This study will survey
several texts
of Scripture where God sends evil spirits to
accomplish His will. How are we to
understand these texts? What do these texts say
about the origin of evil? The
problem of evil is often described using the
theological term theodicy.
Theodicy is a theological word that seeks to explain
the so-called dilemma of
the existence of a good God with the existence of
evil in the world. To some,
this seems incompatible.
As in previous studies,
definitions
will be looked at along with scriptures, commentary
evidence, and confessional
support for the purpose to glorify God in how to
live.
Definition of Theodicy:
The study of the problem of evil in the world. The
issue is
raised in light of the sovereignty of God. How could
a holy and loving God who
is in control of all things allow evil to exist? The
answer has been debated
for as long as the church has existed. We still do
not have a definitive answer
and the Bible does not seek to justify God's
actions.
It is clear that God is sovereign, and that He has
willed
the existence of both good and evil, and that all of
this is for His own glory.
Proverbs 16:4 says, “The LORD works out everything
for his own ends -- even the
wicked for a day of disaster”; Isaiah 45:7 says, “I
form the light and create
darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I,
the LORD, do all these
things.” *
There are various attempts
to solve
this problem. For one example, the free will of man
argument is an attempt to
protect God’s righteousness. This study will focus
on the free will of man
argument as a possible solution.
How do we understand the following passages that
are seemingly
problematic in the study of theodicy?
“Then God sent an evil
spirit
between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the
men of Shechem dealt
treacherously with Abimelech.” (Judges 9:23)
From Gill's
Exposition
of the Entire Bible on Judges 9:23:
“Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and
the men
of Shechem,.... Permitted, yea, gave a commission to
Satan, the evil spirit, to
go among them, who stirred up suspicions,
jealousies, hatred, and ill will to
one another, and sowed the seeds of discord and
contention among them; or God
gave them up to their own hearts' lusts, to think
ill of one another, grow
jealous, and meditate revenge:
and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with
Abimelech;
did not openly declare their minds, but secretly
conspired against him, and
privately consulted ways to find means to get rid of
him, and shake off his
government.” (1)
We can understand this as
the Lord giving
Satan His approval to work upon the men of Shechem
like God did with Satan in
the story of Job.
“But the Spirit of the LORD
departed
from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled
him.” (1Samuel 16:14)
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
Bible
Commentary summarizes up this passage:
“14-18: The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul,
and an
evil spirit from the Lord troubled him—His own
gloomy reflections, the
consciousness that he had not acted up to the
character of an Israelitish king,
the loss of his throne, and the extinction of his
royal house, made him
jealous, irritable, vindictive, and subject to fits
of morbid melancholy.” (2)
Like the passage from
Judges, Satan,
by the Divine approval, was given to terrify Saul.
“And the LORD said who
shall
persuade Ahab that he may go up and fall at
Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this
manner, and another said on that manner. And there
came forth a spirit, and
stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade
him. And the LORD said unto
him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I
will be a lying spirit in
the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou
shalt persuade him, and
prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore,
behold, the LORD hath put a
lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets,
and the LORD hath spoken
evil concerning thee.” (1Kings 22:20-23)
From Gill's
Exposition
of the Entire Bible on 1Kings 22:22:
“Now therefore behold, the Lord hath put a lying
spirit in
the mouths of all these thy prophets,.... That is,
suffered the lying spirit to
suggest a lie to them, and sent them strong
delusions to believe that lie,
whose minds were disposed at any rate to flatter
Ahab, to whom they told it;
which was the way designed to bring him to the ruin
appointed for him:
and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee: he
had
decreed it in himself, declared it by Micaiah his
prophet, and suffered all
those steps to be taken by Satan and the false
prophets, to bring him to it.” (3)
Just like in Job 1:6 and
Job 2:1, God
within the confines of His will approved of Satan
having his way.
