He is Yahweh, the transcendent Lord of all. There is no other God. The Sovereign of the universe indicates His total control over the events of history by using a merism, which is a common Hebrew literary device expressing completeness. A merism contrasts two polar extremes as a way of highlighting everything in between. In this case, “light” is contrasted with “darkness.” There is a second contrast between “well-being” and “calamity.” These indicate all that is good and evil. In fact, the word translated “calamity” is the standard Hebrew term for “evil” (see also Job 2:10; 42:11; Lam. 3:38). God’s plans encompass the full spectrum of light and dark, well-being and calamity, right and wrong, good and bad, peace and war, true and false, beauty and ugliness.

COVID-19. Unjust lock-downs. Churches shuttered. Threats to religious freedom. Election fraud. Rampant rioting. Civil unrest. Police defunding. False prophets of social justice. Gender confusion. Sexual degeneracy. Cancel culture. Fake news. We are living in dark days and there is every indication that they will get darker. Adding to these societal ills, many are experiencing increased personal woes. Broken marriages. Wayward children. Lost jobs. Financial failures. Church splits. Fatal illnesses. Fear and uncertainty are on the rise. Anxiety is permeating the air we breathe. If our society had any notion about the inherent goodness of humanity, those notions are being shattered. Invoking the word “evil” is no longer regarded as naïve or misguided. Like the many heads of Hydra, evil is rising in multiple directions and it has everyone on edge, including faithful followers of Christ.

How are we to make sense of the black clouds that seem to be descending over the landscape? In the last year we have been shoved straight into a thorny theological conundrum called the problem of evil. How can a supremely good, wise, and powerful God allow all manner of sin, calamity, disease, corruption, decay, death, and mayhem to defile the creation He made with such singular beauty and perfection? What He created in the beginning was good—“very good” (Gen. 1:31). Now it is bad—very bad. Why did God permit the fall of our primordial parents? Why didn’t He prevent the sinister serpent from slithering into the garden of Eden to tempt Adam and Eve? Surely God could have intervened, to keep the couple from ruining everything. Or after the damage was done, He could have started all over—not unlike like He did with Noah—and created a new and improved humanity incapable of defection.

God did none of those things. Instead, He let evil, pointless suffering infect every element of His creation. Why? What good plan could He possibly have?

Providing definitive answers to the classic problem of evil is known as a “theodicy,” a word which comes from the Greek terms for God (theos) and justice (dike). A theodicy is an attempt to “justify God” and the reasons He has for permitting, and dare we say, ordaining evil to ruin His good creation. Examining the problem of evil and searching the Scriptures for a theodicy is not an empty exercise in speculation. Rather it is a way to consider precisely who God is and why He created the world in the first place. A theodicy need not be a morbid focus on evil and its myriad expressions of malevolence. Ironically, evil serves to highlight the supreme glory of the Creator and Lord of the universe. The revelation God has given of Himself in the pages of His divinely inspired Word helps us not only make sense of the existence and ubiquitous presence of evil in the world and in our lives, but places God’s plan for the creation on full display before His creatures so that we might marvel at God’s magnificence. No theodicy will be effective unless it rightly represents that nature of the God who is.

God is Holy

A good theodicy must start with a close look at God’s attributes, particularly His holiness. God’s holiness speaks of His otherness, His separateness. God is holy in that He is set apart in His unbridled righteousness, but He is also holy in that He is set apart in His very being as the transcendent God who dwells in “unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:16) far above the creation and His creatures. The seraphim of heaven cry out, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isa. 6:3). All creation stands in subservience and awe of the Almighty One. The limits of God’s being are beyond discovery (Job 11:7). God is knowable, but His depths are far beyond our capacity to fathom. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” (Rom. 11:33). When encountering such a God against the black backdrop of evil, we are bound to run into unexpected tensions and mysteries.

God is Good

For example, we know that God is marked by pure goodness. Nothing can impede His “abundant goodness” (Psa. 145:7). As the Belgic Confession says, He is the “overflowing fountain of all good.” God can have no evil thought. He cannot even be tempted by evil, nor can He tempt others to the same (James 1:13). Furthermore, God is all-wise and the very source of all wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3). He knows every detail of every movement of everything and all that transpires in space and time from beginning to end without exception. Nothing has escaped His notice. The serpent’s sinister plan did not surprise the omniscient One. God was not caught off guard by the disobedience of Adam and Eve. In fact, quite the opposite is true.

God is Sovereign

These attributes help set the stage for grappling with the all-encompassing sovereignty of God. Listen to Isaiah as he records God’s revelation of His Lordship over creation and history.

Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;
Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man of My purpose from a far country.
Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass.
I have planned it, surely I will do it. (Isa. 46:9-11)

God begins this revelation of Himself by framing His words in the context of His transcendent holiness. He alone is God. There is no other. None can be compared to Him. For that reason, He alone can ordain all things from beginning to end, and providentially ensure His plan for history unfolds precisely as He planned it to “accomplish all” His “good pleasure.”

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