My friend and faithful brother David Cramer has continued his discussion on John Frame's argument but he has done so in two independent posts (here and here). My analysis will distinguish the content of his objection into four individual categories—(1) Objective Evil, (2) The Sovereignty of God, (3) The Cause of Sin, and (4) Cause vs. Authorship—and I will publish on each category over the next four days, beginning with (1).
1. OBJECTIVE EVIL
According to Cramer's position, the Bible teaches us that "there are some things that are objectively morally evil" which, he goes on to argue, God surely hates. I wish for the readers to understand that I agree with Cramer on this point, but with some notable reservations.
First of all—and this is hopefully a minor point—I submit that "morally evil" is a redundant expression because "evil" is itself a normative moral term. Consequently, as the astute mind will detect, I reject the term "natural evil" (e.g. earthquakes) because that imports a humanistic definition of "evil" into what should be our stalwart commitment to Scriptures. You see, I hold that moral order is grounded in the very being of God. Ergo, for an earthquake to be considered a natural 'evil' it would have to occur against God's will; if a phenomenon in nature occurs according to God's will, surely it is not evil. So I prefer to reserve "evil" for moral contemplation while we should call things such as earthquakes "natural disasters," as we normally do. (As the reader might surmise, I also submit that "evil" and "sin" are synonymous, interchangeable terms; i.e. they both refer to the same thing. Furthermore, such an argument as I affirm here quite readily hands Euthyphro his hat and shows him to the door.)
Secondly (and I hope Cramer would concur), I affirm that if anything is evil, it is so objectively. In other words, biblically speaking there is actually no such thing as subjective evil. Why? Because moral order is not a human invention; moral order is grounded in the very being of God and expressed prescriptively in his commands. Consequently, if 'objective' means "independent of either a particular human mind or human minds altogether," then we may assert that all evil is so objectively.
Cramer states that "objective moral evils are those actions [which are] wrong for any being, at any time, anywhere, to do them." While this might work on the surface, a difficulty arises when we examine it more closely; i.e. literally "any being"? I hear Euthyphro knocking at the door again. I reject such a notion because there is no moral order to which God himself is subject. He is the sole Lawgiver, whose commands are forever consistent with his immutably holy nature and which express all moral parameters. In other words, "any being" cannot be literal; it must restricted to only those beings created by God which he ordained to hold culpable at his judgment (angels and humans). God, as a being, is not included in the moral culpability to which 'objective evil' refers; neither are horses, nor plankton, nor a host of other beings. Also, this is why the taking of human life is not evil per se (in itself); it is evil only where God has proscribed against it. Sometimes God has commanded the taking of human life (1 Sam. 15:3) and the refusal to do so is evil (v. 24; cf. v. 20). It is possible that all of this truly is what Cramer meant; such precision was my own desire.
Tomorrow I shall post my comments on (2) The Sovereignty of God.
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