“I form the light, and
create
darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD
do all these things.” (Isaiah
45:7)
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
Bible
Commentary on Isaiah 45:7:
“7. form … create—yatzar, to give “form” to
previously
existing matter. Bara,
to “create”
from nothing the chaotic dark material.
light … darkness—literally (Ge 1:1-3), emblematical
also,
prosperity to Cyrus, calamity to Babylon and the
nations to be vanquished [Grotius]
… Isaiah refers also to the Oriental belief in two
coexistent, eternal
principles, ever struggling with each other, light
or good, and darkness or
evil, Oromasden and Ahrimanen. God, here, in
opposition, asserts His
sovereignty over both [Vitringa].
create evil—not moral evil (Jas 1:13), but in
contrast to “peace”
in the parallel clause, war, disaster (compare Ps
65:7; Am 3:6).” (4)
God is the ultimate or
remote cause of
everything, including evil; however, this does mean
that God is the immediate
or proximate cause or the author of sin.
“Shall a trumpet be blown
in the
city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be
evil in a city, and the LORD
hath not done it?” (Amos 3:6)
Matthew
Poole's
Commentary on Amos 3:6:
“Shall a trumpet be blown, when an alarm is
sounded, by
which notice is given of danger approaching, of an
enemy invading the land, in
the city, any city, but particularly in a frontier
city, in which were watchmen
on the walls and towers to give notice of an enemy,
Isaiah 52:8 Ezekiel 3:17
33:7,
and the people not be afraid; affected with the
danger, to
weigh how great it is, how near it is; whether it be
best to prepare to resist
it, or to flee from it? Such-like affections doth
the alarm of war work in the
minds of men ordinarily, and there is good reason
for it: but though God hath
sounded the alarm, yet brutish, stupid, and sinful
Israel fear not, neither
consult what is the best course to prevent the
danger.
Shall there be evil, of affliction and sorrow, such
as
plague, famine, &c., in a city, or anywhere
else, and the Lord, the
eternal, holy, and righteous Governor of all in
heaven and on earth, hath not
done it, either immediately by his own hand, or
mediately by the hands of those
he employs? The evil of punishment he will execute
and bring upon Israel; he
will by the hands of the Assyrians in due time
execute it.” (5)
As Albert Barnes notes on this passage:
“Augustine says; Evil, which is sin, the Lord hath
not done;
evil, which is punishment for sin, the Lord
bringeth.” (6)
Gordon H. Clark’s Solution to the Problem of evil
by Dr.
Phil Fernandes:
“In his writings, Gordon Clark attempted to answer
the
question,
“How can the existence of God be harmonized with
the
existence of evil?” 54 If God is all-good, He would
want to destroy evil. If
God is all-powerful, He is able to destroy evil. But
evil still exists. It
seems that God cannot be both all-good and
all-powerful. However, Christianity
teaches that He is both. This is the problem of
evil. 55
Zoroastrianism attempts to resolve the problem by
teaching
that there are two gods. One is good while the other
is evil. Neither of the
two gods is infinite since they have both failed to
destroy the opposing god.
Plato's views also result in an unresolved dualism.
In his thought, God is not
the creator of all things. There exists eternal and
chaotic space which the
Demiurge cannot control. 56
According to Clark, even Augustine's answer to the
dilemma
was inadequate. Clark stated that Augustine taught
that evil is metaphysically
unreal. It does not exist. Therefore, all that God
created is good since evil
is non-being. 57 (Whether or not Clark treated
Augustine's view fairly will be
discussed at a later point in this chapter.)
Clark pointed out that Augustine added to his
response the
doctrine of human free will. Though God is
all-powerful, He has sovereignly
chosen to give mankind free will. God allows man to
make his own choices.
Mankind has chosen evil. Therefore, all that God
created is good. Evil can be
blamed not on God, but on the abuse of free will by
man. 58
But Clark rejected this view of free will. Clark
believed
that the Bible does not teach that man is free to
choose that which is right as
opposed to that which is wrong. Clark stated that
“free will is not only
futile, but false. Certainly, if the Bible is the
Word of God, free will is
false; for the Bible consistently denies free will.”
59
Though Clark rejected the doctrine of free will, he
believed
man has free agency. “Free will means there is no
determining factor operating
on the will, not even God. Free will means that
either of two incompatible
actions are equally possible.” 60 This Clark
rejected. On the other hand, “Free
agency goes with the view that all choices are
inevitable. The liberty that the
Westminster Confession ascribes to the will is a
liberty from compulsion,
coaction, or force of inanimate objects; it is not a
liberty from the power of
God.” 61 Clark argued that a man can still be
responsible for his actions even
without the freedom to do other than he has done.
Clark stated that, “a man is
responsible if he must answer for what he does . . .
a person is responsible if
he can be justly rewarded or punished for his deeds.
