#STRask - Is God “Divided Against Himself” When He Allows Evil?

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Questions about whether the principle that a house divided against itself can’t stand would apply not only to Satan casting out demons but also to God allowing evil, whether or not God is the author of everything he permits for a purpose, and the primary sin of Eve.   Wouldn’t the principle in Mark 3:24–25 that a house divided against itself can’t stand apply not only to Satan casting out demons but also to God allowing evil? If God is pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit something, having purposed it to his own glory, does that make him the author of that which he purposed? What was the primary sin of Eve? Was it coveting? Pride? Curiosity?

This is Stan Terasons, hashtag STR-Sk podcast with Amy Holland, Greg Kokel. Hi, Amy. I should say the star, Greg Kokel. Oh, stop that. Just to annoy you. Yeah, it does annoy me. Thank you. Sorry.

For not saying that. All right. Well, I'm annoying you a little because we're going to have some questions. about evil today, so I just got you in the mood. This first question comes from Neil. I'm reading Mark 3, and I can imagine a skeptic asserting that the principle contained in verses 24 and 25 would also apply to God's allowance of evil. What am I missing? What is a good defense for that assertion? Well, let me read the passage. This is where Jesus is being accosted by the leadership, the religious leadership, demonstrating as messianic credentials by casting demons out, controlling

the forces of darkness. And the accusation then in the face of this display of messianic power is you're casting out demons by the king of demons, basically. Beelzebub, he's the one who's giving you that ability to cast demons out. And so Jesus reasons with them, in a famous line, actually made really famous by President Abraham Lincoln. He says, if a kingdom is divided against itself, actually, let me start verse 23. And he called to that, he called them to himself and began speaking to them in parables. But in this case, it's pretty straightforward.

He said, how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, the kingdom cannot stand. if a house is divided against itself, the house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished. All right. So now just note, it's a great observation about a certain dynamic that apply to the circumstance he was facing. All right. How is it if Jesus is empowered by Satan to destroy Satan, that's a lot?

makes no sense. Notice, by the way, the apologetic. He offers an argument, a straightforward argument by way of parallel, and it's a good argument. Here's my concern with Neil's question. I don't know how, and maybe you can help me understand this, Amy, how is the atheist seeking to employ that argument against God, given the problem of evil? God is not the author of evil. And when God fights against evil, he's not fighting against himself. He has allowed circumstances in which evil can take place, but then he has good reasons for doing that. I mean, this is part of the argument. Actually, it's part of the way of thinking about understanding that removes the apparent contradiction.

God, it would be a good God and remove evil first as far as it's possible, but then people say, well, he's powerful, he can do that, unless he has a good reason not to. And there are many circumstances like that in our own lives where we allow things that seem to be bad in themselves, but we realize that it leads to a greater good or prevents a greater harm. Okay. Now, I developed that idea in the story of reality. And that notion, by the way, is not, you know, particularly profound for me. Lots of people have looked at that. All right. So, nevertheless, God has acted and is acting to mitigate the impact of evil that he allowed for a season. And this is what our story is about. The problem of evil starts in Chapter 3. It doesn't have for 66 books. I mean, our whole story is. about the problem of evil. So the atheist's objection seems to be an attempt to take Jesus' reasoning and use it against God, but how is God divided against God? That's what I don't understand, how he thinks that that applies here. So I think what he's saying, so would this

apply to God's allowance of evil? I think his point is, if God is allowing evil, then is God divided against himself by allowing the evil? I think that's the simple way to put his question. Yeah, well, even with that question, I don't see anything like a tight parallel with what Jesus is saying. But I guess the heart of it is, does God, is it even imaginable? Let's just go there, that God might have a good reason to allow evil. he's not causing it and then trying to end it.

It isn't like he caused it and then he's trying to end it, then he's causing it and so he's fighting against himself. That would be more parallel, I think. It's just that he has allowed evil for a reason, and there are different ways people have cashed this out. I think you and I cash it out a little differently, in fact, even though you were so sweet to edit what I wrote in. Story of reality, I recall that you raised some questions about that. But this is called The Odyssey. why would God allow evil? And it's the effort of what's called The Odyssey to try to explain different options. But as long as there's a possibility that God had some good reason to allow evil for a season, then the contradictions avoided, sidestepped. Yeah, that's exactly the key. God isn't fighting against himself by allowing evil. And all we have to do is look at something we're all familiar with to see that this is true. And that's the cross.

So people committed a great evil putting Jesus to death. However, that was not God divided against himself. Him allowing them to do that was not God divided. That was his eternal purpose for them to put Christ to death on the cross. So the evil that God's allowing is actually working towards God's goal, not because the people doing the evil want to work towards God's goals, but because God is sovereign and good and wise. and the evil that's happening has some purpose that maybe we can't see.

