Dr. Karlo Broussard delves into the complex question of how a loving God would permit evil. By examining the biblical text of 1 Samuel 16, he sheds light on the ancient understanding of divine providence and the distinction between God’s direct causes and permissions.
Transcript:
All right, I’m going to give you some questions. Dr. Broussard, this one comes from Kim in Florida. She was listening on 100.1 FM. What does it mean when the book of Samuel says that God’s evil came down?
Yeah, so I’m assuming that Kim is referring to 1 Samuel chapter 16 and verse 14. It says, “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.” And then it goes on to talk about how Saul’s servant said to him, “Behold, now an evil spirit from God is tormenting you.” And verse 23, “Whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the liar and played it with his hands, so Saul was refreshed, and the evil spirit departed from him.” So this seems to be attributing to God a positive direct causality, is what we would call that in theology and philosophy, of tormenting Saul with this evil spirit. Now in response here, Cy, the ancients didn’t distinguish between how God’s will relates to various effects that are brought about within this created order.
Metaphysically or philosophically and even theologically, we know some effects are brought about by God positively causing it. It’s like God causing it, right? Like an efficient calls brings about some effect. Others, other effects, however, are brought about by God permitting those effects to be brought about by creatures or permitting things to happen within this created order, which does not involve a positive direct efficient causality from God, right? And given that the ancients understood all effects to fall within or under God’s providential plan, so like everything that’s happening is a part and parcel of God’s providential plan, they simply ascribed or attributed everything to God as if he caused everything positively without attempting to try and specify that the effect comes about simply by God permitting it, like we would do technically speaking philosophically and theologically. So the evil spirit that taunts Saul is one such example of the ancients attributing a positive causality to God, like the evil spirit came from God. There seems to be an attribution of positive causal power to God and bringing this effect about, even though we know philosophically that this is God permitting an evil spirit to taunt Saul, but it’s a permission that fits within his providential plan. And so this is why the ancients are going to speak as if God’s directly causing it when we know that he is not. So that would be one way in which we could go about explaining this to try and quell any fears that Kim might have. Well, man, this seems like God is an evil God and directly causing this evil spirit to taunt Saul, but that is not the case. So we have to distinguish between what the authors are intending to assert and the methods or the modes in which they’re trying to express certain things.
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