AD: Love and Evil, Part Two

The fact that we must often choose the lesser of two evils is a powerful argument for the doctrine of original sin. If sin is merely a matter of the choices that we make, why are we so often faced with nothing but evil choices? This can only be explained by the idea that evil exists outside of and independent of our choices.

In my last post I mentioned that this presents a loving God with a difficult choice of his own: either He may remove evil as an option and with it, remove all human free will, or else He may allow us choose evil for the sake of the continued existence of free will. After all, in a world where only goodness exists to be chosen, no real choice exists at all. Continuing with the case presented earlier by my reader, this means even child abuse must be allowed by a loving God, because the other option—equal justice for all—would require that neither of them remain free to sin, which would be even worse.

This leaves the Christian with at least two conclusions we can put to practical use. One calls us to meet injustice with faith. The other calls us to meet it with mercy.

First, as beings fully immersed in the stream of time, ours is an inaccurate perspective. A man working thirty years at one station on an assembly line may become so focused on his particular task that he forgets his true job is to help hundreds of others to build a car. He knows it in his head, but in his heart he believes he’s in the bumper attachment business. If he thinks with his heart alone, he may view interference with his bumpers as an unforgivable offense, even if it ultimately results in a better vehicle. Similarly, we Christians know intellectually that God loves us all, that He has a plan to return perfect justice to all creation, that He can be trusted to implement His plan in a way most consistent with His loving nature, and we are only workers on one tiny portion of God master plan as it passes by us in the stream of time. What appears to us as undiluted evil with no possibility of redemption is in fact still a part of God’s plan, which He is using for ultimate good. But when the horror of this fallen world hits home in a personal or particularly horrific way, our hearts tempt us to wave all that aside and insist on justice here and now, at our little station on God’s grace assembly line. It is then that faith steps in to remind us of the little that we know: Even the most horrific evil must be allowed until God’s redemptive plan is complete, because without it goodness as a moral choice would be meaningless. We suffer for a reason: so our “joy may be complete.”

Second, if we consider the fact that "all have sinned and fallen short" in light of God's state of being outside of time (see the last post), and if we remember that all sin is not merely a question of choices here and now, but is actually the result of an inherited condition that causes us to choose to sin (remember the abuser who was a victim and his victim who will be an abuser), then we see that no particular good or evil act is ever quite as clear or simple as we would like to think. This is a compelling argument for the cultivation of mercy in the midst of justice. The survival of civilization depends upon our restraint and punishment of those who are most wholly given over to evil, but in the midst of imposing earthly justice Christians above all others should never forget that “there but for the grace of God go I.”

Athol Dickson
Author of The Gospel According to Moses - What my Jewish friends taught me about Jesus.