Gospel

The Problem Of Good

by Scott Kauffmann

You know the problem of evil: if God’s so good, why is the world so bad?

At some point, it’s been a barrier to faith for nearly everyone. Yet when, by God’s grace, you begin to grasp the sin in your own heart, the weight of the problem shifts from the evil “out there” to the evil “in here.” Then you can see the Cross for what it is: God’s greatest gift and the solution to our biggest problem.

Still, as Christ-followers, if we’re paying attention, we’re faced with the opposite problem – the problem of good. Namely, if we’re all so bad, why is the world so good?

Why does a non-Christian firefighter go back up the stairs on 9/11 to save a non-Christian financial worker? How come unbelievers are responsible for so much goodness, truth, and beauty? At the personal level, why do I know so many unbelievers who are morally better than I am – more honest, more sacrificial, more joyful, more committed to other people? What do I do with that? And why can artists and filmmakers and musicians who seem personally unredeemable make paintings and films and music and books that are so unmistakably transcendent? Am I supposed to stay away from that stuff because the artist is not coming at things from a Christian worldview?

If you’re like me, these questions haunt you. They demand answers, and the answers we choose are vital. Because how we solve the problem of good drives whom we love, what we fear, how we work, how we share our faith, and how we consume media and entertainment. It significantly impacts how we reach, engage, change, create, shape, and battle with culture.

Logically, there are three possible answers to the problem of good.

“Comic grace”: we’re good enough to save ourselves
“Cosmic waste”: goodness outside salvation is an illusion
“Common grace”: goodness outside salvation is God’s gift to everyone

Christians must reject comic grace. But what about cosmic waste? Unknowingly, many of us actually live our lives this way. We divide the world into “secular” and “sacred” categories. The secular parts are of temporary use to us but of no significant use to God. The non- Christians are part of our world, but they aren’t doing anything that contributes to God’s eternal purposes, and we need to be careful not to get too close to their agenda. If people aren’t going to be saved, it doesn’t really matter what they do, except to the extent that they make life better for those who are going to be saved.

When you follow this view to its logical conclusion, it means that all this goodness you see is irrelevant at best, or a malicious illusion at worst. The love, compassion, and honesty you think you see coming from non-Christians is really just Satan’s simulation to take us away from Christ. So the sacrifice of those 9/11 firefighters? That’s not really sacrifice, it’s just selfishness in disguise. The unbelieving couple that reconcile and learn to love each other again? That isn’t really love. The non-Christian doctor healing a non-Christian patient? Doesn’t show up on God’s eternal scorecard.

To me, the “cosmic waste” view doesn’t offer a satisfying solution to the problem of good. At a theological level, it’s inconsistent with so much of the story of Scripture; and at a practical level, it’s unlivable.

LEARNING COMMON GRACE

I believe the best answer to the problem of good is common grace. Common grace is one of the most essential, useful, redemptive, and dangerous truths to understand as we interact with the world around us. It helps us understand God, our world, and others. An appreciation for common grace can help set us free from so many of the fears, prejudices, and UnChristian ¹ behavior we so often wallow in as Christians, as we pursue relationships, evangelism, work, cultural engagement, and arts and entertainment. And it solves the problem of good both theologically and practically.

Let’s start with some key elements of common grace.

God gives immense grace (unmerited favor) to all His creatures, in many ways.
God cares about more than just saving individual souls. That is certainly of great interest to Him, but it’s not His only interest. He also cares about restoring His creation to glory through the coming of His kingdom.
God is the author of truth, beauty, and goodness wherever – and in whomever – they are found. And they can be found nearly everywhere – in virtually every person, place, situation, or idea that ever existed.
Wherever they are found, they can and should be used to point others and ourselves to their source in Jesus.

COMMON GRACE FUNDAMENTALS

I believe that if you frame the fundamentals of the Gospel story well, common grace is unavoidable and essential to the story.

1. The Four-part Gospel: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration
Many contemporary Christian thinkers, including N.T. Wright, Chuck Colson, Nancy Pearcey, Tim Keller, Dallas Willard, and Mike Metzger beautifully lay out the case for the four-part gospel as the proper “grid” for assessing all worldviews, including Christianity. They contend that in the last two hundred years, we have “truncated” the original Gospel. Here’s how Tim Keller sums up this problem and its solution:

Some … Christians think of the story of salvation like this: Fall, Redemption, Heaven. In this narrative, only saved people have anything of value (people in the world are simply blind and bad), and the purpose of redemption is escape from this world. But if the story of salvation is Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration, then things look different. Non-Christians, created in the image of God, have much wisdom and greatness within them, even though the image is defaced and fallen. Moreover, the purpose of redemption is not to escape the world but to renew it.

The gospel, then, is not just about individual happiness and fulfillment. It is not just a wonderful plan for “my life” but a wonderful plan for the world; it is about the coming of God’s kingdom to renew all things.²

N.T. Wright says it this way: “The point of Christianity is not … to go to heaven when you die … [rather, it is] putting the whole creation to rights.” ³

What does that look like? The Jews call it “shalom” – not just the absence of conflict, but rich human flourishing in all dimensions. The way the world was meant to be. Shalom bookends our existence: it characterizes both the Garden and the eternal City, and so provides the vision for our existence in between.

