Grace and evil

As posed by what Jurgen Moltmann has called “protest atheism,” the problem of evil is usually framed as a contradiction within theism, particularly biblical theism. Evil exists: God is either good but impotent to stop evil, or He is omnipotent but malign, such that evil expresses some aspect of his character. Since Augustine’s polemics against the Manichees, this dilemma has been answered by emphasizing the negativity of evil. Evil has, in John Milbank’s words, no “ontological purchase,” but is instead strictly a negation of being and a privation of good. At least in some formulations, however, the conclusion that evil is non-existent has been pressed into a form of dualism that is difficult to square with Scripture’s claims about the Lordship of God.

The problem of evil might be better formulated as a problem of prevenient grace. Also originating with Augustine, this notion emphasizes that God’s grace and work always goes-before, pre-venire, human response. Canon V of the 529 Council of Orange provides this account of grace: “If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism – if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, ‘And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ’ (Phil. 1:6). And again, ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God’ (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers.”

From this angle, what looks like a “problem of evil” is really the question of why God shows mercy to people who have shown no inclination to repent. Why does God preserve flagrantly wicked people, and why He even allow them to prosper. (This does not address, of course, the problem of “natural” evil.) When the problem of evil is put in this context, we discover that there are many biblical passages that directly address the problem (Psalms 37, 73, for instance).