I quite agree with your assessment, at this point. But, then, I can hardly imagine what you might have to say about the God I actually believe in: viz, one who actively determined not only all moral evil but also its natural, non-moral, counterpart.

(You might even agree with DCP at some general, non-theistic level, who wrote: "Perhaps I wasn't clear enough: I regard Calvinism as repulsive, its morality disgusting, and its teaching about God as blasphemous." We theological determinists tend to get hit from both sides. On a side note: You may or, indeed, may not at all find this debate between Dan Barker and Doug Wilson interesting. I found it so, but then, Wilson is a Calvinist, too. And Barker, now an atheist, once wrote Christian musicals!)

It doesn't exactly make for an easy argument against the problem of evil, broadly conceived, but, as a convinced and thoroughgoing determinist, I can hardly abandon my hard-won convictions in exchange for an impotent God.

c

Ck, I am truly curious why you choose to respond to the comment about all the world suffering for the moral benefit of some first worlders with these evasive comments about determinism.

(a) You may reply that a benevolent God allowed natural disasters to happen because they give us an opportunity to develop and grow, in the Plan of Salvation sense. This argument would be pretty perverse:(b) you'd have to argue that God allowed hundreds of thousands of people to die horrific deaths just so some First-Worlders could "fulfill" themselves. I admit that such a God could exist, but if He does, I wouldn't worship Him.

E:

In the meantime I would like to comment on the JSM and KimberlyAnn's discussion regarding evil. The first point to make is if a rigorous discussion of the basicality of belief in God is being pursued the existence of evil and suffering does need to be faced but it is a separate issue from the question of perceiving the existence of God. Nobody perceives a tree in front of them and then says it can't exist because it is going to suffer a terrible and horrible existence, or that the tree couldn't have been intentionally planted because of the same. (Please don't miss the trees through the forest with that rudimentary example) If through basicality and perception we arrive at the existence of God this says nothing regarding warranted or unwarranted evil. JSM says so much when he agrees that many of the proofs don't show the benevolence of God, no some only point to the mere existence.

my regards, mikwut

Edwards’ next point may be hard for some to swallow. He argues that the reason why the suffering of the lost will be no occasion for grief in the righteous is that the latter will no longer love nor feel pity for the former. They will realize that “it is not fit that they should love them, because they will know then, that God has no love to them, nor pity for them.” Since the saints in heaven will be perfectly conformed to God in their will and affections, loving what he loves and hating what he hates, they will view the lost in hell the same way God does. And Edwards is convinced that God does not love the lost in hell.

I realize how unpalatable this is to modern evangelical ears. We are awash in the idea that God loves all equally and eternally. Edwards, on the other hand, argues that Scripture teaches that God’s love is sovereign and distinguishing, that some are its objects in such a way that they are eternally chosen for life and happiness, while others are passed over in a well-deserved judgment.

He also argues that the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the lost because therein will the glory of God appear. God’s glory is manifest in all his works, not simply in his saving of souls but in his pouring out of eternal wrath on those who hate and despise and disbelieve him.

The saints in heaven, says Edwards, “will be perfect in their love to God: their hearts will be all a flame of love to God, and therefore they will greatly value the glory of God, and will exceedingly delight in seeing him glorified.” In heaven, far more so than now on earth, God’s people will “greatly rejoice in all that contributes to that glory,” and one such contribution will be the full revelation of his just and eternal wrath against sinners.

Again, we may recoil in thinking of such matters, but the teaching of Scripture is that the suffering of the unrighteous in hell is “what justice requires.” Although it may be unclear and ambiguous in the present age, in the age to come we will see “how perfectly just and righteous their punishment is, and therefore how properly inflicted by the supreme Governor of the world.” Indeed, “the sight of this strict and immutable justice of God will render him amiable and adorable in their eyes.”

Divine justice in the destruction of the wicked will then “appear as light without darkness, and will shine as the sun without clouds, and on this account will they [the saved, in heaven] sing joyful songs of praise to God.”

Often times in Scripture the manifestation of God’s power in judgment is spoken of as glorious. In the Song of Moses in Exodus 15:6 we read, “Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.” Moses “rejoiced and sang when he saw God glorify his power in the destruction of Pharaoh and his host at the Red Sea. But how much more will the saints in glory rejoice when they shall see God gloriously triumphing over all his enemies in their eternal ruin!”

Edwards appears to be thinking along these lines: If we find it good and right and honoring to God that we worship and praise him when he defeats his enemies in this life, bringing them to naught while exalting his power and name, how much more so will we see it and rejoice when this occurs in the life to come, forever.

Not only this, but when the saints see God’s justice satisfied in the punishment of the wicked they will evermore treasure his favor. “How will they rejoice that they are the objects of his love! How will they praise him the more joyfully, that he should choose them to be his children, and to live in the enjoyment of him!”

As the saints consider the well-deserved misery of the lost, it will serve to increase their gratitude for their own undeserved bliss. Perhaps this is our problem, that we do not really believe that the misery of the lost is well-deserved, that it is an expression of justice and righteousness and holiness. Nor do we really believe that our bliss is utterly undeserved, that it is an expression of sheer grace, wholly because of what Christ has done and not something from ourselves.

If we fully grasped the perfect justice of hell and the perfect mercy of heaven, we would neither be disturbed by the former nor deficient in gratitude for the latter. Edwards put it this way:

“When they [the saints in heaven] shall see the dreadful miseries of the damned, and consider that they deserved the same misery, and that it was sovereign grace, and nothing else, which made them so much to differ from the damned that, if it had not been for that, they would have been in the same condition; but that God from all eternity was pleased to set his love upon them, that Christ hath laid down his life for them, and hath made them thus gloriously happy forever, O how they will admire that dying love of Christ, which has redeemed them from so great a misery, and purchased for them so great happiness, and has so distinguished them from others of their fellow creatures! How joyfully will they sing to God and the Lamb, when they behold this!”

Hm, Is there something wrong with me that I cannot help but think there is a possiblity Sam Storms is wrong. Oh,he can back his picture up with a narrow reading of Jonathan Edwards! Edwards was smart but there is also the possiblity he was hopelessly neurotic and saw only part of things.

Hi, Mikwut.

Although you weren't addressing me, I hope you won't mind if I make a few comments.

We're in agreement that human suffering doesn't preclude the existence of God. I do, however, personally believe that human suffering precludes the existence of any thoroughly good God.

An omniscient God cannot be let off the hook for human suffering. He would be the ultimate cause of such suffering and I lay the blame squarely on His metaphorical shoulders.

God intends folks to suffer, and I submit that the Biblical God not only doesn't care about the suffering of millions of His creations, but that He delights in it. God hates the enemies He created for Himself. They were made to absorb God's great wrath. God is very, very angry and someone, many someones, are going to pay. But, don't be alarmed. Those Vessels of Wrath deserve what's coming to them from a Just God, the fact that those folks have no choice in the matter notwithstanding.

I guess I'd rather there be no God at all than there to be a God so capricious and mean as the God of the Bible.

It is possible, I suppose, to be unselfish enough to be thankful that my parents favor and love my sisters and to be glad to serve as an example of the unloved so that my siblings might be more aware of their favored status. But, still, it doesn't seem right for parents to love some of their children and not others, and it doesn't seem right for God to do it either. It's impossible for Vessels of Wrath to understand the ways of God, though, so that surely accounts for my confusion.