion
Though God never intended or desired for sin and rebellion to enter the world, to make love possible, freedom would have to exist, and freedom necessitates risk. Therefore, evil was a necessary possibility from the beginning of creation. Though we cannot speculate too deeply in regards to an angelic fall, Christianity does teach that there are spiritual beings which have rebelled against God, and so we may assume that at some point—probably prior to the creation of human beings—there was such an angelic fall. Likewise, one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity is that mankind did indeed rebel against God, and through man (Adam) “sin entered the world” bringing forth death (Romans 5: 12). It is unnecessary to speculate on exactly how sin spreads to all of mankind, or on the extent to which sin is responsible for all the evil in the world. It is enough that the Christian doctrine of the Fall shows how the freedom, that God must grant man in order to make love possible, was abused, and with that abuse sin and death came forth.
This, so far, is a minimalist response, and so I propose to go a bit further. Often the fall of man is portrayed more as a lapse of judgment than an outright rebellion. Whatever we may assume about Adam’s sin, it becomes clear through the history of mankind that as a result of continued sin and rebellion we have waged war on God. Further, Jesus and the New Testament writers make clear that there is another kingdom and ruler of this world—a principality that also rebels against God. Paul even writes that when a person places their faith in Christ, God transfers them from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his son (Colossians 1:13). From this scripture and others like it, it would seem that there are two competing kingdoms in the world—that of God and that of this rebel principality. And they are at war. Mankind, fallen from God—and the whole world for that matter—is said to be “under the sway of the wicked one” (I John 5:19). Therefore the doctrine of the Fall teaches that the world is at war with God, and this is the cause and reason for evil.
Though the doctrine of the Fall as the basis for evil has become increasingly unpopular in philosophical and even theological circles. In my view, it makes the best sense of the fact that our world looks far more like a war-zone than the good creation of a loving God. Once we have accepted that mankind (and angels) have not only fallen but have rebelled against God and his purposes and there are now two competing powers in the world, we now have a basis for evil. If the world looks like a “war-torn” creation, that is because it is a war-torn creation! The Christian doctrine of the Fall, when given its full gravity, can not only make sense of the presence of evil in the first place, but also the scope and magnitude of evil in all its horror. However it happened, the world has come under the siege of a terribly malicious force, and mankind has wittingly or unwittingly joined in.
“The Triune God’s Answer to Evil,” Part II
II. God as Triune Love
One of the foundational—maybe the—doctrines of Christianity, affirmed by all the major creeds is the idea that God is a triune being consisting of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is the litmus test to determine one’s orthodoxy. Though this doctrine has been the consternation of many, and endlessly disputed, contemporary thinkers following the Eastern tradition have tended to emphasize the three-ness of God’s oneness. Rather than see God as being a single unified being, God is seen as a society—or community, keeping with postmodern language—of persons united in perfect love. The singularly important statement made by John “God is love” (I John 4:12) expresses more than a mere attribute of God: it expresses the very nature of God’s triune being.
In fact, this statement is actually a defense of God’s triune-ness and therefore a defense of Christian theism when one considers that love by its very nature requires the existence of more than one person. It is only within Christian theism that the objectivity of love may be established, for it is only in Christian theism that a society of persons—known as God—as always existed. Love is rooted in the very nature of God’s being.
When we understand that God’s very nature is love which has always existed in the reciprocal fellowship of the Godhead, then we positioned to postulate what God’s goal in creation was and is. For now we know that God’s purposes flow out of his essence, which is overflowing love. Thus, we understand that God did not create out of necessity or compulsion in a technical sense, but as an outpouring of agape love. Actually, in one sense, we might say that God could not help but create, for love always seeks the good of the other—and to exist is a far better thing than not to exist.
If God’s reason for creation is because of the overflow of triune love spilling out, then we would certainly be justified for thinking that God’s goal in creation is that his creatures will experience and reciprocate the divine love. What more does love seek than to be given and enjoyed by the beloved? Thus, love is the goal of creation.
So far we have explore the nature of the Trinity and how it roots the goal of God’s creative purposes. Yet, we have not explored how this relates to the problem of evil. A popular theistic explanation to the problem of evil is some type of free-will defense. Put briefly, if God creates human beings with free-will of the libertarian type, then it is a logical contradiction to suggest that he can create such beings free and ensure that they do not sin (bring evil into existence). Thus, freedom has always been an essential element within the Christian theist’s explanation of how a good and all-powerful God could allow evil.
It is the understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, though, that anchors the idea of free-will in the first place. I want to suggest that freedom is not the goal of God’s creative purposes, but the means to it, because love requires freedom. In order for mankind to receive and reciprocate the unending love of God, we must be free—love that is coerced is not love at all. So then, it is for the purpose of love that God has created mankind (and perhaps angels) with a freedom to remain in God’s love, or to not, and instead rebel against God which would inevitably bring large amounts of evil into the world. We have with our understanding of the triune nature of God, both the purpose and goal of God’s creation, and the explanation of why freedom is so essential to God’s creative purposes, and thus why evil was such a necessary possibility.
