I would appreciate your thoughts on this.
One of the most basic qualities of God (according to Scripture) is His omniscience (all-knowing). The word says that He knew the end from the beginning. So if God knew the consequence of creating …. why did He still do it?
I’ve been working on a new book and the following is a chapter in which I look at these questions. Please contribute any other questions you would ask and possible answers.
The LOGOS
Long, long ago … before time itself, before creation, the ‘Logos’ began to plan.
There were no limits to the knowledge or the ability of the Logos. ‘He’ was (and is) all-knowing, all-powerful and all-present.
We could think of the Logos as the mind of God. So with these unlimited abilities, the Logos began to imagine its ultimate achievement. The mind of God conceived a drama that would span across eternity and require a creation of gigantic proportions, yet engineered in the minutest detail. He imagined the whole plot from beginning to end. No detail was left to chance … for there was no chance – there was only Him! Neither was there a time-limit for the planning to end and the action to start, for there was no time.
“I am God, and there is no one else; I am God, and there is none like Me, I declare the end and the result from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure and purpose.”1
From the very core of who He was, this plan was birthed as an expression of His nature – a plan to do His pleasure and fulfil His own purpose. So this was what God was thinking about – how to make the most of who he was; of what he knew and what he could do. In short – how to express Himself fully.
Before His infinite mind, lay infinite possibilities. Within His limitless imagination arose limitless options. But within Him there was a very specific quality that caused Him to have a specific inclination, a preference. The closest word we have to describe this quality, is the word ‘love’. Yet this love was not the tainted or twisted type that we so often refer to as love. No, this was the pure, the original motivation that defined the very nature of God. These other possibilities and options that were rejected, later became known as ‘evil’. ‘Evil’ is all the possibilities not in harmony with the nature and character of God.
To understand why He chose some possibilities and rejected others, why some options were preferred and others ignored, we need to understand a bit more about this ‘love’ - His essential nature.
Love is not needy, lack-conscious or aware of what it does not have. Love is an expression of abundance; the overflow of joy and satisfaction. Love desires to give … love is not focussed on itself, but desires the benefit of others. This posed a problem, because there were no ‘others’ … no-one and nothing else to focus on.
From His innermost being arose a thought that would be the centre and purpose of all His other thoughts …
“I will make a being in my own likeness and my own image. I will fully express myself toward this being – I will love him. I will design this being with the capacity to receive my love and the capacity to respond to this love”
The Paradox
The Logos understood that true love could not be pre-programmed within this being. For this love to be pure, it had to be as free and spontaneous as its origin. A being made in the likeness and image of the Logos would have the same creative ability to imagine. The same infinite possibilities that lay before the infinite mind of God, would present themselves to this being … but would he choose the same … would he have the same preferences? What a disaster it would be to produce an equal – one that is all-knowing and all-powerful and then discover that this being has different preferences to the one who created him!
The Logos calculated that such a situation would be disastrous and so the option was rejected. Instead another possibility was presented. An environment could be created in which this being could learn to use its powers without eternal disastrous consequences. Some of the qualities that God possessed would be given to this being, but would be limited in this environment. Some qualities would only be placed within this being as seeds – potential qualities that would grow and manifest in … time. God thought about ‘time’ – a way to limit the potential damage that such a creature could do.
But one thing He would not compromise on was reproducing His most essential quality in this being. You see, it is not being all-powerful that makes God, God. Neither is it His omnipresence or the fact that He is all-knowing. The most essential quality of God is … love. God is love. This capacity to receive, contain and reflect back this love is the most important ‘likeness’ that this being would possess.
But another difficulty remained. How could a completely free and spontaneous being be guaranteed to make the right choice? The Logos calculated uncountable scenarios and configurations of the environment to see if there was a way to guarantee the right choice. The answer was produced after an exceptionally long period of timelessness. The fact that this being would not be all-knowing, yet be imaginative and free, meant that this being would indeed make choices and have preferences other than those chosen by God! This creature would be responsible for realising ‘evil’!
For any other logic, this would be an impossible situation - how to plan and purpose every detail of the plot, yet give another creature the freedom to chose what role to play within it. But for the Logos, nothing is impossible.
So this was the paradox presented to the Logos: Of all the possibilities to realise God’s dream of having a love companion, the only options available would result in a disaster! God already rejected all possibilities not in line with his character, but this being would imagine and choose some of these rejected possibilities; this being would choose evil! At this stage God has not created anything yet, He was simply considering all His options. What He realised is that should he create and set this plan in motion, He would indirectly be responsible for ‘Evil’! ‘Evil’ would be a consequence of creation! Yet there was something deeper to God’s Logos (logic) than this. He calculated that within this temporal environment, evil too, would be temporal … but the object of His love, the being created in His likeness and image, would be eternal.
Evil would indeed cause terrible suffering, both for His creation and for Himself. He knew the end from the beginning and saw the suffering that He would have to endure Himself for the sake a having this companion named man. Although He would not be directly responsible for choosing evil, His choice to create would give man the opportunity to realise evil – He would be indirectly responsible! And so God took the responsibility - He would be indirectly responsible for creating evil and therefore He also took it upon Himself to ultimately destroy it.
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. ”
His plan to destroy it, included sacrificing Himself and so we read about a ‘lamb slain before the foundation of the earth ‘2. Before creation, God understood the consequences of creating - unimaginable suffering, sorrow and death – but He also saw beyond it. He saw the end of evil and the realisation of His eternal dream. Evil was indeed an necessary evil. An so Hosea prophesied:
“Shall I intervene and pull them into life? Shall I snatch them from a certain death? Who is afraid of you, Death? Who cares about your threats, Tomb? In the end I’m abolishing regret, banishing sorrow,”3
Seeing the grand scheme of God’s plan, Paul wrote: “At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now? It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three-sin, guilt, death-are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God! ”4
The possibility of evil existing forever was rejected by God. He was confident that in the end man would choose as He chose. He knew that He could accurately communicate His original plan in such a way that all things He created would once again be reconciled to Himself.
“We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message.”5
1 Isaiah 46:10
2 Revelation 13 : 8; 5:12
3 Hosea 13:14
4 1 Corinthians 15:52-54
5 Colossians 1:15-23
