The Fall

There is no doubt that we are living in a broken world. Just look around. I really don't have to go too far to prove that there is something seriously wrong. Violence between nations, religious groups, neighbors, even in families. Lying, corruption, and deceit are common place in the workplace. Even the natural world is full of pain and darkness, from natural disasters to the food chain that treats many animals as nothing more than food. And I think that almost all of us look at this and see that this isn't right. That somehow we have gone astray. Evil has corrupted us and mired us in sin. Plantinga does a great job of talking about God's world and how it has fallen into this through sin, yet seeing God's work still at hand and the hope that is lies therein. "The glory of God's good creation has not been obliterated by the tragedy of the fall, but it has been deeply shadowed by it."
As I read this chapter, I could not help but question where this evil comes from. It seems to make sense that evil is not something that can stand on it's own. It is a manipulation and corruption of good. But this brings up the question, where did that come from? It seems to be a "chicken-egg" situation, where there is an endless cycle. But why is there evil at all? In my philosophy class we read a piece by an atheist philosopher, Mackie, who tried to disprove the existence of God because evil existed in the world. It was a really interesting piece of work that asked good questions and brought up many good answers that I think really relates to what Plantinga talks about in this chapter.
Mackie starts with three basic premises that an theist would agree to. 1) God is omnipotent. (all powerful) 2) God is wholly good. (Good in this sense is the opposition to evil, where good tries to eliminate evil as much as it possibly can) 3) Evil exists. These would be a given to any Christian who believes in God. But when you look at it, there is a contradiction. If God is completely good and all powerful, He would eliminate evil to the best of His ability-which is to say, completely. It seems like in order to maintain this idea you are forced to drop one of the three premises as true. Evil cannot be eliminated since it is beyond argument that our world is covered in it. Mackie says then, that we must either abandon that God is all powerful, or that He is wholly good. Of course, no true Christian would abandon these two core fundamentals.
This leads to the arguments in response to Mackie that He addresses in his paper. The first few are easily eliminated as weak arguments so I will skip them. The best argument from all this is called "The free will argument." Consider if you could live on an island away from all sorts of trials and tribulations. This is called a First Order Good. You are always content. Sure, it sounds like paradise and I am sure that for a time it would be very enjoyable. But after a while wouldn't you get bored? After a while doesn't it start to get old? Yeah, you are relaxed, but does it feel as good if you don't work for it? This is where First Order Evil comes into play. This is any sort of suffering or pain. Now, when you have First Order Evil it neutralizes First Order Good, but it allows for many noble attributes known as Second Order Goods. Loyalty, courage, bravery, trust, honesty-all these traits need some sort of challenge against them to be tested, and when they succeed the victory feels that much better. But, there is a problem. With Second Order Goods come Second Order Evils. Cruelty, unfaithfulness, lying, cheating, cowardice, etc are all just as common as any noble attribute of good. It would seem that the field is level again. However, this is where the free will argument takes its hold. God could make us so that we only did good, so that we only followed his ways, but there wouldn't be much satisfaction in that. We would be robots, programmed with only one decision. God gives us free will to choose what we do, which is the Third Order Good, this trumps all evil-first and second.
I thought of this when reading because Plantinga asks the question, "where does evil come from?" It is impossible that evil originates from God, and the Devil is powerful but nowhere near as powerful as Jesus. I am no theologist, and I would hardly say I have the answers to the worlds most sought after questions. But from the reading and the philosophy work that came up, I thought it was fascinating to see some of the ideas behind it. That God is all powerful, so He has the full potential to use evil. But He is wholly good and it is against His nature to use this power. But evil exists in our world. But it is because God gives us the choice to follow Him, to have the same decisions of doing good or doing evil, to love Him, because we love Him. Not because He told us to. We have fallen short of that in every possible scale and we are surrounded by sin and evil. But God is working to redeem us and this world, to bring us to unity with Him, but it is our choice whether or not we will follow.