Sure. But here's an example where we can see it very clearly, and sometimes it really helps to look at those clear examples to understand the principle. So if God is allowing an evil, that evil is working towards God's goals, not in itself. That doesn't mean God likes the fact that people are murdering Jesus, but he does want to use that to accomplish his own. own goal. So that's not him divided against himself. That's him using even other people's evil to accomplish his goals. That's total victory over the evil. Maybe the question that, is it Neil,

to ask his friend, the atheist, is tell me precisely how this particular dynamic Jesus is describing applies to God and the problem of people. I mean, tell me really precisely. Because honestly, I don't, I don't see the parallel. And I think if a person was forced to articulate it really precisely what they think the parallel is, I think it's going to be more obvious that it's just not parallel at all. But sometimes it's when you ask that, it's basically the first Colomimo question. What do you mean by that? When you ask people to be more precise about the nature of their objection, it becomes clear that there's no real substance there. Like, for example, when somebody says, well, it's irrational to believe in God. Now what? I've got to think of all

these rational arguments for God's existence. No, you don't. You just ask the question, what's irrational about it? I don't know what would be irrational about it, but if you think something's irrational, then he should be more precise. What precisely is irrational about belief in God. Now, if somebody raises the problem of evil, if there is no God establishing a standard of good that gets violated by people who do evil, then there is no problem of evil. The problem is not with the Christian theist in that regard. The problem is with the atheist if he claims that there's real evil in the world because he has no grounding for the judgment that things are evil, not the way they're supposed to be. So anyway, my general advice is have your friend,

Neil, have your friend be very precise about how he thinks this statement by Jesus, series of statements, this argument by Jesus, actually it works against Christianity and Jesus and God, given the problem of evil. So this brings us to a question from Wes. If God is pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit something, having purposed to order it to his own glory, does that make? him the author of that which he purposed, and if not, how so? Well, these are fair questions, and they are, they are, sorry, I will say you treading

on deep water, but that would be right. You're, what do you call this? You're swimming in a deep, whatever. It's a deep issue, right? Yeah. And there's been a lot of discussion about this, and I think that there are some, imponderables related to it. But the issue here is God purposed to allow people to freely do evil and then purposed to use it for something good. I mean, this is the argument we're offering

here, and you've mentioned this many times, and the cross is a great example. Because God purposes to allow this thing to happen doesn't mean he caused it. He allowed it to happen and then used it for something good. And frankly, without the evil thing that he allowed to happen, the good that he purposed for that evil would not have taken place. So these things are bound together. It is common for people to say, well, that God's responsible for evil. But I don't think they're thinking with some care and precision about the issue, all right?

But they also run into another problem, and I just hinted at it a few moments ago, and I play this note all the time. If there is no God, there is no evil, because there is no good from which evil is a departure. All you have is molecules in motion. It's all you can say. So when an atheist says, I can't believe in God because there's, because of the problem of evil, however that concern is communicated, he, um, when he gets rid of God, he doesn't get rid of the problem of evil. He's still got the problem. Okay, God's out of the picture. Now what? You tell me how you could explain true evil in the world. And by the way, that's what you just fingered because that's why you don't believe in God. God because this, this, this, this and this is true evil. All right? You explain to me how any of those things can be really evil if there is no God. Tossing God doesn't solve anything for the atheist. Psychologically, it thinks it does, but it doesn't.

So I think you mentioned, Greg, we might have a slightly different take on this, but I think in the most part, it's the same response. But the first thing I want to say to the question that, does that making the author of that which he purposed and if not how so. I think the problem here is that there are some hidden premises in the term author that aren't being brought out here. So it depends on what you mean by author. So if you mean that he's the architect of history so that his purposes are achieved, then yes, he's the author. If you mean he's guilty of sin by ordaining simple things, then no, I don't think he's the author if that's what you mean. And once again, I take you back to the cross. So if you look at Acts 4, 27, 28, and Ephesians 3, 11, and 12, you see that

not only did God determine that the cross would happen, that the people would put him to death, but also that it was his eternal purpose. He had an eternal purpose. He wanted to reveal his grace on the cross to us. That was from the beginning. That's what he wanted. So is God the author of the cross? Well, yes. In a way, because it was his eternal purpose to save us through the cross. But does that mean that God is the author of the sin involved in killing the son of God? Not if by author you mean that God is guilty of sin because he used the sin of men to accomplish his purposes. Right. That's a great distinction. So God's intent for the cross was different from man's intent for the cross.

So God did good by determining the cross, even though that involved using the evil intentions of men who did it for their own evil purposes. Right, right. So I'm wondering if there's a military metaphor here that might help people to see this. I just thought of it. And I read a lot of military stuff. I read a lot of combat stuff and war stuff, not just the tactical combat, but the larger strategic picture.

