Romans 9:22-23: God Wills Evil (Theodicy)

In one of my favorite sermons by John MacArthur called "The Problem of Evil,"1 he lays out three simple points:

1. Evil exists.

2. God is sovereign.

3. Therefore, God wills evil.

The third point, to some, might sound outrageous. God "wills" evil? How can it be? How could God want all of the evil in this world? How could God desire that evil be present? The situation is made more easily understood when we understand the two wills of God, that is, his revealed will and his secretive will.

God's revealed will is that which is, well, revealed to us. Others might call this his moral will or will of desire.* This is the will that God has revealed to us in his word through his commands and decrees. God's revealed will says that all ought to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God (Micah 6:8). God's revealed will says that he desires all to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4, 2 Pet. 3:9). This is God's revealed will.

God's secretive will is that which is, well, secret to us. Others might call this God's will of decree.* This will is the behind-the-scenes will that is choosing to do things for reasons that God has not yet fully revealed to us. This is Deuterronomy 29:29: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God..." This is why God allows things to happen the he has clearly said he is against, such as the ongoing evil within the world. This is God's secretive will.

These two "wills" are often hard to understand, so I often use this analogy to help wrap peoples' brains around it. Say I offered you two choices: a $5 bill, and a $100 bill. I put both of them before you, but you could only choose one. Which one would you chose? The $100 of course--pretty simple. But here is the question: did you want the $5 bill? Well, of course you did! It's still money, is it not? However, you chose the $100 instead of the $5, even though you wanted both. You had two desires, but one was greater than the other. Likewise, God has two desires within both his revealed and secretive will, yet his secretive will is higher than his revealed will.

By understanding these two wills, we can understand how God wills evil. So here's the question: does God want evil? Well, yes and no. He certainly does not want evil in relation to his revealed will, for he has revealed to us that he is fully against evil--he is a fully righteous God. However, we must answer this question "yes" as well. Why? Because evil exists, and God is sovereign, and therefore within his secretive will, he must have desired evil. What? Huh? Is this heresy? No. This is the Gospel.

Let us take a case in point: Christ crucified. Many people look at rapists, murderers, and sex traffickers and picture those as the "worst evils." What about crucifying the Son of God? Is there any worse evil? Surely there is not. Yet what does scripture say? "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him..." (Isaiah 53:10). Huh? What was that? Let's look at that again: "...it was the will of the Lord to crush him." Yes. The greatest and worst evil that could ever take place, the killing of the Son of man, God willed.

Yet here is where we find the foundation for the argument: God uses all evil for good (Genesis 50:20). God willed the killing of his own Son for the redemption of his own people. Likewise, God uses all of the evil in the world for his own good. He uses the dead-beat dad to teach the hurt daughter that there is a Greater Father for her. He uses sickness and cancer to show that he is the Only True Healer. He uses physical death to point us to the opportunity of eternal life. He turns evil into good, bad into great. This is the Gospel.

Therefore, if anyone says that God has not willed evil, he has compromised the Gospel. "How so?" you ask. "What are our other options?" is my reply. Evils exists, that is a fact. So either you have a powerless, ignorant, or unloving God who is not able, not knowledgeable, or not willing to remove evil, or you have a sovereign God who is over evil, and allowed it to happen for a purpose that we cannot yet fully understand. I don't know about you, but I prefer the second choice.

Yet, amidst all of this intense doctrine, we find Romans 9:32-33: God's reason behind evil.

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory...?

There is a lot of doctrine in this verse, but let me tell it to you plainly: how do you know if a white wall is white? Answer: you put it next to a black wall. In other words, the definition of something is determined by its contrast. This is why God has allowed evil. The children of God would never know the great glories of God's mercy unless they were juxtaposed [contrasted] with the glories of God's wrath. We would never understand the glory of heaven unless we understood the reality of hell. We would never understand the glory of our salvation unless we understood Christ's misery upon the cross. We would never understand the holiness of God unless we understood the unrighteousness of sin. Praise the Lord, that in his sovereign plan he allowed evil, that we might know of his glory!

[Side Note: So next time an atheist asks you "how could you believe in a God who allows evil?", reply, "because I believe in a God who turns evil into good, and who uses it for his own glory." Amen.]

*Different theologians refer to the two wills of God (or even the three wills of God) using different terms. I prefer to use "revealed" and "secretive" because I believe it captures the correct idea. God's "moral" will leaves out many aspects of his "revealed" will if we are not careful, and God's "will of desire" could imply that he does not "desire" his "will of decree." Therefore, I prefer to use "revealed" and "secretive," although some theologians would use other terms.

1. Macarthur, John. "The Problem of Evil." https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/GTY161/the-problem-of-evil

2. Extra Resource: Piper, John. "Are There Two Wills in God?" https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/are-there-two-wills-in-god