From his book, A Faith Of Your Own:
A God who is completely loving, powerful, and just would eliminate evil. The continued presence of evil means that God is limited in one of those three attributes… [I believe] that God is altogether loving and altogether just, but not altogether powerful. However, God is not powerless… God does not have power to control evil. Indeed, God acts not through unilateral exercise of force but through lure or persuasion. God is present in every situation seeking to lure people to the good… Moral evil results from people not responding to the lure of God toward love and justice. Even though God does not desire sickness or evil in nature, God cannot directly control such things… [I believe] every entity is living. The table on which I am writing this book may appear to be inanimate, but it is made up of atoms that are in constant motion. It is constantly in process and can respond to stimuli. Every entity in the world has freedom. Some entities — such as human beings — have high degrees of consciousness, while others — such as animals, the clouds, and this table — have lower and lower degrees of consciousness. Nevertheless, they are all alive and can respond positively or negatively to the lure toward a world of love and justice. Natural evil results from elements of creation exercising their freedom in ways that are destructive.
Tsunami cells and cancer cells act as they do because they have freedom, just as human beings have freedom to act as they do for good or for ill, and the Creator cannot remove freedom for that would remove possibilities in the universe for love, spontaneity, novelty, and joy.
So much about this quote rings true. I especially like what you say at the end: “the Creator cannot remove freedom for that would remove possibilities in the universe for love, spontaneity, novelty, and joy.” Yes. So very well said.
And yet I wonder… If God does not have the power to control evil now, can we have confidence that God will one day ultimately defeat evil? Will something change, either in the nature of evil or in the nature of God’s providence between now and the eschatological future? How? It’s tough… Of course, if God does have the capacity to control/manage evil it makes some things easier to swallow (evil is not ultimate, it is not stronger than God) while making others much more difficult—not least, if God has the ability to control evil, why isn’t he doing so?
So many questions… I put the Ron Allen quote out to see what it sounds like.
Since we are raised on Bible texts like “nothing is impossible with God”, it is hard for us to think of God not being able to do something.
Even Diogenes Allen, who is far more orthodox than Ron Allen, says God’s power is self-limited as a result of the act of creation, and the notion of omnipotence is not philosophically defensible. DA says the term ‘almighty’ is good, though, but he didn’t explain enough for me on what the difference is.
That last part that you quoted is me talking, trying out some words to see how they sound and feel.
Peace to you.
How free are human beings? So many people are stuck in familial patterns of behaviour which can be so hard to change – when the behaviour is negative and change is desirable. There are so many types of cages.
“Many cages”… How true. And yet it is easier to believe in a failed infinite then embrace the possibility that we have a choice.
Yes, no matter how we parse out the specifics of evil and divine sovereignty, there can certainly be no other conclusion that in the act of creation and incarnation, God chose some kind of self-limitation. He “emptied himself,” as Colossians so beautifully puts it.
Thanks again for your post.
I used to live in a cage, but then this year I walked out of it. I think the door was unlocked the whole time, but I didn’t know it. Not all cages are like that, though.
…Greaty post Chris. I’ve been wrestling/contemplating with this question myself in recent months,i like Allen’s perspective,it feels plausible.
@LC: Great observation and so true