Jeff Durbin Answering 'The Problem of Evil'

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for me it's not it's not simply a question of playing an intellectual game

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I've sat in front of people who have been gang raped people who have some terrible things and the first thing

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I would do is this is say this when you and I have a discussion about evil first of all as a Christian the powerful thing is with starting with him is that I actually have a basis to call something evil and complain so for example if we don't start with him if we say that he must not be there because this look at this evil what we're assuming there when we call something evil is that there's an absolute standard by which to measure this is evil because if we take him out of the picture and we deny him we say he doesn't exist or he's absent or whatever he doesn't mean he must not be there we can't call any action evil what happens just happens it's just what it is and I you know and philosophers will say oftentimes they'll say like you can't get an offer from an is and that's true if there's no

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God it's we there's nothing we ought to do if we just are if we're just stuff in the universe it doesn't care without God no ultimate standard of good and I don't really have a basis in morally indignant at all but if I start with him

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I have a reason to cry with the girl who was gang raped I have a reason to cry over the person that was molested

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I have a reason to cry with a person that was abandoned as a matter of fact as a Christian I have a basis to do these sorts of things and then

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I do now the question then comes okay got it if I reject him

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I can't call anything evil okay so now I got it that doesn't answer the emotion problem right well how come

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I have to deal with all that so now that would move to this second thing to think through and then if I start with him

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I can call things evil if I start with him I can indict somebody for what they've done to me and I can actually say no it was wrong and I can't actually complain but then you have to ask the question why is there evil in the world if he's so good and I would answer first only because I want to give you a tough answer okay and that that's this this solves the problem is that God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil that he plans or allows okay so that's the first thing from philosophical standpoint but that isn't even the good question no no there's differing views on for knowledge what that means

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I would say the biblical view about for knowledge is really important to get right the

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God of the Bible does not take knowledge in in other words it is we'll we'll say something like that's like God look through time and he saw this person would do this yeah he's eternal and so when we take we talk about for knowledge as a

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Christian a couple things God says he declares the end from the beginning that he does according to his will and the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and that he works all things after the council of his will so we talk about the foreknowledge of God we're saying that God's knowledge is ramped up in his decree of what doesn't doesn't take place but it doesn't he does he actually decrees all things that nothing happens in this universe apart from his will but we ask the question about human responsibility what about human responsibility yeah and the truth is is the scriptures really show something very important happening and that is that we talk about evil events in history let's go let's go there let's go to the most evil event recorded in history and that is that when

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God became man he was righteous and blameless and perfect and he was murdered on a tree and so as a

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Christian we would say that's the most evil event that happened in history because here is the righteous now being murdered and it's interesting as you look at the text in the book of Acts how the

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Christians pray when it happened they said when they were praying in this city gathering at your holy servant

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Jesus were Pontius Pilate okay there's a Roman governor that has totally different motivations as to why he had

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Jesus delivered over okay he was a coward he was afraid of crowds he said he was innocent

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I washed my hands right in history he says I find no fault in them and then he gives them over to him to kill him so he's afraid of the crowds the second thing is the people of Israel he had exposed them in many places the leadership and so they wanted to kill and then it says the

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Gentiles so all these people had different motivations

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God was not putting a gun to their head saying you killed

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Jesus the truth of matter is though it says this they were gathered against Jesus to do whatever your hand had predestined to occur they wanted to kill

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Jesus it was in their heart to do it God determined to allow them to have what they wanted which was to kill

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Jesus and it was according to his sovereign plan to allow them to kill Jesus for the salvation of his people so here you have the murder of Jesus a most heinous act committed in history if God does is the sovereign determiner of all things and that is why you and I grace yes only yeah by grace but by his grace not by works yeah no it's okay so I would say the reason this is helpful is a lot of times people will try to have they'll try to get

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God off the hook in some way let's say well this evil event happened how do we get God off the hook say

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I didn't want that to happen or he'll fix that or he couldn't mess with your free will the truth is that all those answers make

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God unworthy of worship because if an event happened that was evil that God could do nothing about because of some free will of man that means there's something operating outside of God that he's dependent upon what's that we're about natural people in what sense explain that um there was an example that we went over that's class where I would say it's just there's a deer in the woods and tree falls on it lightning struck a tree hit the deer broke its leg back whatever it's now up in flames on fire yes suffering

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I mean a couple things just to look at assumptions here real fast they said

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I that resonates with me when I think about a deer crushed by a tree set on fire so huge example that's true first of all what are we assuming when we think about that scenario the goodness of creation and the value of the deer in the tree and everything else we think whether that's always happened it doesn't feel right and the truth is is that as a

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Christian I have a reason to complain about that and also to say there's a basis as to why why that is the way that it is and the

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Bible teaches that when the fall occurred God created us in his image and so Adam was the image of God in creation and when he fell and he rebelled against God's covenant which is really what it was he rebelled against God God's covenant

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God promised not only his separation from God but that also all of creation itself fell because man is the image of God represented all of creation and when man fell all of creation falls with him and so we look in the world around us and we call anything not good or that's that shouldn't be it feels raw that doesn't feel right to me it's because we live in a fallen world and that just gets to the glory of what

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I wanted to get to you because I don't want to just give you the philosophical answers I want to show you that the philosophical rigorous answer but there's also emotional content that you have to get and that is that the glory of the gospel which makes it so beautiful is that even though this is the

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God we've offended even though he's the God we're actually rebelling against sometimes in the world we're collateral damage of somebody else's sin we're not the ones that did it we're collateral damage of their sin right but many times we're the perpetrators daily against God we're all sinners everyone so even though we're sinners they're sinners sometimes we're collateral damage sometimes we're perpetrators the glory of the gospel is that God we've all offended actually entered into this fallen world and he didn't this is really really important he didn't just die for people for their sins and then conquered death and rise from the dead he also had a whole life lived before he got there where he suffered among us so when someone says to me

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Jeff I was raped or Jeff I was molested or Jeff I was assaulted or Jeff I was lied about or Jeff there was someone who betrayed me

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I would say you have a high priest who sympathizes with you because when God saved us he didn't just save us on the cross he actually suffered among us and he tasted deception he tasted abandonment he tasted physical assault he knows what it's like to for someone to take him somewhere that he shouldn't be taken to be assaulted he knows what it's like to be accused falsely of something he knows what it's like to be homeless and hungry and enraged he knows what it's like to be tortured he knows what it's like to have people bear false witness around him he knows what it's like to have his family not there for him when he needs them he knows what it's like to have friends abandon him when he needs them most and so the beauty of the gospel is not only does

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Jesus come to save sinners but he suffers and experiences everything that we experience in this fallen world there's nothing that you and I can't take to Jesus that he doesn't actually understand that's the glory of this

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God we're not talking about some God that just spins the universe off and the evil things happen and we're like trying to figure out some answers he's the one that actually despite us running from him and loving our sin he actually chases the rebels and on the way to chase them tastes everything that we take and there's a good and sufficient reason with purpose for every event that happens in history including the murder of Jesus even that event is murderous as it wasn't as evil as it was

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God had predetermined for the good of his people and for his glory and so as a Christian I look at the world and I have a basis to call anything evil and to cry about it and I have a basis to say that this is not purposeless at all there's no purposeless event cool are you riding a motorcycle yeah you're awesome you're awesome what was your name?