Hey, is God behind evil?

too hard basket..j/k

a helpful insight from the pages of "A Call to Spiritual Reformation":

The Bible insists God is sovereign, so sovereign that nothing that takes place in the universe can escape the outermost boundary of his control; yet the Bible insists God is good, unreservedly good, the very standard of goodness. We are driven to conclude that God does not stand behind good and evil in exactly the same way. In other words, he stands behind good and evil asymmetrically. He stands behind good in such a way that the good can ultimately credited to him; he stands behind evil in such a way that what is evil is inevitably credited to secondary agents and all their malignant effects. They cannot escape his sway in exactly the same way that Satan has no power over Job without God's sanction; yet God remains mysteriously distant from the evil itself.

DA Carson

In other words, He produces the good and he overrules the bad. He stands behind the two, but he stands behind the two asymmetrically

The most famous example of this, of course, is the crucifixion. There is a wicked event taking place, God being killed by his creatures, and yet in the very midst of that event, the creatures are being drawn by invitation into the family of God.

It's a wonderful truth that God is sovereign and personal..

reflect and ponder..

God is sovereign according to scripture but not in any way that reduces our responsibility.

We're responsble according to scripture but not in any way that reduces God's sovereignty.

Don Carson(paraphrased)

In other words, one does not reduce or remove the other. Both of them run as it were like train tracks together. An example,

Matthew 11 we have that lovely invitation from Jesus: "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But that's the same section that Jesus says that God is hider and revealer.

2 train tracks.. you can never push the sovereignty of God to the point that God is limited or out of complete control.. so don't ever shorten the Sovereignty of God track. He is as sovereign as... sovereign.

And you can never push the human responsiblity tract to the point that it's reduced or we can play some kind of victim. ie. don't ever shorten the human responsibility tract.

don't forget your bible!

Wesley, the great preacher, towards his death, wrote these words:

I am a creature of a day, passing through life, as an arrow through the air. A few more months hence and I am no more seen, I drop into an unchangeable eternity. I want to know one thing, the way to Heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from Heaven. He hath written it down in a book! O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me.

John Wesley

isn't it ironic..

Voltaire (1694 - 1778) was an atheist who said he would see to have the bible eradicated. The amusing and ironic truth is that after his death, the Geneva Bible Society bought his house and used it for the spread of the scriptures.

I always enjoy hearing that story..

tear your little world apart..

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians ever imagine that they are guilty themselves....The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil; Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind...As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

C.S. Lewis