Dr. William Lane Craig is a fine gentleman, scholar and man of God. Seldom few match his output. Given his breadth of learning and areas of expertise, it is not surprising that, in some areas, he will fall short. One such case is the short video I ran across where Craig discusses the common objection to Calvinism that it makes God "the author of sin/evil." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roiMiDKcvKI&list=PL30q-jGfBnRknUkaB1jh7TYunUKRQ_Mta
OBJ 1: "God Determines evil acts...so God is the author of evil on this view [Calvinism]."
1) But here, Dr. Craig leaves out much of Reformed thought on God's will, the problem of evil, and how these two intersect.
a) God determines all things. But on Calvinism, these events are not determined for the heck of it. God 'determines' evil insofar as it brings about a greater good.
b) Craig needs to give us an argument as to why it is a sin to ordain a sin.
c) Reformed theology (though certainly not Reformed thought exclusively) places a strong emphasis on primary and secondary causality. The Westminster Confession (III.1) thus states: "God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." Calvinist philosopher Greg Welty in his book, Why is there Evil in the World?, (p. 107) explains this distinction well, giving us examples from Scripture: "The distinction between primary and secondary causality can be illustrated by the aforementioned biblical examples. In each case we had one set of events, but two sets of intentions with respect to those events (human intentions and divine intentions). Thus, in each case, we had simple persons on the scene, committing the sins, and therefore perpetrating the moral evil for which they were accountable: [Pilate, Joseph’s brothers, Judas, etc]. Their causality is to be recognized and not explained away, but God is not to be listed as one of the sinners at the scene of the crime, acting with evil intentions. In the case of moral evil, at least, there is always a human agent (or angel) who is the secondary, proximate, near cause of the sin in space and time."
And:
"God uses means to bring about his chosen ends. The various evils occur in the world because of creaturely decisions, but the ultimate reason these evils occur is not because of creaturely decisions, but because of divine decisions." (ibid, pp. 107-108)
d) I assume that Dr. Craig, like myself, holds to some sort of privation view of evil, i.e., evil is a lack, a lack of good(ness). The reader can correct me if I am mistaken about Craig's belief here. However, if I am wrong, Craig's objection is still relevant to my position.
With that said, on a privation theory of evil, Paul Helm explains: "God upholds the agent in his action, and the action itself, and permits but does not bring about the evil intent, because he cannot, being good, do so.” (The Providence of God, p. 170). He goes on to write, "What determines it are the normal causes of action, human intentions and the like, which God ordains and upholds as he ordains and upholds everything. But what determines the action in so far as it is an evil action is a divine withholding. God withholds his goodness or grace, and forthwith the agent forms a morally deficient motive or reason and acts accordingly. So while God ordains and sustains and foreknows the evil action he does not positively will it, as he positively wills good and gracious actions. Here is an important asymmetry in God's relation to what is morally good and morally evil." (ibid).
Thus, we see intent is what makes all the difference. There is a divine intent and a human intent with to any action A. We can observe this throughout the course of scripture as well: Joseph is sold off by his brothers, they genuinely meant harm ("...you meant evil against me..." Gen 50:20), but God uses this harm to bring about a greater good, as Joseph goes on to say in the same aforementioned verse ("...but God meant it for good.") Joseph's brothers are blameworthy because they wanted Joseph's suffering to be the end in and of itself, but God did not. As Welty writes (ibid, p. 60): "God meant the evil done by the perpetrators (that it would in fact take place), but he meant it for good."
2) Dr. Craig's Molinism fares no better. Greg Welty, in Calvinism and the Problem of Evil, puts forward the following syllogism:
If divine causation in Molinist providence is sufficiently analogous to sufficient causation, then Molinism inherits all of the Calvinist liabilities anyway, with respect to divine authorship of sin, responsibility, and blame
Molinist providence is sufficiently analogous to sufficient causation
Molinism does inherit any Calvinist liabilities with respect to divine authorship of sin, responsibility, and blame (p. 60, italics original)
OBJ 2: "I would much rather someone appeal to mystery than affirm Calvinism"
By way of reply:
1) I am fine with mystery to some extent. It just depends on the circumstances. This is, of course, also consistent with reformed thinking. For instance, take Calvin's commentary on Romans 11:33: "...for after having spoken from the word and by the Spirit of the Lord, being at length overcome by the sublimity of so great a mystery, he could not do otherwise than wonder and exclaim, that, the riches of God’s wisdom are deeper than our reason can penetrate to."
2) However, for Calvin, the punt to mystery isn't all-encompassing; we can know a good amount about God, we just can't understand God and his nature fully. As Paul Helm writes in Calvin: A Guide for the Perplexed, p. 37: "For Calvin, to say that God is incomprehensible is not to say that all our talk about him is gibberish or incoherent. He means, more exactly, that our minds, creaturely minds, cannot encompass the divine nature. Nevertheless, we can know something of God; we can apprehend him; otherwise divine revelation to us would be impossible."
This, by the way, is why Calvin believes that the passages of scripture that speak of God having certain emotions are a form of divine accommodation. He writes, "what, therefore, does the word “repentance“ mean? Surely its meaning is like that of all other modes of speaking that describe God for us in human terms. For because our weakness does not attain to his exalted state, the description of him that is given to us must be accommodated to our capacity so that we may understand it. Now the mode of accommodation is for him to represent himself to us not as he is in himself, but as he seems to us.” Inst. 1.17.13.
3) Now, what view would we argue makes better sense of the data -- both from scripture and our understanding of the world? I'd argue that the answer is the view of foreknowledge and sovereignty proposed by Calvinism. Craig objects to this because of what he perceives as metaphysical baggage, but that is addressed above. Whether my responses are good or not is up to you, the reader.
Thus, I do not think these brief objections by Dr. Craig hold much water -- especially, as I hope I have demonstrated, Calvinism fares well in responding to these difficulties. Though the main point of this post was a reply to Craig, I would also hope that the reader is able to better understand a Reformed approach to the problem of evil.
