Theodicy #12 - Divine Glory

God allows evil to glorify himself. This theodicy can go like this: Knowing God is one of the greatest goods a person can have. But to know God, you must see God’s glory. But to see God’s glory, you must witness the wretchedness of sin to see how holy God is, how great the distance is between God and that wretchedness. So, for our own good, God allows evil so we can understand the sheer goodness of God.

Here are a few biblical candidates for this theodicy: As mentioned previously, in John 9:3 Jesus heals a blind man for the glory of God. In the exodus of the Israelites, God’s glory is displayed in the plagues he sent. In the story of Job, God is depicted as having absolute authority over all things. God is glorified through the resurrection of Jesus.

These stories might show the glory of God in the sense of God’s power and authority, but it’s questionable how well these stories show God’s goodness. In the Flood, God drowns many people, presumably including children. God commands the slaughtering of enemy tribes, including children (Deut. 2, 20). In the story of the exodus, God sends a plague of death that kills children for the sins of Pharaoh, even though God is the one who hardened Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 12:12; 7:3). Far from showing God’s holiness, these problematic Old Testament verses show a wrathful, murderous God. God could have achieved his ends without violence. These stories very much read exactly as one would expect if we assume they were written by primitive tribal humans inventing myths to make sense of their place in the world. Also, God’s desire for glory appears to be more out of self-aggrandizement in these verses than out of a desire for our betterment, which is disturbing.

Putting the Bible aside, what about the world today? There are countless opportunities for God to glorify himself, but mysteriously he chooses not to. These include:

• Saving the Jews from the Holocaust just as he saved them from the Egyptians;
• Ensuring praying to him for healing is more effective than going to the hospital;
• Ensuring praying to him for healing worked ever at all;
• Ensuring any prayers of material need ever working in any capacity at all for anyone;
• Being a Christian gives supernatural moral insights and willpower;
• Being a Christian gives supernatural dreams and prophecies;
• Being a Christian gives supernatural access to knowledge (ex. telepathy between Christians via the Holy Spirit; Christian doctors have supernatural medical knowledge);
• Being a Christian leads to supernatural levels of success (because the Holy Spirit tells you what you need to do and ensures you succeed in doing it if you follow the clear instructions given to you);
• Sending prophets to nations to perform signs and wonders to increase faith in God;
• Sending angels to individuals like with Joseph and Mary to bolster their faith.

And so on. If God is allowing all the evils we see in the world to glorify himself, where is the glory?

But it gets even worse. If God allows evils to make himself look good by defeating those evils, then doesn’t that make God look bad instead? God would be using us for his glory.

And if God allows evils to contrast himself to them, then isn’t God actually failing to contrast himself to those evils by allowing them? If God really wanted to contrast himself to evils, wouldn’t he make them impossible? And if God wants us to understand his goodness, wouldn't giving us heaven from the start be a better strategy for that? By being surrounded by and immersed in a perfect world, and by constantly feeling the presence and love of God, we would see God's goodness. No evil needed.

In fact, any evils that make it appear as though God doesn't exist are evils that do the opposite of glorifying God. And yet most if not all evils do just that. This is especially the case for epistemic evils pertaining to divine hiddenness.

Anti-theodicy #8: EJ’s dementia is an excellent opportunity for God to be glorified. I have prayed for EJ’s healing and so have others. But no dice. God wants glory. God would be glorified if he miraculously healed EJ. What gives?