The Theodicy of the Cross

Much has been made of one particular argument that atheists use to disprove God’s existence. This argument is called the argument from evil and it goes something like this:

If God is good and all-powerful, then evil would not exist.

Evil exists.

Therefore, God does not exist.

Notice the two main premises: God is both good and all-powerful. As Christians, these are two things that we all profess. God is good; as a matter of fact, God is the greatest Good. And He is all-powerful or omnipotent. This is to say that there is nothing that God cannot do and that He is sovereign over all creation, including the evil that is on earth.

Perhaps you have friends who have issues with God’s existence and evil’s existence. Or maybe you yourself have problems with this. I know I did. We can’t pass this question by, then. In order to understand the argument from evil, we need to take a page out of the logic textbook. The argument from evil is postulated in the form of a syllogism. What this means is that if the first two statements, or propositions as they are called, are true, then the conclusion that God does not exist must be true as well. The way to dismantle this argument would be to prove just one of these statements wrong. And that is what we do in the theodicy of the cross.

What is a theodicy? It is an attempt to prove that God and evil can both exist in this world. How do we do this? Through looking at what Jesus did on the cross. We will not try and show that evil does not exist, for every Christian and atheist knows that evil exists. We will show that God is still good and in control of evil.

First, God is still good and evil still exists. Some say that if God were truly good, then there would be no evil. But God and evil certainly coexist as can be evidenced by the cross: Jesus, as the God-man, encountered evil during his crucifixion. What’s more is that He still maintained his moral goodness by dying for our sins. What could prove God’s morally good nature more than that?

This begs the question though. If God is all-good, then why didn’t He just never let evil be? A more detailed answer to this question may look something like the Free Will Theodicy, but in all honesty, this is one of the mysteries of the faith. God has His good purposes that bring glory to Him. What we can’t say, however, is that God is not sovereign over evil. For if He was not, then how would Jesus have been crucified? We see that God, before the foundation of the world, made his wonderful plan of salvation which involved the death of His Son. If God was not in some way sovereign over evil, then how could he plan to crucify Christ, which was an evil act committed by evil men not too different from you and me? We must be careful not to say that God is the cause of evil, however, for that is blasphemy. It is best to say that God is sovereign over evil but not the cause of it. God, then, still maintains his omnipotence.

So there you have it. Some say the existence of evil means God isn’t really there or that he doesn’t really care. I say God is not dead, He does care, He is good, and He is still all-powerful. All we have to do is look at the cross of His Son. This discipline is always beneficial. We would do well to remember that.