2015 Kantzer Lecture #5 - Was Evil "Possible" Before it Arose?
The fifth lecture explores the question of whether evil was possible before it arose, either ontologically or logically, as related to God and to humanity. Accordingly to Blocher, evil is neither ontologically nor logically possible with God. That God who is sovereign should permit decrees and that his beloved creatures should choose against him to their own destruction remains an opaque mystery. As for humanity, evil is only a logical...
2015 Kantzer Lecture #5 - Was Evil "Possible" Before it Arose?
The fifth lecture explores the question of whether evil was possible before it arose, either ontologically or logically, as related to God and to humanity. Accordingly to Blocher, evil is neither ontologically nor logically possible with God. That God who is sovereign should permit decrees and that his beloved creatures should choose against him to their own destruction remains an opaque mystery. As for humanity, evil is only a logical possibility before the original disobedience. The consequence of partaking of the tree, on the other hand, is a newfound real possibility to sin. Refusing to go beyond the non-impossibility of evil, Blocher declares the whence of evil another opaque mystery. There is no rational explanation. Our natural desire is to order things, but evil is a thorn in the flesh of reason. Our intelligence was made to understand the rationality and beauty of the good. If we yield to the temptation of our intelligence regarding evil, ultimately to sort out the disorderliness of evil, then we deny its proper hiddenness. We must not understand, for this is to deny the essence of evil. In this light, all explanations of evil are disordered accounts of disorder. The only place where evil is preserved in its scandalous character is in Scripture.
Henri A. G. Blocher (DD Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Professor Emeritus at Faculte Libre de Theologie Evangelique. He is author of In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (IVP Academic, 1984) and Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (IVP Academic, 2000). Blocher was a member of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization (1975-1980), served the World Evangelical Fellowship/Alliance in a number of capacities, and taught in schools in Europe, Australia, Africa, Canada, and the US.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
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