If sin and evil are not from God, yet fall within his allowance, and had no place in the original creation, how then does a good God relate his will to their existence? The Scriptures answer that God wills different things in different ways, and that his ultimate purpose in permitting evil is to overcome it with good — so demonstrating, for all creation to see, the difference between the two.

God Wills Different Things in Different Ways, to Bring Good Out of Evil

Augustine’s treatment of Biblical teaching concerning these matters is (again) not unhelpful. ‘For the Omnipotent God … would not allow any evil in his works, unless in his omnipotence and goodness, as the Supreme Good, he is able to bring forth good out of evil.’¹Augustine, Enchiridion, 3.11; trans. Outler, 342. See Benjamin Dean, Great Truths — The Creation of the Universe: 6. God’s Motive in Creating the Universe, available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/the-creation-of-the-universe/. The Creator ‘foreknew that evil things would arise out of good,’ and that it would then be for ‘his most omnipotent goodness even to do good out of evil things rather than not to allow evil things to be at all.’²Augustine, A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace, 10.27; NPNF 1:5, 482. Augustine is saying that ‘God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to not permit any evil to exist.’³Augustine, Enchiridion, 3.9-11, 8.27; Outler ed., 342, 355, slightly amended. ‘[T]he God and Lord of all things, so ordained the life of angels and men that in it he might first of all show what their freedom was capable of, and then what the kindness of his grace and the judgment of his righteousness was capable of.’⁴Augustine, A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace, 10.27; NPNF 1:5, 482.

God created us with the freedom to want, to willingly and gladly embrace the good, that is, himself. In other words, not to ’embrace him’ robotically, but personally, willingly, from the depths of our being. And that freedom implies that we could instead of saying ‘yes’ to God, and be ruled by him in his loving majesty, say ‘no’ and turn our backs on him in self-centredness. So, in that way we may say that God willed the prospect, the possibility of sin and fall, because it was preferable that sin should exist and be overcome by God than we not have a direct, personal, willing loving relationship with him. The issue is paradoxical, for sin is against the will of God but ‘never outside of or beyond’ the will of God.⁵Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Eerdmans, 1986), 132. God wills different things in different ways:

‘As the Supreme Good, he made good use of evil deeds … In [the] very act of going against his will, his will was thereby accomplished. … [I]n a strange and ineffable fashion even that which is done against his will is not done without his will. For it would not be done without his allowing it — and surely his permission is not unwilling but willing — nor would he who is good allow the evil to be done, unless in his omnipotence he could bring good even out of evil.’⁶Augustine, Enchiridion, 26.100; trans. Outler, 399.

By Overcoming Evil with Good, God Demonstrates the Difference Between Them

But this is not to say that God compelled or made anyone to sin. ‘For just as He is the Creator of all natures, so He is the giver of all powers. Not of all wills, however; for wicked wills certainly do not come from Him, because they are contrary to nature, which does come from Him.‘⁷Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, 5.9; ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 202-203. Having said this, it is important to recognize that the sinful choices of God’s creatures are subject to God’s will; ‘they have no power except what He has granted.’⁸Augustine, The City of God, 5.9; trans. Dyson, 203. In allowing sin to occur, God’s purpose is to overthrow it, outdo it, outbid it, overcome it, and bring greater good out of it. For in the process of overcoming sin, God shows the difference between sin and its opposite, between disobedience and obedience, mistrust and trust, unbelief and faith.

‘He arranged things to demonstrate in the experience of the intelligent creation, human and angelic, how great a difference there is between the private conceit of the creation and the Creator’s protection. … God preferred to leave [the possibility of sin] in their own power, and thus to show both what evil could be accomplished by their pride, and what good could be accomplished by his grace.’⁹Augustine, The City of God, 14:27; cf. alternative trans. Dyson, 629-30.

Here, then, the deepest problem meets its deepest answer. Evil is real, terrible, and never to be excused; yet it is never sovereign, never ultimate, never beyond the reach of the God who brings good out of it. In permitting evil, God purposes to overcome it — and in overcoming it, to display, unmistakably and forever, the infinite difference between the ruin that human pride works and the salvation that his grace accomplishes. This is the goodness of God in providence: that even horrendous evil is bounded, ordered, and governed by a faithful Father, and made in the end to serve the greater good of the gospel.

—

• 1
  Augustine, Enchiridion, 3.11; trans. Outler, 342. See Benjamin Dean, Great Truths — The Creation of the Universe: 6. God’s Motive in Creating the Universe, available at https://www.greattruthsglobal.org/the-creation-of-the-universe/.
• 2
  Augustine, A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace, 10.27; NPNF 1:5, 482.
• 3
  Augustine, Enchiridion, 3.9-11, 8.27; Outler ed., 342, 355, slightly amended.
• 4
  Augustine, A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace, 10.27; NPNF 1:5, 482.
• 5
  Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Eerdmans, 1986), 132.
• 6
  Augustine, Enchiridion, 26.100; trans. Outler, 399.
• 7
  Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, 5.9; ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 202-203.
• 8
  Augustine, The City of God, 5.9; trans. Dyson, 203.
• 9
  Augustine, The City of God, 14:27; cf. alternative trans. Dyson, 629-30.