# Defining evil and God's role concerning it



## panta dokimazete (Nov 7, 2008)

I thought this was a good iteration off the hyper-Calvinism thread and felt it may be worth having some additional discussion around it. That is - I actually would like some additional refinement of my understanding and thought it may be useful to dialog concerning the Reformed viewpoint.

I am firmly of the belief that evil must always be defined in terms of what it is not - that is - evil is not "of God". That is - evil is an absolute absence of God - just as complete darkness is an absolute absence of light. 

I believe the personification of this definition is Satan.

Pre-Fall - there was no instance of this absence in Creation except in the person of Satan.

God decreed and sovereignly allowed Satan - who originally was good and a free moral agent - to choose to totally remove himself from God - thus, by definition, become evil.

This was part of God's ultimate plan to facilitate the Fall (an _immediate_ evil event - God was absent, yet sovereign) and initiate the overall covenant cycle, culminating in the ultimate and subordinate purposes of Creation:

1. Glorification of the Son
2. Redemption of His Elect to the glory of His grace
3. Final judgment and punishment of evil to the glory of His righteousness

That's where I am in my understanding and am looking forward to a frank and open (within the boundaries, of course) discussion.

BTW - this is how I validate my supralapsarianism


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## OPC'n (Nov 7, 2008)

I'm still amiss at why anyone holds to supralapsarianism or infralapsarianism thought concerning God since God worked entirely outside of time before creation. God has forever known all that He knows. He is knowledge, wisdom. He is the beginning and end. He has no time zone. The order of things and how they would work out only came into being when He created all things. To hold God to supralapsarianism or infralapsarianism, confines Him. He in fact knew all things at the same time. Therefore, He decreed election at the same "time" as the fall. God has never learned something new and so logically all that He knows He has known in an infinite manner. With that said, I, as a human being who has never known all things much less in an infinite manner, need to have an order of what happened first and so I have to go with infralapsarianism. I think infralapsarianism (in a poor way) portrays infinite knowledge more than supralapsarianism.
God chose some and passed over others because He already viewed them as fallen. Supralapsarianism seems too short sighted for God. I'm still learning all the tentacles of these two theories so I haven't made up my mind yet completely.


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## panta dokimazete (Nov 7, 2008)

Hi! I think you are confusing supra- with infra-  (or maybe I am! )


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## kalawine (Nov 7, 2008)

panta dokimazete said:


> Hi! I think you are confusing supra- with infra-  (or maybe I am! )



I began doing some typing and then thought, "Aw, I gotta go to work." Anyway... the following web page can explain better than I can. To me, Supra is the more logical of the two though I realise that we are in the minority. 
Notes on Supralapsarianism & Infralapsarianism


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## OPC'n (Nov 7, 2008)

Supralapsarianism is the view that God, contemplating man as yet unfallen, chose some to receive eternal life and rejected all others. Infralapsarianism suggests that God's decree to permit the fall logically preceded His decree of election.


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## toddpedlar (Nov 7, 2008)

panta dokimazete said:


> I thought this was a good iteration off the hyper-Calvinism thread and felt it may be worth having some additional discussion around it. That is - I actually would like some additional refinement of my understanding and thought it may be useful to dialog concerning the Reformed viewpoint.
> 
> I am firmly of the belief that evil must always be defined in terms of what it is not - that is - evil is not "of God". That is - evil is an absolute absence of God - just as complete darkness is an absolute absence of light.



It's possible to go too far down this road, JD - and I'm not saying you are, but just to be clear - it is an absence of God, but not so absent that God cannot decree actions of evil beings such as Satan to fulfill His purposes. God is still absolutely sovereign - His plan is still effected through agents, both good and evil; both those who are His, and those who are of their father the devil. God decreed actions of Herod and Pilate, Pharaoh and Satan, to accomplish His will.


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## panta dokimazete (Nov 7, 2008)

sjonee said:


> Supralapsarianism is the view that God, contemplating man as yet unfallen, chose some to receive eternal life and rejected all others. Infralapsarianism suggests that God's decree to permit the fall logically preceded His decree of election.



for clarity's sake: The Order of God's Decrees

However, there is a preliminary decree missing, vital to supralapsarianism - to glorify the Son by redeeming a people/Bride for Himself, which invalidates Infralapsarianism, et al, in my opinion.

John 17:4-6

4I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. 6 "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. *Yours they were, and you gave them to me*, and they have kept your word. 7Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and *I am glorified in them. *


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## panta dokimazete (Nov 7, 2008)

toddpedlar said:


> It's possible to go too far down this road, JD - and I'm not saying you are, but just to be clear - it is an absence of God, but not so absent that God cannot decree actions of evil beings such as Satan to fulfill His purposes. God is still absolutely sovereign - His plan is still effected through agents, both good and evil; both those who are His, and those who are of their father the devil. God decreed actions of Herod and Pilate, Pharaoh and Satan, to accomplish His will.



No argument whatsoever - God is sovereign over evil beings and their deeds work together to accomplish one or both of two good things:

1. the glory of His grace and righteousness (for the Elect)
2. the glory of His justice and righteousness (for the Reprobate)

Thoughts:

God is not absent in His sovereign control of events. He is absent in the sense that He does not cause evil, evil is caused by His absence. In a sense - Evil is 0, God is 1 - nothing evil can do or be diminishes God.


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