Making Peace and Creating Evil

Years ago I picked up a used book (not sure where)by Joseph Brennan entitled Foundations of Moral Obligation. As you may have guessed from my long series on science and atheism, the problem of moral obligation is of great interest to me. I once wrote a 40-page paper on the topic.

I started re-reading the book last week, and just began the chapter, "Job and the Problem of Evil." Heavy stuff. From here, my mind bounced to one of the more challenging passages in the Bible, Isaiah 45:7: "Forming light, and creating darkness; Making peace, and creating evil; I Jehovah do all these things" (translation by John Calvin). Others translate evil as "calamity" (NASB), "disaster" (NIV), and the King James reflects Calvin's translation. Does God create disaster, calamity...evil? Where does evil come from? This has been one of the great philosophical and theological challenges of all time. I won't be able to address that fully here, but I wanted to share Calvin's view of the passage. I think he gets it right.

By the words "light" and "darkness" he [Isaiah] describes metaphorically not only peace and war, but adverse and prosperous events of any kind; and he extends the word peace according to the custom of Hebrew writers, to all success and prosperity. This is made abundantly clear by the contrast; for he contrasts "peace" not only with war, but with adverse events of every sort. Fanatics torture this word evil, as if God were the author of evil, that is, of sin; but it is very obvious how ridiculously they abuse this passage of the Prophet. This is sufficiently explained by the contrast, the parts of which must agree with each other; for he contrasts "peace" with "evil," that is, with afflictions, wars, and other adverse occurrences. If he contrasted "righteousness" with "evil," there would be some plausibility in their reasonings, but this is a manifest contrast of things that are opposite to each other. Consequently, we ought not to reject the ordinary distinction, that God is the author of the "evil" of punishment, but not of the "evil" of guilt.

But the Sophists are wrong in their exposition; for while they acknowledge that famine, barrenness, war, pestilence, and other scourges, come from God, they deny that God is the author of calamities, when they befall us through the agency of men. This is false and altogether contrary to the present doctrine; for the Lord raises up wicked men to chastise us by their hand, as is evident from various passages of Scripture (1 Kings 11:14, 23). The Lord does not indeed inspire them with malice, but he uses it for the purpose of chastising us, and exercises the office of a judge, in the same manner as he made use of the malice of Pharaoh and others, in order to punish his people (Exodus 1:11, 2:23). We ought therefore to hold this doctrine, that God alone is the author of all events; that is, that adverse and prosperous events are sent by him, even though he makes use of the agency of men, that none may attribute it to fortune, or to any other cause.

This topic has particular relevance on this day: September 11.

As I read through the chapter on Job and the problem of evil, I may share some additional thoughts.