God creates evil? Q&A

I was asked a few questions during my interaction about God and evil in Isaiah 45:7

1. Couldn't god find a better way to bring about good than via evil? (Or, if you prefer, can you get creative and at least contemplate ways that appear, on the very surface at least, better?)

These types of questions are difficult because they entertain the idea of a perfect being while suggesting that said being is doing things imperfectly.  I honestly don’t know if he could do it better because the existence of evil draws our attention beyond the here and now and thrusts into ultimate questions which in turn makes us consider eternity.  The very existence of a non-temporal God and our temporal existence has built into it imperfection and dependency which leaves the capacity for evil.  And for some reason, unexplained to man, God’s plan included a damaged creation being redeemed through the death of his son.  Just because we can’t conceive of an explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t one.  And honestly, an infinite being explaining his infinite perfect plan to finite imperfect creatures means by default we won’t fully understand because our very nature is opposed to complete infinite exhaustive understanding.  So the absence of an explanation doesn’t necessarily prove anything, other than what we should assume to be the case given the nature of an ultimate perfect plan and our limited imperfect abilities.

2. Doesn't the process of creating a negative and a positive equal a zero? 

Not if the ultimate sum of all things is good.  The evil actions of men are finite and temporal, God’s plan is eternal.  In other words, his actions and will are going to bring about eternal incorruptible good while the evil intentions and actions of men bring about temporal evil and are part of an ultimate plan for ultimate good.  So, Christ being killed was temporary and evil, but it brought about a greater, ultimate, and incorruptible good: the salvation of many.

Then I was asked why the buck stopped at us and why didn’t God deliver the girls in Cleveland.  Well, if he brings about all things, then God is the one who ultimately delivered them from the hands of the oppressor.  Now, the question remains, why didn’t God do it before they were raped?  The short of it is, we don’t know, and we don’t always get a clear 1:1 like we do in the story of Joseph or the death of Jesus.  Maybe it will increase awareness in the area and keep a greater number of girls safe from abduction and rape?  Maybe it will be so shocking and terrifying to the public that someone considering doing something similar decides it’s better not to?  Again, we see things on a temporal scale while God sees a big and ultimate picture.  So maybe the good never comes in our lifetime or is even tangible.  Maybe someone reads this discussion or those like it and finds hope in their suffering knowing there is some underlying current of good in their awful circumstance and they face it with hope rather than despondency and bitterness?    But ultimately, I don’t know.  Again, the Gospel shows me that the worst thing ever brought about something wonderful, so I can, as Paul says, grieve with hope.

And to clarify, my point was not that we need God to tell us evil exists.  My point was more of a philosophical flipping of the coin.  Say there is no God, no absolute measurement, nothing supernatural, nothing above the natural realm, then how do we claim metaphysical realities like evil exist?  How do we grieve with hope?  How do we maintain in one hand that evil exists, and in the other, provide hope for the damaged, the suffering, and the down trodden?

God creates evil?

I was recently pressed with the question about a passage in Isaiah 45...

Isaiah 45:7

I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all

The best place I can go when dealing with this passage in Isaiah, which at face value is admittedly challenging, is the story of Joseph. Joseph’s brothers commit a heinous crime against him, and would have killed him if not for Reuben. Their intentions are later described as evil in what is, in my opinion, the clearest passage for reconciling human responsibility and God’s sovereignty. Genesis 50:20 says, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”(ESV) So, as best as I can understand and explain it, the intentions of man and the intentions of God run parallel. They intended destruction, God intended restoration. The intended evil of Joseph’s brothers brought about, ironically, their salvation. God’s plan was ultimate and good, their plan was temporal and evil. Now, they are not let off the hook just because God brought about something good from their evil because their intentions are described as evil over and against the good intentions of God. In other words, there is no shrugging of the shoulders, “all’s well that ends well”, because Joseph maintains the right judgment that his brothers intentions were evil. Now, in the bigger picture, this event with Joseph leads to the enslavement of Israel by the Egyptians, an evil act, which leads to their deliverance, a good act. God even claims that he raised up Pharaoh to show His power and his name proclaimed. Temporal evil running parallel to ultimate good is a theme that runs throughout the entire Bible, the statement by Joseph just makes it about as clear as any. This theme has to be considered when you read a passage like Isaiah.

So, we look at incredibly heinous behavior of people today, like your example of children’s hands being chopped off, and we bristle at the idea of God being in control of that. But a Christian can look at it and say, “Evil plans exist alongside the good and ultimate plan of God in a way we only get a glimpse of in the story of Joseph. But he is also a wrathful judge who has promised to make all things new and punish those who practice evil and has called us to deliver the oppressed from the hands of evil men.” Christians can both hope for the ultimate future but also have reason to fight evil now. See, we have a resource and a measurement that doesn’t make sense of evil in the moment, but is the temporal and ultimate solvent for it. Without an ultimate judge, god, or measurement, how can you even maintain that an act is objectively evil? Because you don’t like it? Because it hurts someone else? These are merely preferential in the absence of some form of absolute measurement. I would rather trust in the one who has shown he can use temporal evil for ultimate good than believe in space + time + matter = that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

The central claim of Christianity is that God used the most evil event in history, the slaying of the innocent God-man, to bring about the salvation of sinners. So anyone familiar with Christianity is familiar with the greatest parallel of evil intentions running alongside the good intentions of God. If I believe in the claims made in the Gospels then I can trust God means good in all things, no matter how heinous they might be. So yes, He creates calamity, because it is by the greatest calamity that I’ve been saved.