This implies, of course,
that he must be answerable to someone.” 62
Clark then asked the question, “Is it just then for
God to
punish a man for deeds that God Himself 'determined
before to be done?'” 63 He
answered in the affirmative. He stated that,
“Whatever God does is just.” 64
Man is responsible to God; but God is responsible to
no one.
Clark openly admitted that his view makes God the
cause of
sin. For, in his thinking, “God is the sole ultimate
cause of everything.” 65
But, while God is the ultimate cause of sin, He is
not the author of sin. The
author is the immediate cause of an action. Man is
the immediate cause of his
sin. But he was not free to do otherwise. For God is
the ultimate cause of sin.
66
Clark stated that, “God's causing a man to sin is
not sin.
There is no law, superior to God, which forbids him
to decree sinful acts. Sin
presupposes a law, for sin is lawlessness.” 67 Clark
explained that “God is
above law” because “the laws that God imposes on men
do not apply to the divine
nature.” 68
Clark
stated:
“Man
is
responsible because God calls him to account; man is
responsible because the
supreme power can punish him for disobedience. God,
on the contrary, cannot be
responsible for the plain reason that there is no
power superior to him; no
greater being can hold him accountable; no one can
punish him; there is no one
to whom God is responsible; there are no laws, which
he could disobey.
The
sinner
therefore, and not God, is responsible; the sinner
alone is the author of sin.
Man has no free will, for salvation is purely of
grace; and God is sovereign.”
69
This was Clark's proposed solution to the problem
of evil.
God is in fact the ultimate cause of sin. But He is
not evil, for He committed
no sin. And He is not responsible for sin, for there
is no one to whom He is
responsible. God is just, for whatever He does is
just. Therefore, the creature
has no right to stand in judgment over his Creator.
“In the Word of God (Matthew 7:24, 25), we have an
answer to
the theodicy issue. It is all a matter of one’s
epistemic base. With the Bible
as the axiomatic starting point, the existence of
evil is not the problem it is
made out to be. God, who is altogether holy and who
can do no wrong, sovereignly
decrees evil things to occur for his own good
purposes (Isaiah 45:7). Moreover,
just because he decreed it, it is right.” (8)
The critic of Christianity
in the theodicy
debate is trying to smuggle in a foreign standard by
which to hold God accountable.
Clark rightly demolishes this by stating the God
decrees are right, because He
decreed it. “Nay but, O man, who art thou that
repliest against God? Shall the
thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast
thou made me thus?” (Romans
9:20)
Calvin in his Institutes (III, xxiii, 8 & II,
iv. 3)
makes a convincing statement:
“Here they have recourse to the distinction between
will and
permission. By this they would maintain that the
wicked perish because God
permits it, not because he so wills. But why shall
we say “permission” unless
it is because God so wills? Still, it is not in
itself likely that man brought
destruction upon himself through himself, by God’s
mere permission and without
any ordaining. As if God did not establish the
condition, in which he wills the
chief of his creatures to be! I shall not hesitate,
then, simply to confess
with Augustine that “the will of God is the
necessity of things,” and that what
he has willed will of necessity come to pass.” (9)
According to systematic theologian Charles Hodge, the best
method of
dealing with the question of theodicy is:
“to rest satisfied with the simple statements of
the Bible.
The Scriptures teach, (1) That the glory of God is
the end to which the
promotion of holiness, and the production of
happiness, and all other ends are
subordinate. (2) That, therefore, the
self-manifestation of God, the revelation
of his infinite perfection, being the highest
conceivable, or possible good, is
the ultimate end of all his works in creation,
providence, and redemption. (3)
As sentient creatures are necessary for the
manifestation of God's benevolence,
so there could be no manifestation of his mercy
without misery, or of his grace
and justice, if there were no sin.
“As the heavens declare the glory of God, so He has
devised
the plan of redemption, To the intent that now unto
the principalities and
powers in heavenly places, might be known by the
Church the manifold wisdom of
God,” (Eph. 3:10). The knowledge of God is eternal
life. It is for creatures
the highest good. And the promotion of that
knowledge, the manifestation of the
manifold perfections of the infinite God, is the
highest end of all his works.
This is declared by the Apostle to be the end
contemplated, both in the
punishment of sinners and in the salvation of
believers. It is an end to which,
he says, no man can rationally object.