David Dark says it this way: “The movement called Christianity … cannot be understood apart from the Jewish concept of shalom. The Christian gospel does not call people to give their mental assent to a certain list of correct propositions, nor does it provide its adherents with a password that will gain them disembodied bliss when they die and the pleasure of confidently awaiting their escape until then. Shalom is a way of being in the world. The Christian gospel invites us to partake in shalom, to embody shalom, and to anticipate its full realization in the coming kingdom of God.” ⁴

We are not going to create full shalom now – only Jesus will do that. But we are called to work for it in our fallen world, in messy, heartbreaking communities of broken people. This task invites the problem of good and requires the solution of common grace.

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Comments

David Yamamoto

I'm a Japanese believer. Please excuse me of my awkward English.

My question is not directly connected with this article above. I'm wondering if common grace has anything to do with propitiation by Jesus' death, because some Reformed people teach that common grace was purchased by the propitiation. But I can't find any scripture in the NT which connects C.G. and propitiation.

What about Noaic covenant? Does it have anything to do with Christ's death? Some people say that the burnt offering which Noah sacrificed after the flood symbolizes the cross of Jesus.

Greg Wilkinson

Two men were praying. One was a member of the religious elite, a television evangelist. “Thank you I am not like that despicable Haitian for I have preached the word of God to millions” said the evangelist. The other, a despised Haitian prayed: “Dear God, my house, my wife, my children are gone. Please forgive me for all I have done wrong”.

Which of these two men found God’s favor?

Greg Wilkinson

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up tempting him, and saying, Teacher, having done what, shall I inherit life eternal?

And he said to him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?

But he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thine understanding; and thy neighbour as thyself.

And he said to him, Thou hast answered right: this do and thou shalt live.

But he, desirous of justifying himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

And Jesus replying said, A certain man descended from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into [the hands of] robbers, who also, having stripped him and inflicted wounds, went away leaving him in a half-dead state.

And a certain priest happened to go down that way, and seeing him, passed on on the opposite side;

and in like manner also a Levite, being at the spot, came and looked [at him] and passed on on the opposite side.

But a certain (Godless?) Samaritan journeying came to him, and seeing [him], was moved with compassion,

and came up [to him] and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine; and having put him on his own beast, took him to [the] inn and took care of him.

And on the morrow [as he left], taking out two denarii he gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou shalt expend more, *I* will render to thee on my coming back.

Which [now] of these three seems to thee to have been neighbour of him who fell into [the hands of] the robbers?

And he said, He that shewed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, Go, and do *thou* likewise.

JESUS MADE IT SIMPLE. THE TEACHERS OF RELIGION MAKE IT COMPLICATED.

Sheridan Voysey

Great thoughts, Scott.

I came to some similar conclusions after reflecting on the altruism shown to victims of the Brisbane floods in Australia earlier this year ( http://sheridanvoysey.com/god-altruism-queensland-floods ). Goodness has a source!

I'll be keeping this article. Brilliant.

Martha Bergin

He said, "I am the way, the truth and the light. No man cometh to the Father save by me." The Way is prayer, sincere prayer, to God, as honestly as we know the Creator. The Way is giving from the heart, allowing Love to flow through us From God to the world. What is the Truth? No lying, not bearing false witness, not lying to ourselves, but finding the narrow path, choosing beauty, being able to see beauty, treating others well, treating them as we would ourselves want to be treated, helping those who hunger, thirst, and suffer in all ways. What is the Light? It is the Divine Truth that illuminates the true manner of existence for humankind. Light banishes darkness, but nowhere can we invoke a darkness that will extinguish a light. And so... those who are living by the Way, the Truth, and the Light know Him. Some are blessed to know his name, to draw close to Him, and to pray and talk with Him daily. Some will be surprised at a later time, when they realize they have been walking with Him and didn't know it. For surely there is only One Way, Truth, and Light. It's like the story of the person who found only one set of footprints in the sand, and then came to know that they are His sustaining footprints, not their own.

Afshin Nejat

Interestingly put. I had been struggling with the Problem of Evil for a while and myself also coined this idea a number of years ago, the "Problem of Good". I had entirely different reasons and results, but there are some parallels in the intermediate zones of both our reasoning processes. It just goes to show that certain elements of Truth must inevitably find expression in multiple beings in whom a certain access to Truth is distributed.

It seems, without even perusing anything more than the highlights of your essay, that your millieu of thought/faith is Protestant Christianity. In my view any solid break from Catholicism which still holds on to certain fundamentals taught by the Christ is always an improvement. What is unfortunate is that the gargantuan effort of protesting what was a massive fraud perpetrating itself as the vehicle of Jesus' message did not go far enough and did not dig deep enough. That is because Truth is not an exoterical process of rejection of the world or of falsehood, though these are necessary. What else is necessary is the interior realization of the Kingdom of God within, and that is the "Truth" that Jesus refers to when he says of some "It is on in them" and of others "It is in your hearts". That's why he says let those with ears that hear, listen and of the rest he says of their hearts that they resemble soils of varying degrees of receptivity to the message of Truth, because they had varying degrees of Truth in them already.

