The Wonder of the Cross

The God Who Uses Evil and Suffering to Destroy Evil and Suffering

Shenk

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781498276764
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

When considering and confronting the problem of evil, we may be asking the wrong question: Why is there evil in the world if God is good and powerful? It may be wrong because it smuggles in an unbiblical premise: God can and should use his coercive power to relieve suffering since he is both good and able. But what if coercive power does not work to accomplish God's goals? This book is an investigation into the possibility that the noncoercive power of the Cross must be at the center of this issue, and that the Cross could reform this question. We could ask, instead, How is God destroying evil and suffering--and why is he taking so long? The answer to this reframed question might be: He is using evil and suffering to destroy evil and suffering for His People; this is how long it takes. While not a "solution" to the problem of evil, could this help us learn to delight in God in a world in which evil and suffering seem at times so relentless?

Part I

The Tension of Theodicy

While the Epicurean Trilemma is the classic statement of the problem to which theodicy addresses itself, the heart of the problem can be unfolded by a study of free-will and evil, out of which a theodicy is framed. This will involve, to some extent, a study of the ideas of God’s sovereignty and goodness, but the heart of a discussion can fruitfully begin with these two issues. So this project begins by attempting to grasp the historic development of the Christian understanding of free-will and evil and the tension between them that gives rise to various theodicies.

1

The Historical Development of the Concept of Free-Will

The person who chooses has the torment of choice.1 —German proverb

In this chapter, I intend to trace the development of the two established free-will perspectives: Libertarian Free-Will and Compatibilist Free-Will. I will first establish the relationship between a study of theodicy and free-will. Then, to make it possible to follow the development of the concept of free-will, I will offer working modern definitions. Though such definitions will not always be well fitted to past historical understandings, they will serve as useful benchmarks for this discussion. Finally, I will trace the historical development of the concept of free-will that has led to our modern perspectives and understandings. My intent is to suggest that the Libertarian Free-Will and Compatibilistic Free-Will perspectives are inadequate descriptors of freedom.

On the relationship of theodicy to free-will

Well, the two seem clean contrary and opposite, God’s universal foreknowledge and freedom of the will. If God foresees all things and cannot be mistaken in any way, what Providence has foreseen as a future event must happen. So that if from eternity Providence foreknows not only men’s actions but also their thoughts and desires, there will be no freedom of will. . . . For even if it is the case that they are foreseen because they are going to happen and not that they happen because they are foreseen, it is nonetheless necessary that either future events be foreseen by God or that things foreseen happen as foreseen, and this alone is enough to remove freedom of the will.2

—Boethius in dialog with Lady Philosophy

The idea of personal freedom is a deeply held belief but this belief brings us into tension with God’s supremacy and sovereignty, including his foreknowledge. Jonathan Edwards said well that this great assumption of freedom comes from our experience of making choices: “A great argument for self-determining power is the supposed experience we all have of an ability to determine our wills, in cases wherein no prevailing motive is presented.”3 That is, our decisions “feel” free and uninfluenced, even when we are fully aware of significant and overwhelming influences, such as lack of sleep, drugs, or pressing circumstances. Surrounded by causes, we dream we are free. But are we free? And if we are free, in what sense are we free?

Before we begin an historical survey of the church’s understanding of free-will which is intended to address these questions, it is worthwhile to state my intention in this project in regard to free-will or freedom, which I consider to be synonyms. I am proposing that Evil & Suffering is used instrumentally by God to destroy Evil & Suffering in order to produce an ultimate, conforming-freedom. This freedom is a freedom from Evil & Suffering (in the sense of agency and exclusion), in order that we might be as free as God in respect to sin (it has no intersection in us) and so are free to delight fully in God. I will propose that such freedom for his people is under construction within God’s sovereign and sacrificial direction through four distinct Eras of Freedom:

• Unfettered Freedom was given to God’s willful-creatures at creation, and was a perfect freedom, but wholly unfettered from God’s control and character, and a freedom decreed to collapse.4

• Slavery, or Forfeit-freedom, resulted from the rebellion of God’s willful-creatures from God’s laws, which led to complete loss of freedom.

• Penultimate Freedom was created by Christ in his resurrection for his new-creation people, and has a Kingdom-like, “already, not yet” aroma.

• Conforming-Freedom, suggested in Romans 8, is an eschatological or ultimate freedom in which we freely conform to the image of Christ and are unmolested by evil in any way.5

During each of these four Eras of Freedom, Volitional Free-will (the exercise of the human will and the clear and real sense of choice and responsibility) is preserved intact (even though the will is damaged) and is sufficient for responsibility in every age of freedom. That is, in the exercise of our will, we chose and act willingly.6

It should be stated that this project is not about freedom or free-will as an isolated concept, but instead the freedom of God’s human willful-creatures as seen or viewed from a specifically Christian perspective and in regard to theodicy. For that reason, I will primarily consider writers from the Christian era (excepting, of course, Old Testament biblical authors). While much could be learned from the study of pre-Christian authors, and from writers working outside the Christian tradition, their ideas are often cited by the writers considered here. Where they are not, work is left for another project.

Free-Will: definitions and contours

There is no such thing as the definition of indeterminism or the definition of determinism. Instead, there are varieties of each.7

—John S. Feinberg

A development of the precise meaning of free-will8 has been taking shape for millennia. This in itself is instructive. Unlike the concept of “rock,” which has always existed with a certain objectiveness (though the meaning has grown richer with deeper understanding), free-will seems to be an idea that did not hold common meaning over time, nor did every era show equal interest (in fact, some were particularly disinterested, as I will note). As we begin the twenty-first century, the discussion concerning the meaning of free-will has been divided into two fundamental positions: deterministic and indeterministic free-will. Or, as they will be more commonly identified in this project, “Libertarian Free-Will” and “Compatibilistic Free-Will.” While this project will not wholly subscribe to either of these positions, understanding these specific positions or viewpoints is necessary to understand the historical development and current divide. For that reason the following definitions will prove useful as benchmarks for the historical study.

Will is that “faculty of the soul,” the whole person who chooses.9

Free-Will is the state in which the will is free to choose, while at the same time acknowledging internal and external influences upon it. It is the will that chooses.10 So the sense of “free” here is that an action is made freely when it is in accord with the will. The word pair “free-will” is hyphenated because it is to be understood as a binary concept, which has a definition that is not simply a compound of two independent words. A few examples may serve here. If a person chooses to walk across the street, this is a freely willed choice regardless of the influences upon her. But if she is prevented from walking, against her will, by coercion (constraining causes), the act of staying, which an observer may see and which she experiences, was not by the free-choice of her will; she was coerc...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Definitions
• Introduction
• Part I: The Tension of Theodicy
• Part II: The Testing of a Theodicy
• Part III: A Theodicy in the Face of Reality
• Conclusion
• Bibliography