Biblical Interpretation and the Problem of Evil

Biblical interpretation and the problem of evil

Someone asked me what is my method of biblical interpretation. And while I am not a “Methodist” when it comes to epistemology in general, the question is like asking “how do you know what God is really saying”.

The Bible itself gives an outline for how this is to be done, that is, in accord with the Bible.

The first thing that is required is the assumption that the Bible is True. Any interpretation of the Bible that makes some parts of it true but not other parts makes what whole thing false.

Of course there are places where this will seem impossible to the reader. This is the generally either due to the fault of the translation (since few read it in original language) or interpretation. For the most part faults of translation can be traced back to the earliest manuscripts we have of Hebrew and Greek originals, and resolved by exegesis and interpretive analysis from that original text, so we should focus interpretive analysis as the harder topic.

When two passages of text differ in their content but are both true, normally these can be attributed to differences in perspective. Either the author is different, or the intent and manner of their descripti n is different.

Thus I may describe to you my mother as a woman of great moral character or as a woman who was deeply flawed. Both can be true without contradiction, only on the assumption that no deeply flawed people can have high moral character can these be considered a contradiction.

That is, in the assertion of any reductio ad absurdum argument, the premises of the argument need to be made clear. For the sake of interpreting the Bible as true, it is necessary to flush out the premises in a supposed reductio and acknowledge that the Bible is inexplicitly (though often explicitly also) proposing that the hidden assumption is 5e false one.

In many ways this is the point of the regenerative power of the Bible, to flush out these hidden false beliefs and show them false, by changing the readers mind about them (that is, in the act of repentance), the reader comes to understand what God intends.

So in many ways a great place to start studying the Bible is in seeking out the points you think must be contradictory and seeing why the Bible says they are not!

Probably the most often proposed contradiction in the Bible is known as the problem of evil. God says that he is effectively omnipotent , “with god all things are possible”. And the Bible says that god is perfectly good, there is no forward ness in Him. And it says that god created the world.

Yet we see that there is in fact evil in the world. The naive conclusion is that the three premises can’t all be true:

God is omnipotent
God is good
There is evil in the world.

Of course, the Bible does address this specific problem but not in syllogistic format, and finding that resolution while not impossible is often more work that people are willing to put in.

This is an error, for as it is written “it is for god to conceal a matter but for Kings to search a matter out!”

The hidden premise where is that if god is good and all powerful then there can’t be any evil because god would either not allow it or destroy it as it arose.

Since we know that god does not do this, we think, god must not be powerful enough or not good enough.

But this is not what the Bible asserts. The Bible asserts that we ourselves are evil “how is it that you, being evil, know how to give your children good gifts....”

Of course accepting our fallen state is among the hardest things for most people to do (especially people who call themselves Christians!) , but this is the crux of the matter.

God allows the existence of evil for our benefit, because he loves us despite the fact that we are evil. Otherwise we would all be destroyed or never come into being.

But god in his infinite wisdom and kindness and patience has allowed us to come to Him for mercy!

Thus the reader is then left with a choice between two premises:

God allows evil because it is good to do so, or, god should immediately destroy me and all of humanity.

But God says that he loves us, because god is love. So is god wrong to love the wicked!?

No, mercy which is the grand expression of who god is as love, is good, and I thank god for the mercy he has shown me every day.

There are many other such examples of interpretive dissonance being the point of apparent biblical contradictions but the reader is encouraged to find them for themselves!

For we have one teacher, God!