Rant about "Good"

I had a professor in college who taught Philosophy at both the University of Chicago and at Harvard for 13 years. My favorite discussion in the class involved the topic of Evil.

Now to give you a little background, Dr. Obrien was raised by a father who was a Congregational Pastor. That of course included all the cooky horror film "bells and whistles" as you can imagine. He is not a believer now. He actually lectured regularly at a Universalist Church in Chicago for 3 years before moving to Connecticut to finish his Doctorate work and teach.

Fast forward to our first week in class. We all had to choose in the very beginning which camp we decided to debate throughout the semester. It was his contention that we would all end up in the "Determinism" camp. (Basically ... in the beginning Science ... The belief that Chemistry and Biology and the chaos that perpetuates them reveals and determines all things.) Doc called himself a "soft determist" which was a nice naturalist ultimately ... if there can be such a thing.

I landed in the camp that was thrown out at the very beginning which was the only credible ying to his yang ... Predeterminism. (Basically ... in the beginning ... God ... The belief that all events have been set in motion and planned by a "higher power") You can imagine the argument that ensued as result of him saying that Predeterminism was essentially where only the week-minded and mentally challenged hung out and passed the bong. Yeah, I said it ... bong. And not the Billa ...

Anyway, Doc set out this challenge to everyone in the class.

To give you a little foresight, a few of us were able to share Christ with our entire class the last day of class and even went old school by handing out Gospel Tracts to everyone that attended. It was an amazing act of God.

ANYWAY ... The challenge was ...

If God is All-Powerful (Omniscient) He can do anything ...
If God is All-Knowing (Omnipotent) He knows everything ...
If God is All-Good (Omnibenevolent) He is Good all the time

Then "created things" meaning; us, dirt, and the stars ... cannot contain "Evil". Evil is defined as Natural Evil (Tsunami's) Moral Evil (Ft. Hood massacre) and Unbelief. Because we, and "it" apparently does contain evil as defined, God cannot exist ... or at least the God that I worship.


I thought long and hard through this argument that we spent over a two months 3 days a week debating. I read books, arguments, philosophers from every recorded century. Everyone seemed to have something to say about this.


Here's the real question ... what can any of us really know about God outside of what has been revealed to us through Scripture. I mean, this is the same God that Job spoke with on this very subject. It's the same God who's ways are not our ways according to Paul. I mean do any of us really know what we're dealing with when it comes to God? Outside of what we know? We know what we know for now ... right? I love what Moses said in Deuteronomy 29:29: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever..."

Here's another thing ... when we're debating about terms such as Evil and Good, don't we have to debate them as they have been originally defined? I mean, where were these words and all that's incorporated in them brought about? Isn't it God who defined these terms as we know them? The whole concept of Good and Evil at least in this debate have been taken from the Biblical, Scriptural sense haven't they?

Here's my thoughts and ultimately my conclusion ...

God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-knowing and Good.

And yes, evil does exist... moral and natural.

How can that be explained? Does God have to be either Evil or non-existent? No


The explanation comes with your definition of the word "Good"


Here's my point. Could it be that "Good" includes all that has been incorporated into all that God has willed ... Creation ... Mankind ... Fall/Salvation ... Eternity past and Forward?

I think the issue is that people are very uncomfortable with God. God is very uncomfortable. The idea that our lives are out of our control is very uncomfortable. The idea that God who created us will hold us accountable is very uncomfortable. The idea that some of us spend eternity in a terrible place of judgment for not believing is very uncomfortable. The reality is that God has made all and willed all and ultimately this is His story. The bad and the ugly are apparently GOOD to God.

God is the author of GOOD, not Kant ... not O'brien, not even you or I.