The problem is that the entire message of Jesus was hijacked and distorted, and when there were still groups and texts in existence which could contest this they were hunted down and destroyed or altered by force and not allowed to flourish in their true form. So again those who could not embrace the Truth, and would not if they could, teamed up to hide the Keys of the KIngdom from others who might have. Unfortunately for modern Christians, they are the spiritual legacy of this pillaging of the original and True followers of the Christs (for there were more than one). Those people are often known by the name of "Gnostics", but their Knowledge and resultant Faith are expressed in every single religion in this world in some form, and each also shows the decay and distortion which are wrought upon the True Religion in each case where Light and Love brought down to this hellish and evil dimension of gross matter is attacked an hidden by those here who have an interest in deception and control.

Beware that you have inherited the haggard remains intended for you by those who wanted to hide the Keys. And with the cruel logic of those Archons who manipulate all these to their own ends, you have also inherited all the same susceptibilities to being targeted for persecution, suffering, and annihilation as did those True Christians of the past, but this with only a fraction of the actual message of Christ Jesus. That's who they dilute the Wine of Truth with the bitter waters of wormwood, just as they ravage all other True Values in this plane by similar mechanisms (money over goods, votes over rights, bodies over consciousness, etc). When you realize just HOW evil this world is then the Problem of Good takes on a whole new level of meaning for you. But you will have to be willing to let go of the dried crusts that that they Archons left for you, and soaked with much poison of deception, before you can begin to receive stimulation into the Truth Within if it is within you at all. It is recommended that you do so now while there is time, and you might start by researching Gnosticism in is true meaning, research the mutilations of its texts and others at the hands of the "Christian" Church every since Jesus himself walked the Earth, through the middle ages till today, and perhaps peer into the Nag Hammadi texts though they are also full of corruptions. That will give you a flavor of the massive deception you are up against.

It is ironic that those who harbor much speech about Jesus have so little of his actual message because it is like you have a ray of light which was captured and altered, then refracted into new angles and energies until it acted as an agent of deception against its own original essence to the point that one is more able to find Jesus' original teachings by looking ANYWHERE ELSE THAN "Christianity". But that is rub, as what this deception was also keen on doing is monopolizing anyone's efforts to awaken the Truth Within by teaching a host of dogmas and doctrines which stifle that search, claiming other religions to be red herrings in some fundamental way that doesn't apply to its own monolithic edifice of deception. It became a giant dragnet of self-perpetuating darkness which stifles not only the Light which it first attacked, Jesus' Message, but then fanned out to do the same to all other religions which were in their ancient past also remnants of a Christ Avatar's Message, now long since distorted. But it really seems as if the Archons made a special, elitist-style move with Jesus' work, and for centuries they wrought hell on earth through that effort.

Now soon they will round up their efforts by a world-wide cleansing of another sort through global bodies and wicked high-technology (high in this dense and dark universe), but they will not have their New World Order as they hoped, and Truthful Beings will escape this dimension totally.

Afshin Nejat

But to make a more constructive comment on the contents of your essay in DETAIL, I would suggest that you modify this section of your writing:

"Some … Christians think of the story of salvation like this: Fall, Redemption, Heaven. In this narrative, only saved people have anything of value (people in the world are simply blind and bad), and the purpose of redemption is escape from this world. But if the story of salvation is Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration, then things look different. Non-Christians, created in the image of God, have much wisdom and greatness within them, even though the image is defaced and fallen. Moreover, the purpose of redemption is not to escape the world but to renew it. "

Reconfigure it according to the Truths that a real Gnostic Understanding would provide, then use it to restructure your essay accordingly. Because here is a major cornerstone of deception right in the midst of a major Truth. There was a Fall, and the Fallen created fallen dimensions in their wake, and the Good attempted redemption upon these works until it was given up realizing that this "evil" being could not be redeemed (part of the essence of evil is this quality of infinite recalcitrance). Yet a portion of its works which were partly of a Good essence COULD be redeemed, and this process has been ongoing. Evil dimensions below that threshold were created which were utterly without the Good Grace and cannot be redeemed, and have sought to claim their own share of semi-redeemable domains, an have had minor "success" even though this has all been contained from spreading. The final separation of those who can be redeemed and will be from those who cannot (some because they would not) is now taking place in this area of this Celestial Error.

Therefore at this time your ideas about the widespread "Common Grace" no longer has any value here, as all such really are red herrings of deception, and this world really is in darkness and is utterly irredeemable. All that can be redeemed is already marked and is being gathered to a final Rescue and those who have shown themselves, in this life and many prior to it, to be unworthy WILL NOT BE REDEEMED no matter what they believe, say, think, or do, for the Truth is not in them.

Know the Truth, for it would set you free.

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