The Problem of Natural Evil and the Christ-Centered Model for Early Genesis

We live in a world which, though it is also filled with much wonder, beauty, and love, contains a horrific amount of evil. Not just human evil, but also what might be called "natural" evil. Nature is full of cruelty and tragedy. An example of the former would be abortion. And example of the latter something such as children getting cancer. Animals prey upon one another. So do humans of course, but theologically speaking that may not fall under the category of "natural" evil.

Young Earth Creationism has an answer for the problem of natural evil: The universe was created in a state of deathless perfection, but Adam's sin unleashed natural evil in its various forms. This answer is unsatisfying for two major reasons. One of these is the idea that God had foreknowledge of the choice Adam would make and still made him that way. This objection can be overcome in certain Trinitarian calculus. The other main objection is that it is unjust to put everyone, man and beast. through so much natural evil due to the sins of one man. It wasn't just to mar a perfect world due to the actions of one man. That charge against the YEC model is more poignant.

Young Earth Creationism has a lot of other problems, even if they had satisfying answers for the problem of natural evil. So in a way it does not even matter if they did have such answers. We can disqualify their cosmology on other grounds. One of them is that it completely misrepresents what the text of Genesis says about the initial conditions of creation.

Genesis chapter one paints a picture of a world which is dark, empty, and chaotic. There is nothing good about it, until the first word from God enters creation. His word produces light, and the light is good. That is, that part of creation which is connected to His word is good. Genesis chapter one is not claiming a perfect initial creation. It's claiming an initial creation of darkness that is not good which the light of His word enters. It is an account of taking a place of darkness and chaos and by degrees filling it with life and order.

So the first wrong-headed idea to get out of our minds is that the earth was initially like heaven and as punishment for Adam's sin all that was changed. It's not what the text says. Rather, this world was created as a place where light and darkness would be mixed from the beginning. It was formed as a place where His word was absent. As a place where His will can be done, but not a place where it must be done. Were it not so Christ would not have instructed us to pray "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven."

So creation doesn't do God's will automatically. Just the opposite. Creation can't do God's will without God's help. It is a suitable (and that's the real meaning of the word translated "good" in Genesis chapter one) place for creatures like us, because we can't do God's will without God's help either. No more than a light bulb was designed to give off light disconnected to its power source. The question is, do we want that help?

In other words, the world is designed to be a place where free will is exercised. This world is the spinning coin where, for a time, the outcome known to God appears to us to be in doubt. It was a place without order. God, to some extent, imposed His will on it because that was necessary to bring forth and preserve life. But He left darkness mingled with light. There was room for Man to impose his own order on creation, whether in subjection to God's will or otherwise. Had the cosmos been fully aligned with God's will, then there would be no room for our own. Creation itself would have fought us at every turn. And it does fight us, but with chaos, not organized and systematic opposition to our ends. How frustrating it would be for sinful and unrepentant creatures to live in a world which forced us to walk in the light and left no room for our own devices. Thus, from the beginning He consigned this universe to futility- that is, chaos, the possibility of ways which are not submitted to His own will.

So if we want to know why God produced a universe so full of cruelty and tragedy we need only look in the mirror. We are the reason. It's the only kind of universe where free will can be exercised.  He meant for us to subdue and dominate the earth and shape the chaos into beauty. That was His commission to man in Genesis One. To produce a world where lions and lambs lay down together and eat grass.  He didn't impose a morally perfect word on us, but He set us up in a world which could be so shaped, and blessed us to that purpose.

The rest as they say, is history. Adam, His "privileged" stand-in for the race, choose to decide for himself what was good and what was evil. They decided to make themselves the judge of God's word rather than the beneficiary of it. Adam failed to realize that he was not properly in the middle between good and evil, between God and the Serpent, rationally evaluating which had the most plausible claim. Rather Adam was from the dust. He was a part of this natural world which has futility and chaos bound up in it. He wasn't in the middle of light and darkness. He too was in darkness and darkness in him until such time as the light of God's word drives it out.

So His plan was delayed, but not frustrated, by our exercise of free will. Who knows where mankind would be now if we had cooperated with God in re-making this world as He desired instead of questioning and disregarding His Word at every turn? Childhood cancer may have been wiped out 5,000 years ago. Abortion surely would have been. The Garden might have been enlarged so that it covered the good earth. Light increased, and the shadows of darkness driven into extinction in this realm.

One day, scriptures teach, this will be so anyway. Revelation says there will never be any night in the city of God. God's plan was not frustrated by our connection to this universe, the darkness in us. He has accomplished it and is accomplishing it in His own Person through the God-Man Jesus Christ.

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