Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?

Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be? Jonathan Edwards on the Decrees of God

John Piper The Jonathan Edwards Institute Evangelicals Seeking the Glory of God July, 1998

Fourteen years ago Charles Colson wrote, "The western church – much of it drifting, enculturated, and infected with cheap grace – desperately needs to hear Edwards’ challenge. . . . It is my belief that the prayers and work of those who love and obey Christ in our world may yet prevail as they keep the message of such a man as Jonathan Edwards." That conviction lies behind The Jonathan Edwards Institute and behind this conference. And I certainly believe it.

Most of us, having only been exposed to one of Edwards’ sermons, "Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God," do not know the real Jonathan Edwards. We don’t know that he knew his heaven even better than his hell, and that his vision of the glory of God was just as ravishing as his vision of hell was repulsive – as it should be.

Most of us don’t know that he is considered now, by secular and evangelical historians alike, to be the greatest religious thinker America has ever produced . . .

. . . that he not only was God’s kindling for the Great Awakening in the 1730’s and 1740’s, but was also its most penetrating analyst and critic . . .

. . . that he was driven by a great longing to see the missionary task of the church completed, and that his influence on the modern missionary movement is immense because of his Life of David Brainerd . . .

. . . that he was a rural pastor for 23 years in a church of 600 people . . . that he was a missionary to Indians for 7 years after being asked to leave his church . . . that, together with Sarah, he reared 11 faithful children . . . that he lived only until he was 54 . . . and died with a library of only 300 books . . .

. . . but, nevertheless, his own books are still ministering mightily after 250 years.

But not as mightily as they should. Mark Noll, who teaches history at Wheaton and has thought much about the work of Edwards has written:

Since Edwards, American evangelicals have not thought about life from the ground up as Christians because their entire culture has ceased to do so. Edwards’s piety continued on in the revivalist tradition, his theology continued on in academic Calvinism, but there were no successors to his God-entranced world-view or his profoundly theological philosophy. The disappearance of Edwards’s perspective in American Christian history has been a tragedy.

One of the burdens of this Conference, and certainly one of the burdens of my life, is the recovery of a "God-entranced world-view." "Evangelicals Seeking the Glory of God," in my understanding, means "evangelicals seeking a God-entranced world view." But what I have seen over 18 years of pastoral ministry and six years of teaching experience before that, is that people who waver with uncertainty over the problem of God’s sovereignty in the matter of evil usually do not have a God-entranced world view. For them, now God is sovereign, and now he is not. Now he is in control, and now he is not. Now he is good and reliable when things are going well, and when they go bad, well, maybe he’s not. Now he’s the supreme authority of the universe, and now he is in the dock with human prosecutors peppering him with demands that he give an account of himself.

But when a person settles it Biblically, intellectually and emotionally, that God has ultimate control of all things, including evil, and that this is gracious and precious beyond words, then a marvelous stability and depth come into that person’s life and they develop a "God-entranced world view." When a person believes, with the Heidelberg Catechism (Question 27), that "The almighty and everywhere present power of God . . . upholds heaven and earth, with all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, all things, come not by chance, but by his fatherly hand" – when a person believes and cherishes that truth, they have the key to a God-entranced world view.

So my aim in this second message is to commend to you this absolute sovereign control of God over all things, including evil, because it is Biblical, and because it will help you become stable and deep and God-entranced and God-glorifying in all you think and feel and do.

And when we set our face in this direction, Jonathan Edwards becomes a great help to us, because he wrestled with the problems of God’s sovereignty as deeply as anyone. And I want you to know how he resolved some of the difficulties.

So my plan is to lay out for you some of the evidence for God’s control of all things, including evil. Then I will deal with two problems. 1. Is God then the author of sin? 2) And why does he will that there be evil in the world? I will close with an exhortation that you not waver before the truth of God’s sovereignty, but embrace it for the day of your own calamity.

First, then, consider the evidence that God controls all things, including evil. When I speak of evil, I have two kinds in mind, natural and moral. Natural evil we usually refer to as calamities: hurricanes, floods, disease, all the natural ways that death and misery strike without human cause. Moral evil we usually refer to as sin: murder, lying, adultery, stealing, all the ways that people fail to love each other. So what we are considering here is that God rules the world in such a way that all calamities and all sin remain in his ultimate control and therefore within his ultimate design and purpose.

