Lewis and the “Crooked Line”: The Problem of Love Part 2
Turn-of-the-century Bible teacher Arthur Pink makes the case that human will and the desires of the heart are distinguishable, though one is followed by the other. We are born in bondage in the fallen world[1] and the will, not being entirely independent, chooses based on external influences, be that the Holy Spirit or otherwise.[2] Pink held to a compatibilist view in that though nothing we could do may determine an outcome, we are nevertheless commanded to preach as Scripture teaches, and by God’s grace and mercy He may use our influence (ultimately of the Holy Spirit) to save the lost.[3] Lewis similarly believed in the supernaturalism that is afforded in a contingent world, allowing for free will to exist (versus the closed system, that is the “whole show” as Lewis called it, what naturalist held to).[4] The fact that moral judgments can be made with rationality shows there is a kind of “Divine Reason” that naturalism could not produce.[5] Any reasonable person admits there are clear moral standards, a delineation between “good” and “bad” (or evil) and humans are free to choose.
Shadow and Light
Because there is evil, we can reasonably expect there to be a standard of good. Without evil there would be no way to understand good (we can know the light without the shadows but not the shadows without the light).
Because there is evil, we can reasonably expect there to be a standard of good. Without evil there would be no way to understand good (we can know the light without the shadows but not the shadows without the light). God is good and we have Christ to show for it in the face of present evil. And what do we mean by evil? Liberty University professor, Ronnie F. Campbell, categorizes three kinds: 1) moral evil: evil produced by a moral agent; 2) natural evil: evils that occur by nonhuman means (famine, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.); and 3) what Campbell calls horrendous or gratuitous evils: those acts considered “worse than others” in that they “go beyond the physical or mental pain they cause, to the point where the individual becomes devalued and degraded, engulfing any positive value in the person’s life, to which they are organically tied.”[6] Or more simply, as Augustine describes, evil is an “absence” or “privation” of good.[7] Evil cannot exist without good, much like a person can exist without a disease, but the disease cannot exist without the person. In the same way, the problem of evil in many ways points to the existence of God.
Lewis famously said about his own conversion in Mere Christianity, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”[8]To come back to the natural man questioning God, and even the faithful Job did so with no less rebuke, humans may look at pain as evil, and so God must be evil to allow it. But if there is evil, there is good, and Lewis tells us good flows intrinsically from God’s character, God’s nature. A thing is good because God says so, not that God calls it good because it is.[9]
Good and Evil
To come back to the natural man questioning God, and even the faithful Job did so with no less rebuke, humans may look at pain as evil, and so God must be evil to allow it. But if there is evil, there is good, and Lewis tells us good flows intrinsically from God’s character, God’s nature. A thing is good because God says so, not that God calls it good because it is.
St. Augustine taught that the world was created good as the creation account tells us in Genesis 1, and in his counter to the Manicheans, he claims creation, though good, was made with the ability to be corrupted.[10] This is demonstrated in Chapter 3 of Genesis when the first parents chose to sin and caused corruption to enter into the world. To some critics, including Pierre Bayle of the 17th century, this was not an acceptable proof of God, since evil exists and if God were all-powerful could rid the world of it immediately. Because evil prevails, it proves there is no God. However, as Norman Geisler refutes in his counter-argument, Bayle fails to address the “not yet” of God’s salvation plan.[11] Yes, evil was defeated at the cross, but not until the final days will it be completely destroyed.
But why, one might ask, is there evil to be destroyed in the first place? The answer can be found in that most famous verse, “For God so loved…” Without evil there is no need for the cross. God so loved the world that in His foreknowledge and sovereignty, He is glorified in humankind’s redemption story though Christ, His death and resurrection. Lewis says, “What reason have we, except our own desperate wishes, to believe that God is, by any standard we can conceive, ‘good’? Doesn’t all the prima facie evidence suggest exactly the opposite? What have we to set against it? We set Christ against it.”[12] Do we trust God to pick the best way to glorify Himself? No doubt our redemption does just that.
Next time, we'll look at how suffering takes part in our salvation.
[1] Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God, (Grand Rapids, MI, 1984), 135.
[2] Ibid., 130-131.
[3] Ibid., 141.
[4] C.S Lewis, Miracles, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), 7-9.
[5] Ibid., 54-60.
[6] Ronnie P. Campbell, Jr., Worldviews and the Problem of Evil: A Comparative Approach, (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 4-5.
[7] Ibid., 5.
[8] C.S Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), 38.
[9] Ibid. 99.
[10] Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook on Christian Evidences, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2013), 54.
[11] Norman L. Geisler, Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2013), 245.
[12] C.S. Lewis, Grief Observed, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994), 29.