The Problem Of Good

by Scott Kauffmann

2. The Imago Dei: Man is originally good.
If the four-part gospel is our grid, then we always start with Creation. So what happened right after God created Adam and Eve?

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:26-28)

Before we were sinful, we were made in God’s image – the imago Dei. God endowed us with traits that uniquely reflect His Triune nature, including our capacity for relationship, choice, moral sensibility and responsibility. While man has lost any ability to save himself, he has not lost the imago Dei. It is distorted, but not obliterated. The imago Dei is more fundamental than our sin nature – deeper, more original, and more truly human, because it reflects God’s perfect design. It’s what God sees in every human that propels Him to shower us with His common grace.

3. The Creation Mandate: Man’s original job description.
In Genesis 1, God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth, and subdue it. To me this originally seemed like a pretty narrow, straightforward command. Have kids, take care of the garden, and don’t let the animals get out of line. But Christians have always seen it as a more fundamental command, with a scope that applies broadly today. It’s even got a name (three names in fact): the Cultural Commission, the Cultural Mandate, or the Creation Mandate.

The basic idea of the Creation Mandate is that all people have a responsibility to be stewards of the creation – both in the sphere of nature and the sphere of culture, human endeavor, and relationships. Our job, in a sense, is to do whatever we can to shape creation to reflect God’s glory. So before and after the Fall ⁵, man is an image-bearer and a steward of nature and culture – he has “dominion” over all of creation. These are his most basic attributes, more original than original sin, and all humans, saved or not, share them. Common grace is God’s mechanism to activate and empower these gifts in His plan to renew all things.

4. The World vs. the Kingdom: The war inside us and around us.
Ever had that conversation about how to be “in the world but not of the world”?

The World is “anything that is in rebellion – stated or unstated – against God.” ⁶ It’s any impulse that has an idol (something besides God) at the center. We are not supposed to befriend or love the World (James 4:4, 1 John 2:15-17); but instead we are supposed to enter and influence it (Matthew 5:13-16).

The World is our enemy. But it’s not a particular sinful behavior, specific person or group of people. Ultimately, your fight is not with gay-rights advocates or Islamofascists or crooked politicians or drug dealers or fundamentalists or greedy CEOs. Your fight is with a virus that you – and your political adversary – are both carrying inside you. In the real battle, everyone on earth is a prisoner.

And if our allegiance is not to the World, then of course it is to the Kingdom of God – the reign of Christ’s divine love over all things heavenly, cosmic, earthly, and human, past, present, and future. The Kingdom is the Scriptural Anti-World. Jesus talked about it a hundred times. ⁷ It was the focus of His model prayer, the central theme of His mission, the first subject of His first major sermon, and the topic of His post-resurrection time with the disciples. His worldview, if you will.

When we pray for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, we’re saying that it’s ultimately His responsibility, not ours, to deal with the problem of the World – to defeat the forces against His rule. God tells us to live in the World, like the wheat among tares ⁸, and that He will sort it out at the end of time. This frees us to follow Jesus, create culture, reach the nations, make disciples, coexist with the world, and trust His final judgment. God is going to redeem and re-fashion the artillery and battlegrounds of the World into the new heaven and earth – to beat the swords into plowshares. Common grace is central to this task.

Think of a photomosaic – one of those pictures assembled from hundreds of tiny photographs. Every individual photo (just like a human life) has its own pattern of light and dark. And to create a bright photomosaic, you actually need plenty of individual photos that are almost completely dark. To have beauty, texture, and contrast, you need darkness in the whole and in the individual parts. This, for me, is a picture of the way God redeems brokenness in our fallen world.

5. God’s glory: His ultimate purpose.
If the triumph of the Kingdom and the restoration of all creation to shalom are the climax of the story, God’s glory is the purpose and reason for the story in the first place. He is glorified and delights in not only the ending, but every plot twist and minor character. Whether He saves or doesn’t, reveals or conceals, creates or destroys, he is bringing glory to Himself.

In fact, the salvation and judgment of souls are just two of the things that glorify him. He is interested in, delighted in, and glorified in far more than these. Certainly that’s true of the natural creation – He loves a supernova just because He conceived it. Not because it saves some specific person.

In the same way, God takes delight in, and is glorified by, things about the human world, even in relation to people who will never be saved. Richard Mouw, long-time president of Fuller Seminary, says, “I think God takes delight in Benjamin Franklin’s wit and in Tiger Woods’ putts and in some well-crafted narrative paragraphs in a Salman Rushdie novel, even if these accomplishments are in fact achieved by non-Christian people. And I am convinced that God’s delight in these phenomena does not come because they bring the elect to glory and the non-elect to eternal separation from the divine presence. I think God enjoys these things for their own sakes.” ⁹

For me, this solves the “personal goodness” problem of why some non-Christians can be morally better than some Christians. It’s God’s common grace, at work in the lives of His creatures, which glorifies Him and serves His purposes.

SEEING COMMON GRACE IN SCRIPTURE

Let’s build on these foundations and look deeper at two distinct but connected ways that God interacts with people.

1. God’s saving grace that flows from His saving love.

2. God’s common grace that flows from His common love.

The Bible is full of references to God’s love for people. For example:

God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJV)

Call that God’s “saving love”: the kind of love that leads to the Cross, where Christ solves the problem of sin, by living the life and dying the death God requires of us. This is the defining act of “saving grace” – the good news at the heart of the Gospel.

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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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