If you are wondering whether there is a connection between this message and the one I gave this afternoon (on the foreknowledge of God), there is. The denial of God’s foreknowledge of human and demonic choices is a buttress to the view that God is not in control of evils in the world and therefore has no purpose in them. God’s uncertainty about what humans and demons are going to choose strengthens the case that he does not plan those choices and therefore does not control them or have particular purposes in them.

For example, Gregory Boyd, in his book God at War, says, "divine goodness does not completely control or in any sense will evil."

Jesus nor his disciples seemed to understand God’s absolute power as absolute control. They prayed for God’s will to be done on earth, but this assumes that they understand that God’s will was not yet being done on earth (Mt. 6:10). Hence neither Jesus nor his disciples assumed that there had to be a divine purpose behind all events in history. Rather, they understood the cosmos to be populated by a myriad of free agents, some human, some angelic, and many of them evil. The manner in which events unfold in history was understood to be as much a factor of what these agents individually and collectively will as it was a matter of what God himself willed.

In other words "the Bible does not assume that every particular evil has particular godly purpose behind it."

This is diametrically opposed to what I believe the Bible teaches and what this message is meant to commend to you for your earnest consideration.

Consider the evidence that God controls physical evil – that is, calamity. But keep in mind that physical evil and moral evil almost always intersect. Many of our pains happen because human or demonic agents make choices that hurt us. So some of this evidence can serve under both headings: God’s control of calamities and God’s control of sins.

The Bible treats human life as something God has absolute rights over. He gives it and takes it according to his will. We do not own it or have any absolute rights to it. It is a trust for as long as the owner wills for us to have it. To have life is a gift and to lose it is never an injustice from God, whether he takes it at age five or age ninety-five.

When Job lost his ten children at the instigation of Satan, he would not give Satan the ultimate causality. He said, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). And, lest we think Job was mistaken, the author adds, "In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong" (Job 1:22 RSV).

In Deuteronomy 32:39 God says, "There is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand." When David made Bathsheba pregnant, the Lord rebuked him by taking the child. 2 Samuel 12:15 says, "Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s widow bore to David, so that he was sick . . . . Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died." Life belongs to God. He owes it to no one. He may give it and take it according to his infinite wisdom. James says "You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. . . . You ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that’" (James 4:14-15; see 1 Samuel 2:6-7).

One of the calamities that threatens life is disease. In Exodus 4:11, God says to Moses, when he was fearful about speaking, "Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?" In other words, behind all disease and disability is the ultimate will of God. Not that Satan is not involved; he is probably always involved one way or the other with destructive purposes (Acts 10:38). But his power is not decisive. He cannot act without God’s permission.

That is one of the points of Job’s sickness. When disease happened to Job, the text makes it plain that "Satan . . . afflicted Job with sores" (Job 2:7). His wife urged him to curse God. But Job said, "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity" (Job 2:10). And again the author of the book commends Job by saying, "In all this, Job did not sin with his lips." In other words: this is a right view of God’s sovereignty over Satan. Satan is real and may have a hand in our calamities, but not the final hand, and not the decisive hand. James makes clear that God had a good purpose in all Job’s afflictions: "You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose (telos) of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful" (James 5:11). So Satan may have been involved, but the ultimate purpose was God’s and it was "compassionate and merciful."

This is the same lesson we learn from 2 Corinthians 12:7 where Paul says that his thorn in the flesh was a messenger of Satan, and yet was given for the purpose of his own holiness. "To keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to tormentme – to keep me from exalting myself!" Now, humility is not Satan’s purpose in this affliction. Therefore the purpose is God’s. Which means that Satan here is being used by God to accomplish his good purposes in Paul’s life.

There is no reason to believe that Satan is ever out of God’s ultimate control. Mark 1:27 says of Jesus, "He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him." And Luke 4:36 says, "With authority and power He commands the unclean spirits and they come out." In other words, no matter how real and terrible Satan and his demons are in this world, they remain subordinate to the ultimate will of God.