“What if God, willing to shew his wrath (or
justice), and to
make his power known, endured with much long
suffering the vessels of wrath
fitted to destruction: and that He might make known
the riches of his glory on
the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared
unto glory,” (Rom. 9:22, 23).
Sin, therefore, according the Scriptures, is
permitted, that the justice of God
may be known in its punishment, and his grace in its
forgiveness. And the
universe, without the knowledge of these attributes,
would be like the earth
without the light of the sun.” (10)
Is the alleged free will of man the solution to the
problem
of evil?
Arminian free will defined:
To the extent that man can
make any
decision on his own, it is only because God has
given a man that ability, unconstrained,
and voluntary choice.
The Arminian asserts the
sinner has
a free will, and consequently, his eternal destiny
depends on how he uses it.
Those of Arminian convictions promote free
will-ism.
Arminianism is a softened version of the ancient
doctrine of Pelagianism. Is
free will a solution to the problem of evil?
Philosopher Gordon Clark in
his
Religion, Reason, and Revelation said that such a
thing as free will could not save
God from being responsible for evil since the God
knew that sin would come into
the world, and created it anyway. If the God did not
create the world and man,
there would be no evil. It is clear, that even the
Arminian God is the remote
cause of sin. Also, see also Antony Flew's God and
Philosophy. Flew observes
that the Arminian free will argument is a
non-solution to the problem of sin
and evil. Flew for most of his live has been a
non-Christian. Recently, he has
rejected his former atheism. The ignorance of god
doctrine, i.e., God does not
know the future is another attempt by some sectors
of Arminianism to find
solutions to the theodicy question. Flew and many
philosophers and theologians
will not be impressed by the God of limited
knowledge doctrine either.
Gordon Clark regarding free will as a possible
solution for
the existence of evil problem:
“On the road below, to the observer’s left, a car
is being
driven west. To the observer’s right a car is coming
south. He can see and know
that there will be a collision at the intersection
immediately beneath him. But
his foreknowledge, so the argument runs, does not
cause [that is make
necessary] the accident. Similarly, God is supposed
to know the future without
causing it.
The similarity, however, is deceptive on several
points. A
human observer cannot really know that a collision
will occur. Though it is
unlikely, it is possible for both cars to have
blowouts before reaching the
intersection and swerve apart. It is also possible
that the observer has
misjudged speeds, in which case one car could slow
down and other accelerate,
so that they would not collide. The human observer,
therefore, does not
infallible foreknowledge.
No such mistakes can be assumed for God. The human
observer
may make a probable guess that the accident will
occur, and this guess does not
make the accident unavoidable; but if God knows,
there is no possibility of
avoiding the accident. A hundred years before the
drivers were born, there was
no possibility that either of them could have chosen
to stay home that day, to
have driven a different route, to have driven a
different time, to have driven
a different speed. They could not have chosen
otherwise than as they did. This
means either that they had no free will [understood
as a liberty of
indifference] or that God did not know.
Suppose it be granted, just for the moment, that
divine
foreknowledge, like human guesses, does not cause
the foreknown event. Even so,
if there is foreknowledge, in contrast with fallible
guesses, free will is
impossible. If man has free will, and things can be
different, God cannot be
omniscient. Some Arminians have admitted this and
have denied omniscience [the
open theists], but this puts them obviously at odds
with Biblical Christianity.
There is also another difficulty. If the Arminian .
. . wishes to retain divine
omniscience and at the same time assert that
foreknowledge has no causal
efficacy, he is put to explain how the collision was
made certain a hundred
years, an eternity, before the drivers were born. If
God did not arrange the
universe this way, who did?” (11)
Clark continues with his devastating analysis of
the failure
of the free will argument as a solution to the
theodicy problem:
“Suppose there was a lifeguard on a dangerous
beach. A boy
plays by the water when the currents are strong and
he is sucked out to sea by
an undercurrent. He cannot swim and starts to drown.
