Sproul on the Problem of Evil - The Origin of Evil - he doesn't know

Last Thursday, Steve from church asked me to watch this talk by Sproul on what is Evil, after some discussion on the pre-fall perfection of Man.So I finished it (1 hour video) in 20 mins - 3x speed on average, video and my comments below:

Nothing new, but one thing, either it is new to me or I have forgotten was Leibniz's take on evil: Physical evil (natural disasters, diseases), Metaphysical evil (anything by God - i.e. finiteness, creation, etc.), Moral evil. So, because creation is metaphysical evil, thus, moral evil is inevitable. The moment Sproul defined metaphysical evil, I already call it out as a logical fallacy: You do not put God even in terms of metaphysical, because of creator creation distinction. Sproul's critique of Leibniz on this is simply: well you can't blame it on God, all evil would be excusable.

Sproul brought up Rome's view of concupiscence. That in order to make an evil choice, one must have an evil inclination to that choice, allegedly quoting Jonathan Edwards' work on The Freedom of the Will. @31:00. Sproul then rejects it rightly on the ground that such inclination must be evil in itself. He then went on the consider the "alternative", which is making a the evil choice without any evil inclination. He wrongly concluded that it results in a choice that is not a moral action at all. A sort of an arbitrary choice. This shows that Sproul was still stuck at Rome's "inclination to sin". That inclination is a requirement in this argument. I posit that according to John 8:44, SELF, is not, nor does it need an inclination to make an ethical choice. The concept of inclination can be sound, but it fails by falling into irresponsibility, when applied universally, a want of SELF, which in man, should be united only to God's SELF/Will to be not wanting. To insist the need of some moral inclination, as Sproul does, is to insist on CAUSALITY, which is one of Sproul's 4 non-negotiable assumptions (I have another comment on this, calling it Sproul's presupposition, under the Entry of Ligonier Class: Apologetics I). However, Cornelius Van Til rightly states:

God cannot reveal himself in the realm of causality because this realm of causality is the compound of the idea of pure contingency and the impression of our own categories upon it ~ Cornelius Van Til and Eric H. Sigward, The Pamphlets, Tracts, and Offprints of Cornelius Van Til, Electronic ed. (Labels Army Company: New York, 1997). IS GOD DEAD -> What Do They Mean? -> The Help of Science And Philosophy.

I shall posit that WILL, human will that is, also cannot be revealed in the realm of causality. So WILL, is just as it is, WILL. Inclination is not a necessary condition of the WILL. Human will is only contingent upon or against God's will, outside of such contingency, there is no causality to human will, so it is neither inclined arbitrarily nor wickedly and not even goodly, it is only perfect or corrupted. Christ's will was and is a different kind: perfect perfection. A will that can choose good or evil (pre-fall will), is perfect nonetheless, just like the perfection in an infant (10 fingers, two eyes, etc.). A will that cannot choose good but evil (post-fall unregenerated will), is not perfect. A will that can only choose good and not evil (consummation), is the perfected perfection. Therefore, true impeccability is only found in union with God. Which is something all saints shall one day enjoy. Because of that, the will of a creature is itself a moral agency, you don't need inclination for that. How one explains this may also display the direction of one's own Christian culture - towards a choice of action that is either passive (the reliance of act - out of Role Model) or active (the will to act - out of Regenerated Self).

Sproul wants to conclude this: Evil is not good, but it is good that there is evil. Otherwise, it wouldn't be in a universe ruled by a perfect God.

The above quote is not surprising. It's wrong, but at this point, I'm not surprised by someone like Sproul or maybe even his mentor John Gerstner speaks it. As that's a classical approach, Thomist way of seeing a pantheistic world. It's also a play of word. "It is good that there is evil", depends. From our perspective, it is good. Not from God's perspective, for God is not tempted. We now can see that this "God is not tempted" is actually deeper than what most thinks. This is not just about you cannot get God into doing this, but the fact that whatever God does, "does', which is a word in an anthropomorphic sense for God, is inculpable, for that is the very meaning of "God". So, if the quote is seen in the right sense, that is fine, just a bit shallow because it's trapped in a pantheistic sense of God.

Sproul ended with he doesn't know the origin of evil, as Gerstner, according to Frank Turek, concluded the same by saying "mystery".

But I must be fair, it was a good speech delivered by Sproul overall.

Because of this, so, in a way, thanks to Steve, I once again tried to look up Stephen Tong's reference to Melanchthon's rebuttal against Rome when Rome accuses the Reformation of attributing God as the author of sin. In John 8:44, Melanchthon solved the accusation by saying that the cause of sin is the will of the devil and men turning away from God. I've tried to source this for a while, and now the search is finished: Apology of the Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon...Article XIII. (VII): Of the Number and Use of the Sacraments. #77: ...God is not the cause of sin...Article XX: Of Good Works.

Stephen Tong would call the failure in understanding that WILL does not require moral inclination/causality, the lack of Theology of Time, which according to him, is not taught in seminaries, unfortunately: