I Wince When I Hear People Say That Bad Things are God’s Will

God allows evil but does not cause evil, and evil is never his will.  We need to be more precise in our language so that we present the nature of God accurately.

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I was watching a movie last night, in which a married couple and their 6- or 7-year-old daughter were driving on a dark, unlit road at night when suddenly their car hit a dog, killing it.  The girl is troubled that her father has killed a dog.  The mother, in a noble effort to defend her husband, tries to explain: “It was God’s will.”

I winced.  It troubles me when people attribute bad things to God.

The daughter immediately challenges this claim.  She says to her father, “It was you.  God had nothing to do with it.”

At that point, the mother backs off and says, “It was just an accident” (which happens to be the title of the film).

Christians want to acknowledge God’s power over the universe

Although the characters in the story were not Christians, I have often heard Christians attribute bad things to God or say that they are God’s will.

I understand the Christian desire to honor God.  We believe that God is in control and that, in some sense, nothing happens outside of God’s will.  God holds all things in his hands, and therefore nothing can happen unless he allows it.  If God did not actively sustain the universe, it wouldn’t even exist. 

But God is all good and never does evil

The problem with the simple statement that “it was God’s will,” is that it implies that God wanted the evil thing to happen or even caused it to happen.

There is a difference between allowing something to happen and wanting or causing it to happen.  God allowed bad things to happen, but he does not want bad things to happen and he does not cause bad things to happen.

Our world is filled with free but imperfect people living in a freely working but imperfect universe.  If God dictated everything that happened so that only good happened, there would be no freedom: no freedom to choose good, no freedom to choose God, no freedom to truly love, no freedom to sacrifice oneself for the good of another, no freedom to choose to be conformed to Christ so that when people see you, they see a glimpse of Jesus.

God does not do evil – he is not even tempted to do evil (James 1:13), for he is good (Mark 10:18; Psalm 119:68; 145:9; 100:5; 106:1).

Our language should clearly reflect this multi-fold reality, which includes God’s positive or ideal will (what he wants or desires for the world) and his permissive will (what he allows to happen), in addition to his sovereign will (what God causes to happen independent of any human choice).

Jesus rejected the idea that bad things are God's will

Jesus dealt with the question of whether God wills bad things on more than one occasion.

One day, he passed by a man who was born blind.  His disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2)  When they attributed the man’s condition to his or his parents’ sin, they were essentially attributing it to God.  They were asking, Rabbi, did God cause this man to be born blind because of his sin or his parents’ sin?

Jesus answers, “Neither he nor his parents sinned” (John 9:3).  God did not desire or cause the man’s blindness as a punishment for anyone’s sin.

Jesus also rejects this idea in Luke 13:1-5, where he makes it clear that it is not a person’s sins – i.e., God’s punishment for their sins – that causes people to suffer evil either at the hands of another person or due to a disaster caused by the physical laws of nature.

In both cases, Jesus does not identify a cause for the bad things that happened.  He appears to treat such events as something we should not be surprised about in our imperfect world.

God chooses to bring good out of the evil he allows

Rather than trying to explain why bad things happen, Jesus focuses instead on God’s response.  With regard to the blind man, he observes that the man’s blindness provides an occasion for the works of God (John 9:3), and he heals the man.

The apostle Paul similarly stresses that God brings good out of bad (Rom. 8:28).  And Joseph in the Old Testament reaches a similar conclusion after his brothers sell him into slavery only to find him in the highest position in Egypt under Pharaoh (Gen. 50:20).

So when I hear someone attribute something bad to God, I want to push back, as the girl in the movie did.  I want to ask:

• First, do you really mean God caused the bad thing to happen, or just that he allowed it?  Precision in our language is important on this point, so please make yourself clear.

• Second, if we can agree that God only allowed the evil and did not cause it, can we explore together what good God can bring out of it, if we let him?  Because always wants to bring good out of evil.