Tag-Archive for » Isaiah 45:6-7 «

Biblical Antonyms

Sunday, December 19th, 2010 | Author:

I YHWH and none else, forming light and creating darkness; making peace and creating evil – I YHWH do all these things. Isaiah 45:6-7

Peace – What is an antonym?  Answer: the opposite.  The antonym of black is white.  The antonym of fast is slow.  The antonym of leader is follower.  But when it comes to the Bible, our usual expectations about antonyms are often misplaced.  What is the opposite of love?  In common culture, the answer is “hate,” but in the Bible the answer is “apathy.”  What is the antonym of sin?  We might say, “holiness,” but the Bible suggests the answer is “obedience.”  What is the antonym of “grace?”  It’s not “law,” that’s for sure.  And what is the antonym of evil?  If you thought, “good,” you might be leaning on the tree trunk of the Genesis story.  Isaiah suggests something else.  The opposite of evil is not “good;” it is “peace.”  Why?

In order to understand why the opposite of ra is shalom, not tov, we need to go back to Genesis.  God created order.  Order in God’s creation is an expression of harmony, balance and integration.  In God’s creation, this order leads directly to the well-being of everything created and the fullest possible relationship with the Creator.  In the Bible, this is called shalom, peace.  The introduction of evil into this harmonious existence brings about chaos, the disruption of shalom.  Our culture considers good and evil to be ethical opposites, but the Bible views peace and evil as ontological opposites.  The antonym “peace and evil” describes the existence of the world, not the potential of ethical choices.  Peace and evil precede the ethical choices of good and evil.  Even in the Genesis account, good and evil stand as possible but not actual antonyms.  They only become actual ethical descriptions of human choices after the choice is made.  But shalom exists as an actual (ontological) fact from the moment of creation.

You might say, “All this is interesting philosophical discussion, but what difference does it make to me today?”  Ah, it makes all the difference.  The Bible tells us that evil is not a part of creation, a fact of existence.  It is the disintegration of creation, the collapse of what was originally and essentially at peace.  Furthermore, this implies that the end of the game is not the Good, the True and the Beautiful (as the Greeks thought), but rather shalom, the state of the world where the lion lays down with the lamb.  Our direction is toward the past, a return to the Garden of delight in peaceful harmony with itself and with its Creator.  God is restoring peace on earth because everything started in peace.  When I apply this fact of creation to my world today, I am directed to pursue peace.  I am called to be the peacemaker, the one who brings the world into harmony with its Creator.  I am challenged to stand against all the forces of chaos, disintegration, separation and dissention.  I am exhorted to seek unity.  Where I find brokenness, I am asked to heal.  Where I find heartache, I am asked to comfort.  Where I find schism, I am asked to repair.  Peace is my project.  It begins with peace with God and extends itself toward every aspect of His creation.

Of course, God’s peace does not mean peaceful co-existence with what brings evil (chaos).  It means peaceful harmony with what He planned and desires.  And that comes with a price.  But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Topical Index:  peace, evil, shalom, ra, good, tov, Isaiah 45:6-7

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: , , , , , ,  | 8 Comments

The Problem Of Evil

Saturday, December 18th, 2010 | Author:

I YHWH and none else, forming light and creating darkness; making peace and creating evil – I YHWH do all these things. Isaiah 45:6-7 (translation: M. Buber)

Creating – Where did evil come from?  Such a simple question.  Such an enormously difficult answer, if there even is an answer.  One of the greatest impediments to belief in a wholly good God is the existence of evil.  For centuries theologians have struggled to find a resolution to the problem.  How can a good God be the final creator of all things and yet there be evil in the universe?  Usually we try to make a very big dent with an explanation about free choice and sin.  But some things just don’t seem to be explained by these facts.  Some things just seem too hideous to be accounted for by human failure.  When pressed really hard, theologians turn to this passage in Isaiah, claiming that even though we can’t understand how this can be true, the Bible clearly states that God is not in competition with some other equally powerful demonic force.  Evil does not have independent existence.

But maybe the appeal to Isaiah isn’t quite right.  Maybe Isaiah’s cultural setting has more to say about this statement than the hoped-for resolution of the theological problem of evil.  Martin Buber thinks so.

Buber suggests that Isaiah’s statement must be understood in the context of the 4th Century BC.  In that culture, Babylonian astral gods were the creators of light and darkness and the progenitors of the second-order divine beings who caused good and evil to exist.  These astral gods belonged to a tribal hierarchy of divine entities, ruling over the fate of men and requiring appeasement before showing favor.  Isaiah destroys this pagan belief by claiming that “YHVH is absolutely different, as He reveals Himself to Cyrus in the word of the prophet.  He creates by Himself not only the cosmic opposition pair light-darkness, but also that which constitutes the human sphere, peace-evil.  That shalom, “peace,”  “welfare,” and not tov, “good,” is here contrasted with ra, “evil,” is obviously in order to keep away the notions of ethical opposition.  Evil in the sense of wickedness comes into the world only as a result of resistance to God; but evil in the sense of adversity and affliction  . . . is fashioned by God Himself  for purposes of His leadership of the world, without gaining thereby the same standing as peace, since in the last resort this rules alone.”[1]

It’s worth noting that the verb for “create” in this statement is bara’, a verb used exclusively with God as the subject (cf. Genesis 1:1 and Isaiah 65:17).  Here it is applied only to the negatives “darkness” and “evil.”  “Light” and “peace” use the verbs yatsar and asah.  The emphasis is theological.  No pagan god or gods bring about any conditions of opposition in the cosmos or in the human realm.  God is God alone!  He is the only divine creator.

In the end, Isaiah’s statement does not answer the question, “Where did evil come from?”  It stands as a declaration of sovereignty in a cultural of pagan polytheism.  It’s focus is on the immediate need to overthrow idolatry.  Isaiah’s statement cannot be lifted from its cultural setting and forced into a box within the plan of the systematic theologian.  In the end, we discover that God is in history, interacting with the needs of the day, involving Himself in the issues at hand.  The Holy One of Israel is not the God of the eternal “present,” far above the petty concerns of human beings.  God creates in history; a history that is found in the realm of men, filled with the issues of men.  If we want to meet God, we will have to dress for the occasion in the garb of the day of His revelation.

Topical Index:  create, bara’, evil, darkness, peace, history, Isaiah 45:6-7

[1] Martin Buber, The Prophetic Faith, p. 213.

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: , , , , , ,  | 16 Comments