Another kind of calamity that threatens life and health is violent weather and conditions of the earth, like earthquakes and floods and monsoons and hurricanes and tornadoes and droughts. These calamities kill hundreds of thousands of people. The testimony of the Scriptures is that God controls the winds and the weather. "He called for a famine upon the land; He broke the whole staff of bread" (Psalm 105:16). We see this same authority in Jesus. He rebukes the threatening wind and the sea, and the disciples say, "Even the wind and the sea obey Him" (Mark 4:39, 41).

Repeatedly in the Psalms God is praised as the one who rules the wind and the lightning. "He makes the winds His messengers, Flaming fire His ministers" (Psalm 104:4). "He makes lightnings for the rain, [he] brings forth the wind from His treasuries" (Psalm 135:7). "He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow . . . Fire and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, fulfilling His word" (Psalm 147:18; 148:8; see 78:26). Isaac Watts was right, "There’s not a plant or flower below but makes your glories known; and clouds arise and tempests blow by order from your throne." Which means that all the calamities of wind and rain and flood and storm are owing to God’s ultimate decree. One word from him and the wind and the seas obey.

Another kind of calamity that threatens life is the action of destructive animals. When the Assyrians populated Samaria with foreigners, 2 Kings 17:25 says, "Therefore the LORD sent lions among them which killed some of them." And in Daniel 6:22, Daniel says to the king, "My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths." Other Scriptures speak of God commanding birds and bears and donkeys and large fish to do his bidding. Which means that all calamities that are owing to animal life are ultimately in the control of God. He can see a pit bull break loose from his chain and attack a child; and he could, with one word, command that its mouth be shut. Similarly he controls the invisible animal and plant life that wreaks havoc in the world: bacteria and viruses and parasites and thousands of microscopic beings that destroy health and life. If God can shut the mouth of a ravenous lion, then he can shut the mouth of a malaria-carrying mosquito and nullify every other animal that kills.

Other kinds of calamities could be mentioned but perhaps we should simply hear the texts that speak in sweeping inclusiveness about God’s control covering them all. For example, Isaiah 45:7 says God is the "The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these." Amos 3:6 says, "If a calamity occurs in a city has not the LORD done it?" In Job 42:2, Job confesses, "I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted." And Nebuchadnezzar says (in Daniel 4:35), "[God] does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What are you doing?’" And Paul says, in Ephesians 1:11, that God is the one "who works all things after the counsel of His will."

And if someone should raise the question of sheer chance and the kinds of things that just seem to happen with no more meaning than the role of the dice, Proverbs 16:33 answers: "The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the LORD." In other words, there is no such thing as "chance" from God’s perspective. He has his purposes for every roll of the dice in Las Vegas and every seemingly absurd turn of events in the universe.

I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes – that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens – that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence – the fall of . . . leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.

When Spurgeon was challenged that this is nothing but fatalism and stoicism, he replied,

What is fate? Fate is this – Whatever is, must be. But there is a difference between that and Providence. Providence says, Whatever God ordains, must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some great end. Fate does not say that. . . . There is all the difference between fate and Providence that there is between a man with good eyes and a blind man.

Now consider the evidence for God’s control over moral evil, the evil choices that are made in the world. Again there are specific instances and then texts that make sweeping statements of God’s control.

For example, all the choices of Joseph’s brothers in getting rid of him and selling him into slavery are seen as sin and yet also as the outworking of God’s good purpose. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph says to his brothers when they fear his vengeance, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive." Gregory Boyd and others, who do not believe that God has a purpose in the evil choices of people (especially since he does not know what those choices are going to be before they make them), try to say that God can use the choices that people make for his own purposes after they make them and he then knows what they are.

But this will not fit what the text says or what Psalm 105:17 says. The text says, "You meant evil against me." Evil is a feminine singular noun. Then it says, "God meant it for good." The word "it" is a feminine singular suffix that can only agree with the antecedent feminine singular noun, "evil." And the verb "meant" is the same past tense in both cases. You meant evil against me in the past, as you were doing it. And God meant that very evil, not as evil, but as good in the past as you were doing it. And to make this perfectly clear, Psalm 105:17 says about Joseph’s coming to Egypt, "[God] sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave." God sent him. God did not find him there owing to evil choices, and then try to make something good come of it. Therefore this text stands as a kind of paradigm for how to understand the evil will of man within the sovereign will of God.