And sometimes, and right now I'm reading about the naval battles in the Pacific, the whole Pacific Naval Theater. And there are times when, when, say, the American Naval commanders would make a faint. That means they will look like they're doing one thing. And they'll send ships out to make a shot at this island to cover what they're doing somewhere else. Okay. but as it turns out, the faint entails combat, and the combat entails the enemy killing American soldiers or Navy Marines or whatever. And so if there hadn't been the faint that was part of this larger picture that then brought about larger victory, then those soldiers in that conflict wouldn't have died.

But the faint was a part of the larger picture, and they'd be. didn't die at the hand of the commanders who ordered the faint. They died at the hand of the enemy soldiers who killed them. Now, I don't know if that's a satisfying parallel for you for what you're talking about or maybe it falls short, but it did occur to me that maybe this is a way to be thinking about that. The commander sets up the strategy, but the strategy entails that someone else is going to be a bad actor, and you're expecting them to be a bad actor to accomplish a greater goal. And that's part of your plan. That's part of the plan. So there's a difference between God using the evil intentions of people to do something rather than commanding it. He didn't

command it. He didn't say, you shall kill the son of God. See, there's a lot to look at here, but I think the keys are looking at intention, looking at purpose, looking at the difference between the intentions of God and the intentions of men, and understanding what you mean by the term author. So people will just throw that term out there, and it's just so vague that you're not really sure what they're saying by it. So you just have to be really clear about what you're saying. Good thought. And here's a question from Kevin. What was the primary sin of Eve?

Was it coveting? Was it pride? Was it plain curiosity? Did Adam fall because of the same sin himself or fear of upsetting Eve? Well, I think, Kevin, you're making it more complicated. It's not a sin to be curious. It's not a sin to see something and realize that something about it appears to be beneficial. The sin is disobeying God.

It doesn't seem to be any more complicated than that. God said no. What's interesting, by the way, is that when she is tempted by the devil, she adds a detail. to the command. She said, God told us not to eat it and not even to touch it. Now, it'd be a good idea if you're told not to eat it, not to touch it. But as far as we know, that wasn't the command. And it's just kind of interesting, isn't it? Because it seems to be a tendency of people, and this was a big problem with the Jews, of taking God's law and then adding a bunch of stuff. And the stuff that ends up being added turns out to be not only cumbersome, a more burdensome,

but it also sometimes trumps, so to speak, the intention God had for some of the laws to begin with. And Jesus encountered this and challenged that among the religious leadership, too. So I think this straight-ahead answer is just that they were told not to do something. And they did it. And both of them did it. One was tempted by the devil, the serpent, Eve was. Adam, in a certain sense, was tempted by his wife. She gave it to him. What was he doing? He wasn't exercising leadership, that's for sure. He just went along. So, but what was the sin? Disobedience. Yeah, and I think you could even call it, say that that disobedience was kind of idolatry. Because what they were saying is that that thing that they wanted. was better than God, was better than obeying God.

They were saying that God wasn't good, that he wasn't trustworthy, that he didn't want their good. And that was what the temptation entailed. God's holding out on you. Yeah, yeah. So they're basically blasphying God, putting something else above him. And this is the essence of every sin. Every sin is saying that you desire something else more than God, and you're not

trustworthy him. You're not trusting him. And you're declaring that to everyone around you. That's what they see, that you love something more than God, and that's demeaning to God. And so here you have the people who were put on earth to reflect God and to glorify him, and this is the worst thing they can do. So all those other things, pride, coveting, whatever, those are all part of it, I think, but I think you're right. The primary thing is the disobedience and the idolatry of that disobedience. Yeah, there's another subtext here, and I do talk about this in streets parts where I have a chapter, which actually was a solid ground, so probably still available on our website.

But the chapter is titled, and same as the solid ground, is the primal heresy. And all of the things that we've just said about that disobedience are true. You mentioned idolatry, but there's, along with this or another way to cast it, is they're saying no to God's up. objective truth. Here's what's right. You do this. They say, no, I don't want your objective truth. I want to satisfy my own subjective sense of what's good, my subjective desires, et cetera, et cetera. Now, that is, of course, a form of idolatry because now you're, what is, what's true for me. But it's also an expression essentially of a relativistic way of thinking, which is huge, obviously in our culture. do you. So we are the idols that we worship, but it's still relativistic. We deny God's objective purposes, and we adopt our own. This is what's called authenticity now. You do you. Whatever it is you think is good for you, you do that. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And we see how that works out in judges. So it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. So this is the

essence of every sin. And if you start looking at sin this way, you will see it in yourself in your reasoning for why you want to sin in this way. You'll see it in other people's reasoning for rejecting the Word of God. It's just, it's good for us to remember. Well, thank you, Kevin, and thank you, Wes and Neil. We love hearing from you. Send us your question on X with hashtag STR or ask or go to our website at STR.org. If you have a question, we'd love to hear from you. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.