The theme of the June 2006 issue of Tabletalk is the problem of evil. In the Christian worldview, evil will finally be conquered; it, like the sea in Revelation 21, will be no more. However, understanding why it is still here, and how God has dealt with it in the cross of Christ and how He will deal with it upon His return, will not only help us to stop the mouths of those who attack the goodness of God, it will help us see how we then shall live as we cling to the hope of evil done away. This issue of Tabletalk, while by no means intended to provide a complete philosophy and history of theodicies, will aim to present a succinct, Reformed understanding of the problem of evil.
Contributors include R.C. Sproul along with E. Calvin Beisner, Paul Helm, Robert Rayburn, R.C. Sproul Jr., Joni Eareckson Tada, and Gene Edward Veith. Tabletalk features articles about topics central to the Christian faith and daily, in-depth Bible studies.
The 2006 Bible studies take a careful look at the book of Genesis.
“The Reformed answer of Luther, Calvin, the Westminster Divines, and others, answers that while God could have created only moral creatures that would never sin, He instead created a moral world with creatures whose evil He foreordained for His own good purposes—to display His justice in punishing some (Prov. 16:4) and His grace in redeeming and pardoning others (Eph. 1:5–6; 2:7).” (Page 11)
“This insight implies the historic, Reformed answer to the problem of evil: that the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God planned for evil to occur, and He uses it for His own good purposes.” (Page 10)
“Historically, evil has been defined in terms of privation (privatio) and negation (negatio)” (Page 6)
“‘If God is a just God, why doesn’t more evil exist?’” (Page 2)
“Privatio began to be described as privatio actuosa (an actual, or real, privation). The point of this distinction was to call attention to the reality of evil. If we think of evil and pain simply in terms of negation and privation, and seek to avoid the actuality of it, we can easily slip into the absurd error of considering evil an illusion.” (Page 6)
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—Michael S. Horton
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—R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
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—Ravi Zacharias
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Felipe Sabino de Araujo Neto
2/6/2014