There’s another thread on that blog which isn’t about Piper, but I mentioned the quote above as it’s been much on my mind recently: http://whydowebelieve.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/wind-love-and-ray-comforts-wife-a-showdown-at-huntington-beach/ . As you’ll see, someone showed up to tell me, “The caricatures given of Piper’s beliefs are simply laughable, and I fail to see how anyone (other than someone with an axe to grind) would interpret in this manner.”

Unfortunately, Piper takes his opinions all too seriously. I have an article he wrote 26 years ago, in response to Tom Talbott’s evangelical universalism, which, he claimed, caused him to feel “sadness and loss”. He closes the essay with this:

Talbott refers several times to his own daughter. In one place he says, “If God has indeed-passed over her, how can the mother possibly believe that he is worthy of her worship?” (p. 14). I can hardly escape the impression from this and many other statements that God does not stand as the measure and judge at the center of Talbott’s thought and affections. I have three sons. Every night after they are asleep I turn on the hall light, open their bedroom door, and walk from bed to bed, laying my hands on them and praying. Often I am moved to tears of joy and longing.

… But I am not ignorant that God may not have chosen my sons for his sons. And, though I think I would give my life for their salvation, if they should be lost to me, I would not rail against the Almighty. He is God. I am but a man. The potter has absolute rights over the clay. Mine is to bow before his unimpeachable character and believe that the Judge of all the earth has ever and always will do right.

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/1983/1582_How_Does_a_Sovereign_God_Love/

In other words, if God wants to send the kids to hell, he’s okay with it. I once posted a comment on Friendly Atheist, in a thread about Piper, questioning the boys’ mental state after having grown up in such an environment. One of his sons put in a brief appearance, and said along the lines of, “The question isn’t whether of not it’s reasonable, but whether or not it’s true.” The denial was palpable.

The worst thing about Piper is that he isn’t the worst thing out there. There are Calvinists who condemn Piper for being too soft! No matter how big a bastard you may think a fundamentalist is – there’s always a bigger one.

* But that neither 1) asserts that the God-glorifying evil is necessary, nor 2) asserts that [--] grief at sin is not immoral in an especially theoretical way.

Sorry if the typos confused matters.

On the plausible qualifications, I was actually thinking of something like the distinction between potentia absoluta and ordinata, but now that I think about it that’s not quite what you’re asking… these sorts of distinctions serve more to explain divine action than human responses to it. And they also attempt to explain things that are contingent rather than necessary, and your point is that necessary evil is what presents problems for human grief or anger over evil. So I’m not sure I have any answers for you. Certainly saying that all evil in the end serves to glorify God, yet should be nonetheless be opposed by us, has plenty of scriptural warrant. But that neither 1) asserts that the God-glorifying evil is necessary, nor 2) asserts that we grief at sin is not immoral in an especially theoretical way.

So perhaps I don’t have an answer for you there. Thanks for calling me on it. I’ll keep thinking about the possibilities. It seems to me that various theories of God’s will/power that attempt a plausible theodicy could easily be transformed to explain the appropriate human response to evil, but evil would still need to be understood as necessary rather than simply explainable to fit the situation that you’re describing here. (I’d also note that I think the impulse to articulate a theodicy in the first place is misguided, and by saying that these are “plausible qualifications”, I’m not trying to say that I’m convinced by them)