The death of Jesus offers another example of how God’s sovereign will ordains that a sinful act come to pass. Edwards says, "The crucifying of Christ was a great sin; and as man committed it, it was exceedingly hateful and highly provoking to God. Yet upon many great considerations it was the will of God that it should be done." Then he refers to Acts 4:27-28, "Truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur" (see also Isaiah 53:10). In other words, all the sinful acts of Herod, Pilate, of Gentiles and Jews were predestined to occur.

Edwards ponders that someone might say that only the sufferings of Christ were planned by God, not the sins against him, to which he responds, "I answer, [the sufferings] could not come to pass but by sin. For contempt and disgrace was one thing he was to suffer. [Therefore] even the free actions of men are subject to God’s disposal."

These specific examples (which could be multiplied by many more instances) where God purposefully governs the sinful choices of people are generalized in several passages. For example, Romans 9:16: "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." Man’s will is not the ultimately decisive agent in the world, God is. Proverbs 20:24: "Man’s steps are ordained by the LORD, How then can man understand his way?" Proverbs 19:21: "Many plans are in a man’s heart, But the counsel of the LORD will stand." Proverbs 21:1: "The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will." Jeremiah 10:23: "I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps."

Therefore I conclude with Jonathan Edwards, "God decrees all things, even all sins." Or, as Paul says in Ephesians 1:11, "He works all things after the counsel of His will."

And I pose two questions as an evangelical who is seeking the glory of God, and who longs for a Biblical, God-entranced world-view. 1) Is God the author of sin? 2) Why does God ordain that evil exist? What are the answers that Jonathan Edwards gave to each of these questions?

Edwards answers, "If by ‘the author of sin,’ be meant the sinner, the agent, or the actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing . . . . it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the author of sin. In this sense, I utterly deny God to be the author of sin." But, he argues, willing that sin exist in the world is not the same as sinning. God does not commit sin in willing that there be sin. God has established a world in which sin will indeed necessarily come to pass by God’s permission, but not by his "positive agency."

God is, Edwards says, "the permitter . . . of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted . . . will most certainly and infallibly follow."

He uses the analogy of the way the sun brings about light and warmth by its essential nature, but brings about dark and cold by dropping below the horizon. "If the sun were the proper cause of cold and darkness," he says, "it would be the fountain of these things, as it is the fountain of light and heat: and then something might be argued from the nature of cold and darkness, to a likeness of nature in the sun." In other words, "sin is not the fruit of any positive agency or influence of the most High, but on the contrary, arises from the withholding of his action and energy, and under certain circumstances, necessarily follows on the want of his influence."

Thus in one sense God wills that what he hates come to pass, as well as what he loves. Edwards says,

God may hate a thing as it is in itself, and considered simply as evil, and yet . . . it may be his will it should come to pass, considering all consequences. . . . God doesn’t will sin as sin or for the sake of anything evil; though it be his pleasure so to order things, that he permitting, sin will come to pass; for the sake of the great good that by his disposal shall be the consequence. His willing to order things so that evil should come to pass, for the sake of the contrary good, is no argument that he doesn’t hate evil, as evil: and if so, then it is no reason why he may not reasonably forbid evil as evil, and punish it as such.

This is a fundamental truth that helps explain some perplexing things in the Bible, namely, that God often expresses his will to be one way, and then acts to bring about another state of affairs. God opposes hatred toward his people, yet ordained that his people be hated in Egypt (Genesis 12:3; Psalm 105:25 – "He turned their hearts to hate his people."). He hardens Pharaoh’s heart, but commands him to let his people go (Exodus 4:21; 5:1; 8:1). He makes plain that it is sin for David to take a military census of his people, but he ordains that he do it (2 Samuel 24:1; 24:10). He opposes adultery, but ordains that Absalom should lie with his father’s wives (Exodus 20:14; 2 Samuel 12:11). He forbids rebellion and insubordination against the king, but ordained that Jeroboam and the ten tribes should rebel against Rehoboam (Romans 13:1; 1 Samuel 15:23; 1 Kings 12:15-16). He opposes murder, but ordains the murder of his Son (Exodus 20:13; Acts 4:28). He desires all men to be saved, but effectually calls only some (1 Timothy 2:4; 1 Corinthians 1:26-30; 2 Timothy 2:26).

