November 19, 2020 Show with Scott Christensen on “What About Evil? A Defense of God’s Sovereign Glory”

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Introducing the Problem of Evil and Scott Christensen’s New Book

And I am thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest who has one of the most crucial issues he's going to discuss today, one of the most crucial issues within Christendom that has actually divided Christendom for centuries, the answer to the question, I should say.

It's also a question that is probably one of, if not the most frequently asked question by critics of Christianity and even just critics of theism, the belief that there is a God and that that God is good.

The question is, what about evil? And, of course, the fuller question that an atheist might typically ask is, if God exists, why is there evil in this world, if indeed he is so good and kind and gracious and benevolent?

But today we are going to seek to address that issue from a Christian perspective, a theologically reformed perspective, and first and foremost, a biblical perspective. What about evil? A defense of God's sovereign glory.

The title of Scott Christensen's new book, and Scott Christensen happens to be the associate pastor of Kerrville Bible Church in Kerrville, Texas, and he also is the author of other books, including What About Free Will?

But as I said, today we are addressing his latest book, a massive hardback published by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, more well-known today as P &R Publishing, What About Evil? A Defense of God's Glory, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trump and Zion Radio, Pastor Scott Christensen.

Great to be here.

And why don't you tell our listeners, first and foremost, about the Kerrville Bible Church?

Well, yes, Kerrville Bible, I believe, expository for 20 years, just selling salvation in Christ, and it's a great place to serve, been there for about 11 years.

Great, and if anybody wants further information about Kerrville Bible Church in Kerrville, Texas, go to kerrvillebiblechurch .org, kerrvillebiblechurch .org, and Kerrville is spelled K-E-R-R-V, as in victory, I-L-L-E.

Well, this is certainly quite a thorough, quite a massive volume that you have written, and it probably needed to be because of all the questions that are very often thrown at believers, not only by other believers, but also by atheists and agnostics and enemies of Christianity.

Very often these are nothing more than dodges and rabbit trails to confuse or to stupefy the Christian who is sharing his faith, evangelizing, defending his faith, usually the person, if they are in the category of an atheist or an agnostic, isn't really interested in an answer, but there are sincere, genuine believers, especially when they are going through a horrible, painful trial in their lives.

It might even be that they're the victim of some kind of horrific, unspeakable evil, and they may be even answering this question, asking these questions themselves, and in particular the question, what about evil, especially if they are young believers, but even a seasoned Christian of many years and even spanning decades, they might even be a senior citizen, they might even be on the brink of entering into eternity at an elderly age, and they still might have these questions.

So, just reflecting on the fact that this question has been addressed over the centuries, on many occasions, even by those who share our Reformed faith, why is it that you sought out to write this new book on this subject, and such an impressively large volume on this subject?

Open Theism, Arminianism, and Libertarian Free Will

Well, when I wrote it, I felt that there needed to be something more fuller, and I really didn't want to write the subject for the last perspective on these questions. Typically, the problem of evil is a problem of evil that Christians, that is God's, and the fact that we as human beings, and so I try to deal with all those.

I know that we may get some of our open theist listeners, if there are any, upset that we're not giving them an adequate description of their views on this, or even those who believe in a middle knowledge of God theory and all of these other theories, but if you could give us a brief summary of what their explanation is, and then we can move on to the truth.

Yes, the form of Arminianism is...

In fact, don't they call themselves, maybe not all of them, but don't many of them call themselves consistent Arminians?

Yes, personally, I think open theists are the most consistent, whereas open theists do not believe one choice or another with no indication would make. Side A, it doesn't matter if it preceded that choice, and libertarian free will says that you could choose one or the other, and nothing determines what choice you would make.

If that is true, then we could never know what Arminians would make before they made it, say that God knows the future, determine the future, Arminianism, all those things.

And in fact, even though we would recognize as Reformed Christians that Arminians are being inconsistent when they say this, they would share with us an abhorrence typically, depending upon how moderate they are.

There are evangelicals or professing evangelicals who are very sedated and indifferent when it comes to serious heresies that arise in the church, but your average conservative Bible-believing evangelical who believes firmly in the inerrancy of Scripture, believes in the Gospel, and has a classic understanding of God, they would share with us an abhorrence and an opposition to the open theist view that God does not know the future, purely on the basis that He is omniscient and knows all things, even all things in the future.

...by Calvinists, but by Arminians. I happen to think that the open theists are holding to a time, and I think they are not. Free will, then you would know...

So, if you could, give us a classic answer to the issue by... Let's say that there is, as we have unfortunately all witnessed in the media, we see the horrific mass shootings at a school, whether it be an elementary school or a high school or a college.

