.jpg)
This week, we begin to investigate five possible reasons God allows evil to exist, which can be extracted from the biblical text. First, the Bible is quite clear that God allows evil to exist as a form of punishment for sin. Second, some evil comes about due to the consequences of others’ sin. Third, some evil comes about due to the consequences of evil done by spiritual beings. Fourth, the biblical text indicates that God allows evil to exist as a pathway to the greater good. And fifth, the biblical text suggests that some evil is beyond our finite human ability to understand.
It becomes very clear, very early, that God has set forward in the Bible the reality of an if/then structure of how people “are to be” in the world. By that, I mean one need not read too far into the Bible to see that God establishes the first behavior- based contractual agreement with mankind. It is an agreement between God and man principally and primarily based on understanding the proper ordering of reality: the Creator over creation.
In this inaugural covenant, God states that man may eat the fruit of any of the trees in the Garden but may not eat of the Tree of Life, or they will “surely die.” It is nothing less than if you do that, then, this will happen. Direct, straightforward, and easy to understand: if/then. It is a daily and life-long fact of life. How often have you heard a similar ultimatum from parents, teachers, law enforcement, employers, spouses, siblings, friends, enemies, etc. etc? In all these cases, there is an understood expectation and a warning about what will happen if things go wrong.