What this means is that we must learn that God wills things in two different senses. The Bible demands this by the way it speaks of God’s will in different ways. Edwards uses the terms "will of decree" and "will of command." Edwards explains:

[God’s] will of decree [or sovereign will] is not his will in the same sense as his will of command [or moral will] is. Therefore it is not difficult at all to suppose that the one may be otherwise than the other: his will in both senses is his inclination. But when we say he wills virtue, or loves virtue or the happiness of his creature; thereby is intended that virtueor the creature’s happiness, absolutely and simply considered, is agreeable to the inclination of his nature. His will of decree is his inclination to a thing not as to that thing absolutely and simply, but with reference to the universality of things. So God, though he hates a things as it is simply, may incline to it with reference to the universality of things.

It is evident from what has been said that it is not because he delights in evil as evil. Rather he "wills that evil come to pass . . . that good may come of it." What good? And how does the existence of evil serve this good end? Here is Edwards’ stunning answer:

It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . .

Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.

If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God’s holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . .

So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature’s happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.

So the answer to the question in the title of this message, "Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be?" is no, just the opposite. God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. The effort to absolve him by denying his foreknowledge of sin (as we saw this afternoon) or by denying his control of sin (which we have seen this evening) is fatal, and a great dishonor to his word and his wisdom. Evangelicals who are seeking the glory of God, look well to the teaching of your churches and your schools. But most of all, look well to your souls.

If you would see God’s glory and savor his glory and magnify his glory in this world, do not remain wavering before the sovereignty of God in the face of great evil. Take his book in your hand, plead for his Spirit of illumination and humility and trust, and settle this matter, that you might be unshakable in the day of your own calamity. My prayer is that what I have said will sharpen and deepen your God-entranced world view, and that in the day of your loss you will be like Job who, when he lost all his children, fell down and worshipped, and said, "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD."

Ponyexpresso, I think it is more helpful to look at a biblical case (the deaths of Job's ten children Ch. 1 & 2) rather than the case you cite.

I think the same or similar questions arise out of Job's situation, however we have the added advantage of some Divine commentary and revelation not available in the case you cite. I think the insights from Job are applicable.

Some observations:
[1] The death of Job's kids was an evil act of cruelty instigated by Satan using both natural and human agency.

[2] The death of Job's kids at Satan's hands came after Satan asked and received permission from God to harm Job's family and possessions.

[3] Satan acknowledged that God had placed a hedge about Job that protected him.

[4] God granted Satan permission first to harm Job's family and possessions and second his health. God only prevented Satan from killing Job.

[5] On earth Job was given no explanation (or at least no immediate explanation) why these events were happening.

[6] In fact there was a significant heavenly reason for the tests (tests which included the death of his children). Satan had accused God of bribing man to worship him. Satan concluded that if God were to take Job's health and wealth, Job would curse God not worship Him. By the two tests God demonstrated conclusively that it is possible for man to worship God for Who He is and not what he gives. This is a profound theological demonstration.

[7] When God does answer Job at the end of the book, he does not explain why, rather He asks a myriad of questions to focus Job on Who He is.

Dr. Roy Zuck taught the Book of Job to me at Dallas Seminary (incidentally when he taught this his daughter was in a coma following an automobile accident and her prognosis was uncertain). I will never forget his words to us... "If you know Who God is, you do not have to know Why. Nor is God obliged to tell YOU Why. He wants your trust."

I can not answer the Divine motivation in the life and death of these two English girls. Nor can I say why Bruce Morrison, a China misssionary from our church with six kids, was stabbed and killed in a worship service a year ago. I do know his wife Valerie and see her trust and confidence that Bruce's death was no accident and that God has and will be glorified by it.

Ponyexpresso, whatever conclusions you come to regarding the questions you raise, I would you encourage you to filter it through this passage in Job. Note Job's response was worship and trust and in the aftermath of both tests. God himself axcknowledges that Job's response is right on target.

God knows when a bird will fall from the sky..so we can safely assume that He knew that this man would commit this evil deed.

