Material World - Good or Evil?
Throughout history, different cultures and individual thinkers have had different ideas concerning the nature of the material world, some believing it is good, and others, evil. Plato rejected the world, desiring to escape the shadows of his “cave” and ascend to his precious “Realm of Forms.” Yet his student, Aristotle, embraced this world, exploring the nature of the “material realm.”
In Raphael’s painting, School of Athens, the scene centers around Plato and Aristotle, who are making eye-contact and pointing in contradicting directions. Plato points up, to his “Realm of Forms;” Aristotle points down, to his “material world.”
But what ought we think as Christians and students of the Word? What makes something good? Man was clearly good before the Fall, but has sin completely destroyed any goodness man had? Will man ever return to his pre-Fall state?
In the Beginning
It is necessary to define “good” before a conclusion can be drawn regarding the goodness of the created world or body. What exactly makes something good? John 1 tells us that
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made” (John 1:1-3).
If nothing was made without the Word (that is, the Son), who John tells us is God, then any created thing that is good must receive its goodness from the Word, or God. And, according to Genesis 1, everything that God makes he calls “good,” or, in the case of man, “very good.” So, it seems that all of God’s creation (that is, anything God creates) is good, man especially.
The Fall
But does the Fall so thoroughly corrupt that the world is left devoid of any remnant of the goodness God bestowed upon his creation? The effects of the Fall are weighty. Man was banished from the garden and lost his intimacy with God. The material world suffered, too:
Cursed is the ground because of you [man]; in pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground” (Genesis 3:17b-19a ESV, italics added).
Because of man’s sin, nature (“the ground”) is cursed, and man, who was once God’s steward over his creation, is now a slave to sin, a master whose wages is death (Romans 6:23).
Is Creation Good?
Yet, nature still seems to be good. “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19 ESV).
And how can that which is so thoroughly corrupted by sin, which hates and rejects God such that no trace of good remains, possibly “groan” (Romans 8:23) in “eager longing” for the victory of Christ, the very manifestation of good? Additionally, “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1 ESV).
And, again, how can that which hasn’t even a semblance of good “declare” or “proclaim” the glory of the one from whom all goodness proceeds? Thus, it appears that nature has not lost the goodness it received from God, but what of man?
Is Man Good?
Has man’s inherited sin nature removed any vestige of his former goodness? Scripture certainly describes man as totally depraved (Romans 3:9-20). But consider what it is that made man “very good,” while the rest of creation was declared merely “good.”
The only distinction in Genesis 1 is man’s privilege of being made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26). Man alone is made in God’s image, and man alone has been placed in “dominion. . . over all the earth” (Genesis 1:26). So, it seems man’s image-bearing is the sole reason he is “very good.” Does it not follow, then, that as long as man retains God’s image, man will remain “very good?” In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul writes of man, “He is the image and glory of God” (1 Corinthians 11:7 ESV, italics added). What in man could possibly be God’s glory if all that is in man is evil? Therefore, even after the Fall, man is still made in the image of God, and he is, therefore, still “very good.”
Hope of Redemption?
Scripture leaves no doubt that the Fall changed the state of man, but will man ever return to his pre-Fall state? Will man ever be restored to intimacy with God? Will man ever be loosed from his chains to sin and restored to his servitude to God? He already has! Christ, the “Seed” promised in Genesis 3:15, is come. He lived a sinless life so that He could be our spotless lamb. His death on the Cross served as the substitutionary atonement for all — all who came before and all to come after.
St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the true luminaries of theological history, divided the story of man into four states:
Augustine’s Four States
- posse peccare, posse non peccare (“able to sin, able not to sin”)
- posse peccare, non posse non peccare (“able to sin, not able not to sin”)
- posse peccare, posse non peccare (“able to sin, able not to sin”)
- posse non peccare, non posse peccare (“able not to sin, not able to sin”)
Each state corresponds to the following conditions of man:
- pre-Fall man
- fallen man
- redeemed man, which is the same as pre-Fall man
- glorified man
So, when man accepts Christ and receives the Spirit, he returns to the same state as before the Fall. Consider Paul’s “golden chain of salvation” in Romans 8:
For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:29-30).
On the Cross, Christ justified those whom the Father predestined and called. And the glorification of man will occur at Christ’s Second Coming, which from God’s perspective, is “as good as done” (hence the past tense, glorified).
It is illogical to declare evil what God has made and declared good. Scripture clearly states that God intended his creation to be “good.” If the world is absolutely evil, then God must have failed, and, consequently, cannot be omnipotent. At Creation, God made the world good. Sin entered the world in the Fall, but it did not overcome or thwart the “good, pleasing, and perfect” will of God. Scripture provides ample evidence that, even after the Fall, nature and Creation, though flawed, are still good. Christ covers the blemishes and makes his elect spotless. And He will perfect his chosen when He returns.