The lifeguard sits in his
high chair and does nothing to rescue the boy. Maybe
he would shout a few words
to encourage the boy to save himself, but that is
all. The boy drowns. It was
his own free will that the boy went out to sea, and
the lifeguard did not ask
him to do so. The guard merely permitted that boy to
go out to sea and
permitted him to drown. Would the Free Will Advocate
still say that the
Lifeguard is not guilty of the drowning? Permission
of evil therefore, does not
remove responsibility of the lifeguard. Why then
should God permitting sinful
actions of man be any less guiltless just because
the sinner sins in his free
will? It has to be remembered that the guard is not
God. An omniscient and
omnipotent God would certainly have been able to
made the boy a better swimmer,
make the ocean less rough, or at least save the boy
from drowning.
Not only is free will and permission irrelevant to
the
problem of evil, but, further, the idea of
permission has no intelligible
meaning… This permission, however, depends on the
fact that the ocean’s
undertow is beyond the guard’s control. If the guard
had some giant suction device,
which he operated so as to engulf the boy, one would
call it murder, not
permission. The idea of permission is possible only
where there is an
independent force, either the boy’s force or the
ocean’s force. But this is not
the situation in the case of God and the universe.
Nothing in the universe can
be independent of the omnipotent creator, for in him
we live and move and have
our being. Therefore, the idea of permission makes
no sense when applied to
God.” (12)
In closing:
First, a word to the
non-believer,
they should not worry about the issue of theodicy.
Why? Because the
non-believer has no ground or basis within his
worldview to talk intelligently
about good and evil. The non-believer is unable to
define good or evil within
the framework of their worldview. All the
non-believer can say is nothing more
than an opinion, which works out to be nothing more
than arbitrary social
conventions.
Summary of Gordon Clark’s biblical solution to the
problem
of evil:
“Clark’s answer. There are four elements of his
answer that
should be noted.
A. The Distinction Between Free Will and Free
Agency
The false doctrine of “free will” is that man has
the
ability to choose between two incompatible actions;
that the will is free from
any outside factor.Clark rejects this
teaching. However, he does ascribe to man a “free
agency” – that man’s will is
free from outside forces in the world, but not free
from God. The Free Agent is
independent of natural forces, but not independent
of God. Thus, man makes
choices as he is a Free Agent, but these choices are
only made within God’s
will or plan.
Thus, Clark takes a compatibilist view between the
free
agent’s ability to choose and the deterministic
necessity of that choice
occurring as God has willed it. He writes, “A choice
is still a deliberate
volition even if it could not have been different.”
B. God is the Ultimate Cause of all Things
Including Sin
Here, Clark pulled no punches and outright said
“Let it be
unequivocally said that this view certainly makes
God the cause of sin. God is
the sole ultimate cause of everything. There is
absolutely nothing independent
of him. He alone is the eternal being. He alone is
omnipotent. He alone is
sovereign.”
Clark found support in the Westminster Confession,
which
states that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass and
foreordained even the
means.
But, while God is the ultimate cause of sin, He is
not the
author of sin. The author is the immediate cause,
whereas God is only the
ultimate cause of sin.
C. Responsibility is Derived Not From a Free Will
but From
God’s Sanction
We are responsible for our actions not because we
have the
ability to choose otherwise (we don’t) but because
God set punishments for
those actions.
Consider the Biblical example of the Crucifiction
of Jesus
Christ.God
foreknew, even foreordained,
the crucifixion of his Son by the hands of sinful
men. It was God’s will for
Herod, Pilate, and the Jews to crucify Christ. .
Yet, according to Scripture,
the godless men who carried out the act are
responsible (Acts 2:22, 23; 4:27, 28)
D. By Definition God Cannot Sin
Whatever God decrees is right simply because he
decrees
it.Whatever
God does is just. What he
commands men to do or not to do is similarly just or
not just.
“God is neither responsible nor sinful, even though
he is
the only ultimate cause of everything. He is not
sinful because in the first
place whatever God does is just and right. It is
just and right simply in
virtue of the fact that he does it. Justice or
Righteousness is not a standard
external to God to which God is obligated to submit.
Righteousness is what God
does”.” (13)
In reality, there is no problem of theodicy,
because:
The Westminster
Confession Chapter 3 Section I:
i. God from
all
eternity did, by the most wise (Rom. 11:33) and holy
counsel of His own will,
freely (Rom. 9:15, 18), and unchangeably (Heb. 6:17)
ordain whatsoever comes to
pass (Eph. 1:11): yet so, as thereby neither is God
the author of sin (James
1:13, 17; 1 John 1:5), nor is violence offered to
the will of the creatures
(Matt. 17:12; Acts 2:23; 4:27-28); nor is the
liberty or contingency of second
causes taken away, but rather established (John
19:11; Prov. 16:33).