God allowed it to occur. He did not interfer with the action of that mans "free will".

Or, here is another take on this.

Ok, let's start from the assumption that Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman had, from the creation of the world, only been allotted by God ten years to live. Fair enough. They were foreordained to die on that specfic moment, at that specific place.

Now, we have a person (a couple has been held, man and woman so they are releasing few details about exactly who the murderer was, or how they took place). For our argument, we will reduce it to one person who murdered both girls. From the creation of the world, God not only foreknew, but foreordained this exact person to be at this exact location in order to carry out HIS will; i.e. that Holly and Jessica needed to die that day.

So, the question becomes, how could this person be culpable in any way for his actions, since it was God who engineered the exact situation He needed for Holly and Jessica to die that day in order to fulfill His will?

When you ordain something, you are not necessarily the cause of it. The meaning of the word ordain, means to place your ultimate stamp of approval. Thus God can alow evil if in the end it serves to glorify him. His permission for the evil to occur is his ordaining the event to occur.

I would imagine that God could prevent all of the evil in the world, but I think the only way he could do that would be to entirely wipe the planet clean of all living things. Evil is an outgrowth of God's permissive will in allowing man to do as he pleases. Out of that evil God can work everything to his Glory and work everything to good. Thus both good and evil are foreordained. Indeed, if God does not foreordain an event, it cannot occur. God has declared the end from the beginning. Thus "He Knows What Evil Lurks" and he will work that evil for good. We have his assurance on that one.

Do you believe that God did not foreordain these girls fate? Do you believe that events like that can possibly happen if God really, really, really doesn't want them to? Do you believe that God was powerless to prevent these acts? Or do you believe that God allowed them to occur, knowing that ultimately it will work to his glory?

1) Did God foreknow that these two girls would be murdered? Did He know the exact time and place it would happen?

First the word foreknow means "to be aware of the factuality of something ahead of time."

Yes, he knew they would be murdered. Yes, he knew the time and place.

2) Did God foreordain these murders to happen? Did God, in setting up His plan for the world from the beginning of time, engineer the exact situation where the murderer(s) of these two girls and the girls themselves would meet, and from that meeting, did God know the outcome of that meeting that He Himself engineered?

Second, foreordain means "to appoint or settle something ahead of time; to predestine."

No, God did not appoint (plan) them to happen. They were, therefore, not part of His plan, nor was the meeting of murderer(s) and girls part of His plan. God DID know the outcome of the meeting, although He did not APPOINT the meeting. (Make it an unavoidable appointment by HIS OWN design.)

3) Or did God foreknow these girls would be murdered, but somehow did not foreordain them to be murdered? And, if so, please tell me how exactly this might work.

Yes, God was aware ahead of time that these girls would be murdered, yet He did not appoint (plan) them to be murdered.

How would this work?

1. First, God gave free choice to the murderer and to the 2 girls. They, being free moral agents, were able to make independent choices for themselves.

2. Second, at the time that God foresaw all of history, he saw this event unfold. Perhaps that would make us want to start over with a different plot happening, but God was committed to giving free choice to his creation. If he didn't give them free choice, they would be robots. But since he wanted real beings capable of real love and real faith, He went ahead and started time. He also saw the great group of those who would turn to him in faith and love; he foreknew them, and decided that they were so precious that they should come into existence.

3. Looking at all the tragedy of all time, God decided that the loving end result of creation was more valuable than the sometimes tragic cost of those who would choose evil.

When you ordain something, you are not necessarily the cause of it.

Let's say I take my mothers favorite crystal decanter to the top of a building and through it off the roof. Are you saying that I could go home and tell my mother that I actually didn't cause the decanter to break, the concrete sidewalk it fell on caused it to break?

I engineered the taking of the decanter, I set in motion it's flight by throwing it off the roof, yet somehow I can get away with saying I did not "cause" the decanter to break? God engineered this situation of the meeting of these girls and their murderer(s), God set in motion the limited number of the girls lives, yet somehow God can get away with not "causing" these murderers?

Do you believe that God did not foreordain these girls fate?

Are you asking me if I believe that God knew these girls would be murdered or do I believe that God engineered the exact events that would lead up to and involve their murder?