Somebody charges in there, either a student or some other individual, begins shooting people, seemingly indiscriminately killing them. He is either arrested or gunned down himself by police. And what would be the typical, well-meant but very flawed answer to why this occurred by an Arminian evangelical Christian?

And then we could move on to the open theist, and then we could move on to what you would believe to be a biblical answer, which you and I would think is a Reformed answer, because we believe that Reformed theology is the best of theologies known to men that accurately reflect the Scriptures.

But if you could, give us those breakdowns of something like that, that is unfortunately an occurrence that happens all too frequently in our world.

So, in a frame for your listeners, the trilemma, that God is all good. So, if evil exists, years ago called, why do good things happen to bad people? Why do bad things happen to good people? God doesn't want bad things to happen, quote-unquote, to good people.

Of course, we've got a problem already just by calling it Rabbi Kushner. Nonetheless, is it God simply? So, that's the basic issue. If God is all good and all good God, then why would He allow evil in the world?

Yeah, even the late stand-up comic George Carlin, back in the 70s at least, before he became an atheist, he used to attempt to defend the goodness of God by basically saying that he was subject to physical laws that he created.

And he wouldn't phrase it that God was good, he would say that God is a cool guy, and that He is not responsible in any way, or He is not the origin or the author or the ordainer or orchestrator of evil acts, calamity, or even natural acts of disaster, that He is just the God that loves us, almost like a deist understanding of God, that He has created all things and set them in motion, but He's made Himself subject to these very things He created, like nature and so on.

In either case, the way they would answer this question, what they're saying is libertarian free will, and the assumption is that if we were only limited to only make the choice, then those choices are not truly free, and if they're not truly free, then when God grants, and therefore He gives us free will.

An open theist would find the Arminian's answer nearly equally, if not equally, repugnant to our answer as Reformed Christians, because the open theist would say, if God knew these things were going to happen, if He knew the Holocaust was going to happen, if He knew that terrorists were going to fly into the Twin Towers in the Pentagon building and did nothing, that demonstrates just as much evil on the part of God as if He, according to us, the Calvinists, ordained them before the foundation of the world.

They see no real difference, major difference, because in one sense they are right. If you're going to have a complaint with God, ordaining evil acts, how can you defend the fact that He knew about them and yet did nothing?

Am I right in that little description?

Yes. Well, in the philosophical sense, evil seems to be the rape of little children, incinerators, and so forth. You can't stop Hitler. God will not stop Hitler or any other agent in such horrific acts of violence and murder and mayhem.

God can't stop that person, because He would be violating that person's free will, and God must always respect the free will of His creatures, and therefore He can't do that. When the Holocaust happens, because there's nothing He can do, it is a sacred free will theism.

It is set at all costs.

And we're going to go into what you believe to be the biblical response, otherwise known by us as the Reformed response, to the mass shootings that have occurred in schools and other kinds of atrocities.

We're going to hear that when we come back from our first break. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Please, as always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And I could readily understand a subject like this that involves evil acts. I could readily understand that there may be some listeners who are either the victims of an evil act, perhaps the past perpetrators of evil acts.

They've repented but are haunted by them, or any kind of situation that would compel them to remain anonymous. We understand that. We will grant you the respect to allow you to remain anonymous. But if it's just a general theological question, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Scott Christensen after these messages from our sponsors. When Iron Trump and Zion Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors.

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Greetings in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Banu Gadi. I'm a pharmacist in New York, which is the epicenter of the latest crisis the world is going through. In Psalm 139, verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the Lord like this.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and wondrous are your works that my soul knows very well. He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness, and the beauty in what God has designed, and he has erupted into praise.

In any crisis or problem, brothers and sisters, our only fallback position is to trust God's design. And once we do, there is nothing for us to do but to erupt in praise to him. When the whole world is searching for a solution, God, in his infinite mercy, has given us what we need to address this illness, which can be very serious.

Such is the beauty of his design. Knowing that design, how can we not erupt in praise to our great God like the psalmist did? May God bless you and give all of us wisdom to see greater things in his design.

Thank you.

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The Reformed Answer: God’s Sovereign Purpose in Evil

Call 1 -800 -669 -4878. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is Scott Christensen, Associate Pastor of Kerrville Bible Church of Kerrville, Texas.

We are addressing his new book, What About Evil? A Defense of God's Sovereign Glory. Would you say this falls under the category of the theodicy, Pastor Scott?

Well, yes. Theodicy is a term that was coined for theos and decay. And the idea is high, but theodicy is what God is doing, why God ordained it to take place.

In fact, yeah, that key word that you used there or phrase that you used there is something that's going to come up in a question from a listener soon. Because there are many Christians, including Reformed Christians, I don't know if they are mistakenly, you know, accidentally saying this by not carefully wording their statements, or if it's actually a part of their theology.

