Life on a Broken Planet

The Christian Worldview and the Problem of Evil

Life on a Broken Planet:

The Problem of Evil

the genesis genesis of evil

the genesis genesis of evil

love

God has a morally justifiable reason - consistent with His goodness and

sovereignty and character - for having created a world in which evil can (and

does) occur…

Genesis 1: God’s “risk”Genesis 1: God’s “risk”

Moral Agency

• The will of God - freedom for his creation– Freedom: the ability to do right … with rights and freedoms come

responsibility [for to do wrong will only harm and enslave humans]– The warning of death

• The lie: “…and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”• the root of evil: selfishness – the desire to replace God

– sin as rebellion– sin as theft

• The image of God [a created good] is diminished …by the creation….from what the Maker intended

the damaged imagethe damaged image

Genesis 3Genesis 3• 17 To Adam he said, “Because you

listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you…”

Roman 8Roman 8• v. 19-22 For the creation waits in

eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope thatthe creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Genesis 3Genesis 3• v 21,22 The LORD God

made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

Romans 5Romans 5• v. 12, 18,19 Therefore, just as sin

entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

WHAT ABOUT THE DEVIL?WHAT ABOUT THE DEVIL?

Life on a Broken Planet

• Isaiah 14:12-15ESV “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.”

• Ezekiel 28:15ESV “You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.

• Jude 1:6ESV “And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day…”

• 1 Timothy 3:6 indicates that pride caused Satan’s downfall. “ He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.”

why do good people have bad things happen?

• First, who's to say we are good people? The question should be not "Why do bad things happen to good people?" but "Why do good things happen to bad people?"

• If the fairy godmother tells Cinderella that she can wear her magic gown until midnight, the question should be not "Why not after midnight?" but "Why did I get to wear it at all?”

• Sinners think they are saints, but saints know they are sinners.

specific sufferingspecific suffering

Can’t God make us free and good?Can’t God make us free and good?

• This demand is based on a false argument that God can do anything—that God can make something with mutually exclusive qualities—good and evil—at the same time.

• The skeptic wants God to create man with the appearance of free will, but without the ability to choose. He wants the love of God without that God giving humans a choice to love back. In demanding this, he insists on what he would reject in other arguments. (R. Zacharias)

GOD’S RESPONSEGOD’S RESPONSE

Ok, we’re responsible… but how could God create us knowing we would bring evil into the cosmos?Can God’s love and justice coexist?