One of Many Possible Calvinistic Approaches To the Problem of Evil

 

I recommend Vincent Cheung's materials with various qualification and caveats. I've expressed and listed some of my disagreements and agreements with Vincent Cheung in one of my blogs HERE. For example, I disagree with Cheung's tendency toward Hyper-Calvinism. Due to his Hyper-Calvinistic tendencies some of his solutions to the Problem of Evil will be difficult for many people to accept, including Calvinists. Nevertheless, he makes some great points in the following article. Some of his points I'm open to but don't dogmatically hold. They can be possible options as last ditch responses to the problem of evil. The more options Christians have in responding to the problem of evil from a Christian point of view, the more it demonstrates that the problem is not so problematic for Christianity.

So, I encourage people (especially my fellow Calvinists) to read his materials and add more tools into their apologetical tool box. Tools that won't be one's "go to" answers, but can function as alternative back-up and reserved answers. For example, most Calvinists appeal to compatibilism and deny occasionalism. Whereas Cheung thinks that's a mistake because the real question is whether humans have freedom relative to God. Given his understanding of occasionalism, no one has freedom relative to God, because God directly controls all things.

 

The Problem of Evil by Vincent Cheung
https://www.vincentcheung.com/2005/03/15/the-problem-of-evil/

 

 See Also his related book The Author of Sin which is also freely online.

Here's a quote from pages 20-21 of The Author of Sin which addresses the problem of evil.

 

The writers exercise remarkable restraint toward compatibilism. They have everything set
up well enough that they could blast it to smithereens, but they want to play nice. So they
settle for saying that Augustine's is a "dubious contribution," and that the deterministic
aspects of his philosophy "cancel out any meaningful application of the concept of free
will."
This means that if a compatibilist truly affirms divine determinism, then what he says about human "freedom" or "free will" is meaningless – it is nonsense. These writers see this – most Calvinists refuse to see it.

Summary
Here is the way to avoid nonsense:
1. Affirm absolute divine determinism.
2. Deny all human freedom.
3. Base moral responsibility on God's sovereign decree to judge mankind.
4. Answer almost all related objections by doing the following:
a. Affirm that God is just and righteous by definition.¹²
b. Deny the unjustified premise, "responsibility presupposes freedom."¹³

There is no twisting and turning, no philosophical gymnastics, and no need to redefine this
and qualify that. God is sovereign, man is not free – and there is no problem. This is
biblical, coherent, simple, and defensible.

Footnotes:
12 This renders all "problem of evil" and "author of sin" type of objections inapplicable.
13 This renders human freedom irrelevant to the discussion.