But there are even Reformed Christians who talk about God allowing evil rather than ordaining it and orchestrating it. In fact, I even know a dear brother, I love him to death, he's a theologically Reformed pastor who believes there are certain scenarios or events in history where God allowed evil, permitted evil.

And I have disagreed with him over the use of those terms, but we could get to that in a moment, get back to it, I should say. But please, if you could now, give the Biblical answer or the Reformed answer to why such a horrific and seemingly senseless event such as a mass murder at a school would occur if God is indeed in sovereign control over all things, and He is at the same time a loving, gracious, merciful, patient, and benevolent God.

How does this happen?

So the standard Reformed problem of evil is what is called the greater good defense, or the greater good not determined at a certain point, and therefore God in the city. We can say the same thing. Every intention of the heart of every human being was always evil continually.

So we have instances in Scripture where God does the greatest. What really zeroes in on this notion would be in the book of Genesis. Brother Joseph, they came along as evil, of course, becoming a servant of his wife, Potiphar's wife, and so forth.

He interprets the dreams of Pharaoh himself, prime minister, land of Egypt. They have this great famine. They recognize their moral culpability before Joseph that I might be saved from this famine. In chapter 50, verse 20, a verse in Scripture in which Joseph speaks to his brothers, acknowledges once again their moral culpability for selling him into slavery, and he says to them, what you did was evil, but the evil intentions of Joseph's brothers sovereignly superintended that same event, ordained that event to happen to the heart.

Jesus said it is out of the heart.

I have a question for you before I go to a listener question. There is a text, I think a very important passage of Scripture, that reflects on God's sovereignty over evil acts, and I have never myself heard any kind of adequate, even close to adequate response to someone who rejects the idea that God would ever ordain an act of evil, because they think that that defies his goodness, his grace, his mercy.

They would say that that is a teaching that God is the author of evil, and we cannot stand for that. And I'm speaking specifically of the passages in 2 Samuel 12, and this is the text that most Christians know about in regard to Nathan the prophet, after he reveals to David, King David, how God is going to chastise him for his wickedness in regard to his adultery with Bathsheba, and even arranging the assassination of Bathsheba's husband, Uriah the Hittite, in order to cover up Bathsheba's pregnancy by David.

And if we go to verse 10, 2 Samuel 12, Nathan the prophet speaking in the voice of God, Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me, and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.

This is what the Lord says, Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives, and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight.

You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel. Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord, Nathan replied, the Lord has taken away your sin, you are not going to die, but because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.

Now, that's pretty clear, that God himself is not just allowing some horrible things, which involve adultery, and which involve the death of a baby, that he is not just allowing them, but he is actually ordaining them to happen.

Have you ever heard how Armenians respond to that, or those who are not reformed in their understanding of God's, for ordaining all things that occur, even evil acts?

Yeah, I'm not sure that I have heard that. You could multiply, there's no doubt, to the dozens and tens of thousands of forms. I will harden context. Equal number of times we read that God hardens his heart, and yet interspersed within that at the same time, a clear example of that event, as ensured,.

In fact, we have to go to our midway break,.

And we'll have you pick up again on Joseph when we return. Folks, this is the longer than normal break. Please be patient with us, because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show, because they have to, in accordance with FCC regulations, they have to localize their programming, including Iron Sharp and Zion Radio, to Lake City, Florida, and so they air their own public service announcements and other local things to do that.

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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with more of Scott Christensen.

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Bhanu Gadi earned a doctorate in pharmacy degree and is very knowledgeable on the current coronavirus pandemic. Please contact Dr. Gadi so he and his expert staff can give you proper guidance amid all the contradictory confusion we are all hearing in the media.

To find the pharmacy nearest you, call 516 -354 -2000. That's 516 -354 -2000. Or order online at leesdrugsrx .com. That's l-e-e-s drugsrx .com. Don't forget to ask about their discount generic drug program.

Greetings in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus Christ. My name is Bhanu Gadi. I'm a pharmacist in New York, which is the epicenter of the latest crisis the world is going through. In Psalm 139, verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the Lord like this,.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and wondrous are your works that my soul knows very well. He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness, and the beauty in what God has designed, and he has erupted into praise.

In any crisis or problem, brothers and sisters, our only fallback position is to trust God's design. And once we do, there is nothing for us to do but to erupt in praise to Him. When the whole world is searching for a solution, God, in His infinite mercy, has given us what we need to address this illness, which can be very serious.

Such is the beauty of His design. Knowing that design, how can we not erupt in praise to our great God like the psalmist did? May God bless you and give all of us wisdom to see greater things in His design.

Thank you.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and the Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new, beautiful facilities in Corham, Long Island, New York.

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