Is God evil or causes evil to occur?
Author: Cripplegate. Scripture speaks of God’s decree as eternal, unconditional, unchangeable, and exhaustive. As a result, God is properly said to be the ultimate cause of all things. As the Westminster Confession states , “God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoevercomes to pass” (WCF, 3.1). Whenever you say something like that in a theological discussion, immediately the question is raised: How can God be the ultimate cause of whatsoever comes to pass—even actions and events that are evil and sinful, things which God Himself prescribes against—and yet not be rightly charged with unrighteousness. Perhaps the most common answer to that question is an appeal to the notion of divine “permission.” In other words, though God is ultimately in control, He doesn’t ordain evil; He merely allows it. But such a solution is unsatisfactory, both theologically and biblically. After considering a number of pa