Providence & the "problem of evil"

In order to better understand the impact of sin on creation, we had to look at the basics of creation. Page 66 of the textbook has a good summary of creation as an emanation, construction and artistic expression of God. The more interesting discussion is the on-going providence of God for His creation. Some suggest the original act of providence is in Gen 22:8 when God provides a lamb for Abraham as a sacrifice. Heb 1:3, Col 1:17, Acts 17:25 uses terms like "sustaining", "hold together" and "He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else". My old Sunday School textbook, Know the Truth (by Bruce Milne) states, "Providence asserts that God, having called the world into being, continually sustains, renews and orders it". Medieval monks had a profound understanding of this in their world view. To the question of "Why does it rain?" they would answer "To make the flowers grow." This is a dramatically different view than our modern "scientific" answer of water condensing from rain clouds. Appreciation of God's providence is an important part of our spiritual development. Our class exercise was to re-frame the common event cited during the icebreaker in terms of God's providence.

The Christian view of creation also includes a proper understanding of stewardship. The Genesis imperative to Adam is to take care of creation while acknowledging God as the owner. We've been entrusted with creation; we do not own it. The parable of the talents is the other classic passage on stewardship. Our sinful nature distorts our stewardship.

The so called "problem of evil" is "probably the most difficult intellectual challenge to the Christian faith” (in the book Christian Theology by Millard J. Erickson). Why does an omnipotent God allow evil? He is either not good or not all powerful. There are no easy answers. One view is that free will was part of God's intent for us, hence the possibility of evil was allowed. Rom 8:28-29 assures us that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him". They key is in v29, where all these things make us "conformed to the likeness of his Son". God's view of good is not necessarily our view of good. Page 174 of our textbook has a good summary on the problem of pain and suffering, which is related to the problem of evil.

We ended the class with small group discussions on what the world would be like if we were all like Jesus and sinless.