Do you believe that events like that can possibly happen if God really, really, really doesn't want them to?

No.

Do you believe that God was powerless to prevent these acts?

No.

Or do you believe that God allowed them to occur, knowing that ultimately it will work to his glory?

What exactly does the phrase “God allowed them to occur” really mean anyway? God turns a blind eye? Like a policeman at a reggae concert who see people smoking dope but doesn't arrest them? Either God engineers every single event or He doesn’t, right?

This is why Charles Spurgeon, the London pastor from 100 years ago said,

So then, did or did not God engineer the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman? And, if He did, and in the end it does indeed serve to glorify Him, God would not only have "allowed" evil to happen and "somehow" been glorified because of it, God in fact would have designed, built and carried out evil for the precise purpose of glorifing Him.

No. Some other free moral agent engineered the murders. If God can bring beauty from these ashes, then that certainly does bring glory to Him. And he will. So He is glorified.

God, however, did not design evil.

Your crystal decanter illustration doesn't work. You have to give the decanter a mind, freedom, a will, and wings so it can prevent hitting the ground if it so chooses. At that point, you just begin to get a proximate parallel to the problem before us.

The murderer has a mind, freedom, a will, and a God-given conscience that influences even him, a non-regenerated person. With such, he is a free moral agent. His decisions are His fault.

"I can not answer the Divine motivation in the life and death of these two English girls. Nor can I say why Bruce Morrison, a China misssionary from our church with six kids, was stabbed and killed in a worship service a year ago. I do know his wife Valerie and see her trust and confidence that Bruce's death was no accident and that God has and will be glorified by it."

While on vacation recently, I spent time with my wife's brother who is the advanced stages of Lou Gherigs disease. He cannot lift his hands and can only move his fingers ever so slightly, but still retains movement of his neck and is able to communicate. He needs to have assistance in every thing he must do. His 9 year old daughter must assist him in urination as he sits in his wheel chair. Soon enough, he will lose all ability to communicate and then he will die. He has lived with this understanding for the past 4 years.

3 days after our arrival, his 3rd child (he has 5 ranging in age from 22 years to 9 years) was severely burned from a gasoline explosion in a mishap while working on an automobile. Kevin, age 17, currently is in Intensive Care with burns on 30-40% of his body. He had skin grafts over the 3rd degree burns over his abdomen and both arms. He has not been allowed to move his arms or torso for over a week now. He also faces long and difficult physical therapy.

I could go on with the difficulties in my my wife's brother's life, but what I have just explained is enough to rock any man to the core.

The fact remains that my brother-in-law has yet to ask 'Why'!

He with Job will testify from his heart, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." (Job 13:15).

And finally, he looks to that glorious day when his body will be made whole, or as 1 Corinthians 15:52 declares, "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

Why is this his hope? It is his hope because we serve a Living Savior who has come out of the grave: "For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." (1 Corinthians 15:16-21).

Just why do we have this hope? Because of Christ's accomplishment on the cross: "When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit" (John 19:30 -literally: 'It is accomplished').

In this, our final praise and thanks giving goes to God who ordained this very sacrifice in this very manner before the foundation of the world: "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:" (Acts 2:23)

God didn't just 'permit' Christ's sacrifice on the cross, he ordained it to be so. Yet the same verse also testifies that it was evil done 'by wicked hands' who crucified the Savior. Now if God ordained this to be so, how is it said that these men -who ultimately were doing the will of God- are said by Scripture to be 'wicked' for their very act? The fact that I cannot explain this reality does not negate its truthfullness as clearly testified in Scripture!

It all comes around full circle. My brother-in-law holds as his only comfort that he is not his own but belongs body and soul -in life ~and~ in death- to his faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Christ has fully paid for all our sins with his precious blood, and has set us free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over us in such a way that not a hair can fall from our heads without the will of our Father in Heaven: in fact, all things must work together for our salvation. Because we belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures us of eternal life and makes us whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. My brother-in-law trusts that God has brought about these events for a specific reason. He is comforted because the Scriptures tell him that these events are for the good of all those who believe in him: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28).

He may not know the reason and God does not ~owe~ him an explanation. Nonetheless, God has assured him that it is for his good!

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." (Revelation 5:12)

Jean

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