Lastly:
In light of all of God's
Sinless
Perfections and Holiness, the Reformed assert that
God is Sovereign and whatever
He does is right, simply because He does it! If a
man is holding God to the
standards of human reason, this is unacceptable.
Human reason must be
subservient to God's revelation. The core issue,
with which free will advocates
wrestle against, is submitting human reason to the
authority of Scripture and
the rejection of all forms of human autonomy.
The Reformed rightly
maintain that
there is no law structure or standard above God that
he is held accountable. If
so, this law structure would be God, and one could
ask, where did this law
structure arise? Those who have restricted God’s
sovereignty in an attempt to
vindicate God have elevated human reason as a
standard above God and hold him
to an outrageous humanistic un-Scriptural standard.
The decretive or concealed
will of
God is God's sovereign will that may remain hidden,
depending on whether or not
God reveals it to us. God's purposes are not always
revealed. There are remote
and proximate causes. The solution of theodicy is
found in these biblical
distinctions.
Remote and proximate causation:
The Chaldeans thieves, in
Job 1:17
were the proximate cause of the evil. Job wisely
does not question the motives
of the Lord, the remote cause. He said, “And said,
Naked came I out of my
mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the
LORD gave, and the LORD
hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
(Job 1:21)
There is no need to limit
God’s
sovereignty with a free will of man argument as a
solution to the problem of
evil as seen from the above material, particularly
that of Gordon H. Clark.
“Him, being delivered by
the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye
have taken, and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain.” (Acts 2:23)
Notes:
1.John
Gill,
Exposition of
the Old and New
Testaments, Judges, (Grace Works, Multi-Media
Labs), 2011, p. 145.
2.Jamieson,
Fausset
and Brown, Commentary
on the
Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan,
Zondervan, 1977) p. 217.
3.John
Gill,
Exposition of
the Old and New
Testaments, 1Kings, (Grace Works, Multi-Media
Labs), 2011, p. 291.
4.Jamieson,
Fausset
and Brown, Commentary
on the
Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan,
Zondervan, 1977) p. 567-568.Albert
Barnes,
THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARYCOMMENTARY, Barnes’ Notes on
the Bible, Amos,
Vol. 5 p.520.
5.Matthew
Poole's
Commentary on
the Holy Bible,
Vol. 2, (Peabody, Massachusetts, Hendrickson
Publishers, 1985) p. 905.
6.Albert
Barnes,
THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARYCOMMENTARY, Barnes’
Notes
on the Bible, Amos, Vol. 5 p.520.
7.Dr.
Phil
Fernandes, CLARK'S
SOLUTION TO THE
PROBLEM OF EVIL,
https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/clark_evil.html
8.Gordon
H.
Clark, An
Introduction to Christian
Philosophy (Jefferson, Maryland, The Trinity
Foundation, 1993), p. 113,114.
9.Calvin,
John,
Institutes of
the Christian
Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford
Lewis Battles, The Library of
Christian Classics, XX-XXI, (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1960) Book III,
xxiii, 8 & II, iv. 3 p. 956.
10.Charles
Hodge,
Systematic
Theology, vol. 1,
(Grand Rapids, Michigan, William. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1997), p. 435.
11.Gordon
Clark,
Religion, Reason
and Revelation,
(Jefferson, Maryland, Trinity Foundation), pp.
217-219.
12.Gordon
H.
Clark, God
and evil: the problem
solved, (Hobbs, New Mexico, Trinity
Foundation), p.17-18.
13.Douglas
Douma,
Gordon Clark
and the Problem of
Evil, A Place for Thoughts,
https://douglasdouma.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/gordon-clark-and-the-problem-of-evil/
“To God, only
wise, be
glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans
16:27) and “heirs according
to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29)
Mr.
Kettler
has previously published articles in the Chalcedon Report and Contra
Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the
Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. Mr.
Kettler is the author of the book defending the
Reformed Faith against attacks,
titled: The
Religion That Started in a
Hat. Available at: http://www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
For more study:
A
Biblical Theodicy by W. Gary Crampton
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=141
*
Definition of Theodicy
https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/ctd/t/theodicy.html