Greater Good?

Recently I have been witness to discussions pertaining to the question on why God created in the first place with the existence of evil. I thought for this blog that I would write and add some of my own thoughts and ideas that pertain to this discussion. I would like to state right off the bat that this may be a very sensitive topic for some people due to the fact they may have personal ties to someone who they believe are not in fact saved. I wish not to do any harm, but only lend my voice to a way of thinking that may in fact be helpful. I would also like to acknowledge that this blog post is not the final word on the topic, and that this is just me getting some random thoughts off the top of my head and hopefully adding more to the conversation.

If anyone has been involved in these kind of discussions, you will know that they kind of go all over the place. There were many ideas and points thrown around, but in order to have some sense of organization, I would like to boil it down to a sentence in which I think encompasses the general discussion topic as well as what I believe many others have thought themselves. The statement is this: It is a greater good for God to have never created then it is to create and allow any evil at all. Though I disagree, I completely understand where this is coming from. It seems that if God desires the greatest good, that greatest good would be to never create free creatures, because surely a world where evil is in it is far less great then no evil at all. If God desires the greatest good then He should never have created in the first place.

This statement above begs asking the question of why God desired to create in the first place. Now this blog is not to answer that question, though I believe studying the book of John helps give us an answer. I want to discuss the idea of why should we think it would be a greater good to never allow evil then it would be to create. In fact I will (below) give a thought in which I believe one could not believe (reject) such a statement. But before I get to that, I would like to propose in bullet form a few thoughts I have had while thinking this out. I apologize for the informal nature of this blog, but it helps to just sort of get things out at times.

·       I think this statement falls into studying greatest being Theology. It seems there is a push to know more of God. Let’s be honest with ourselves. Our human minds grasping who God truly is (not that we can’t know Him), is impossible. So the fact of our understanding being dimmed plays, I believe plays a large part in this.

·       It seems this statement is taken at bare bones value. What I mean by that is that I believe it does not take in other variables, and with certain variables I believe there is a way to look about this.

·       I think this statement taken to an extreme end shows itself to be open to some problems that we can see in hypothetical examples. For example take a possible world where 1 billion people will be born and evil will exist. God knows if He creates this world that 1 person will not be saved, yet the other 999,999,999 will. This statement above then would agree that it would be better for no one to ever have been created in the first place then to allow evil because evil exists. In fact it seems on face value to be the direct opposite. That it would be much greater good to have those 999,999,999 be saved, then to reject the creation of the billion all together even if evil does exist. Let alone if all 1 billion were saved and evil exists then God should still not create? Obviously those are not real numbers ha-ha, but I think it helps to show that this reasoning does have its problems.

·       Another thought we should ask ourselves is do we believe in free will?

·       Lastly, do we think that evil should have this much overriding power? Or any overriding power? Is there overriding power? This includes God’s desires as well.

All of these thoughts above lead me to how I think we should look and examine the above statement. I believe the greater good is just the opposite. That it is a far greater good to create and allow evil, then it is to not create and not allow evil at all. Why? I answer that it is much greater to know God then it is greater to not allow evil. As a matter of fact I may even push it farther and state that just being allowed a real opportunity to know God is a greater good then the greater good for God not allowing evil to exist by not creating.

I truly believe that if we could comprehend who God truly is and the glory that awaits us, we would see what gift creation really is. He wanted us to be able to know and be in a personal relationship with Him. If it is truly that much greater and we get to freely accept or deny Him, then I think there is good reason to think that not creating due to evil would in fact then be the lesser good. It seems the original statement had forgotten or not fully understood the most important variable; who God is.

Once again this is to just add to the conversation and I know by no means these are the final thoughts on the topic. I know this may not settle any thoughts or hearts. It is good to think about these things and talk them out.

Roman 8:18

Ryan Willert