Paul’s letter to the Romans on universal sin

Sources

• Romans 3:23 (NASB) (opens in a new tab)

  Romans 3:23, NASB

Objections & responses

“If God ended all evil tonight, who would be left standing?” is a trick. God could end child cancer without ending me. It conflates moral evil in people with natural evil that has nothing to do with anyone’s sin.

A fair criticism of the framing. The who would be left point answers one specific demand, why doesn’t God just eliminate evil people, by reminding the questioner that the line runs through everyone. It is not an answer to why doesn’t God prevent natural suffering, and it should not be offered as one. The natural-evil question is the harder one and belongs with the free will and creation-groaning material, with an honest note that it is where the Christian answer is least complete.

Turning the problem of evil into a mirror shifts blame onto the sufferer. Telling a rape victim that evil runs through her too isn’t a response to the problem of evil; it’s an evasion of it.

Used on a victim, it is cruel and misapplied, and that needs saying plainly. Romans 3:23 answers the person who demands that God destroy the wicked, not the person who is suffering. The point of the mirror is that the demand God should stop all evil now is usually made by someone who has not counted themselves among those God would have to stop, and Jesus’s own teaching about the log in one’s own eye makes that point. It is a response to a philosophical demand, not a pastoral response to grief, and the two must never be confused.

Appears under 1 claim in this case

• Scripture presents evil as running through every person, and God’s delay in ending it as patience that leaves room for people to turn back.