Article Series - God and Malevolence
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This was originally supposed to be one post, but it got so long I needed to break it into two. My best arguments, I think, are in part 2, but part 1 is necessary foreground, especially for the uninitiated.
A Brief Statement of the Issue:
Certain Calvinists, [1] with their emphasis on the ultimate sovereignty of God, conclude from various biblical passages that Yahweh is the author and determiner of evil. That is, because Yahweh is sovereign, He must have control over both good and evil. [2] My intention in this post is to wrestle with one of those passages – Genesis 50:20, where Joseph, after looking back on all the evil actions of his brothers, says, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.”
Some Hermeneutical Humility:
Let me be honest here (and hopefully have a bit of humility in an argument that all too often becomes about ego) and suggest that it is certainly possible to read this text the way Calvinists do – that God determined this particular evil in order to bring about good. It is possible, but not necessary, and maybe not even desirable. The logic of which will lead to dangerous places, which I will discuss further toward the end of this post.
The Calvinist Philosophical Assumptions:
Calvinist’s have philosophical assumptions guiding their interpretation of this text. Contrary to their claim that Arminians are the ones with philosophical commitments hindering a true reading of the text, Calvinists here attempt to preserve the innocence of God in this matter by saying that Joseph’s brothers freely chose to commit this evil, but their decision was determined by God. By making a “free choice” they say that Joseph’s brothers are morally responsible and God is not accountable. Yet, to make such an assertion they have to appeal to a Compatibilistic sense of freedom. A sense of freedom, that I will argue later, is destroyed by this text.
Contextual Observations
As of yet, my complaints in this post are from a larger theological, philosophical, and maybe even ethical framework. But the true question, for any good Protestant (though I’m not always sure I’m really a good one), is what the text says. Does the text say that God intended (purposed, determined) Joseph’s brothers to commit these evil actions so that His saving purposes (and, might John Piper add, his ultimate glorification) might be revealed and worked out?
Lets begin with the context:
God knew, all the way back with Joseph’s dreams and his Technicolor Dream-Coat, that his brothers were going to be jealous of him. The text nowhere indicates that God determined their jealousy! This is important for Calvinism b/c in Calvinism God doesn’t just determine people’s actions, He actually determines their desires! [3] But nowhere, in any of this, does the text attribute the evil desires of Joseph’s brothers to Yahweh. The actions J’s brothers participate in are solely and completely of their own doing. We have no textual evidence that God determined their actions. Only that God took free actions and determined to make something good out of them. We cannot pull this isolated text out of the larger context and think it has settled the matter.
But here’s the thing, and let me give Calvinism some props here - I actually think this verse does suggest that God sovereignly acts in this localized event, that He is active in the way things played out. While the text does not say that God gave them their desires or determined their actions, it does affirm that he was sovereignly and actively involved in some way.
Arminian/Open Theistic Determination
But does God’s sovereign action in this instance prove Arminianism/Open Theism wrong? No, actually, both of these positions also hold that God can and does determine certain things to happen. In the words of Jerry Walls concerning this text, “God foresaw the good that would eventually come out of this and (after considering all possible creatable worlds) he chose the world in which these circumstances and choices took place, and he allowed them for the sake of the good that would follow. This way of reading the story makes perfect sense of Joseph’s claim that the brothers meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” [4]
In other words, God’s intentions/determination [5] to work salvation out of evil actions is seen here, but without any recourse to his determination of Joseph’s brothers evil desires. The text never connects the determination of God with the actions of Joseph’s brothers. It is never says that He determines their actions on a primary or secondary level. Yet, it does maintain that God sovereignly decided that this would be the best course of action to bring about the salvation of Jacob’s family.
- John Piper and DA Carson are the two most popular. [↩]
- I am no longer convinced that this is Classical Calvinism. I think this is John Piper’s aberrant Calvinism, most likely. Though, he is not the only one who believes this. However, John Calvin, himself, more believed that God allowed sin, but did not determine it. See his Institutes, 3.23.8. [↩]
- For more on this see my previous entry, “I Do Not Permit a Calvinist to Use “Permit” Language.” It got raving reviews even from Calvinists!!! (Just kidding) [↩]
- Jerry Walls & Joe Dongell, Why I’m Not a Calvinist, 151. [↩]
- Also, I might note here that for the Arminian and the Open Theist, what God intends is not the same thing as what God determines. God may intend things that do not come to pass. The Calvinists do not have this same assumption. They maintain that what God intends must necessarily be determined as well. Because of this, our disagreement is not exegetical. Our disagreement is a theological one that must be settled with other texts which connect intention and determination and explicates their differences/similarities. This text does not provide such an explanation. [↩]
