An Open Letter to John Piper

Dr. Piper,

I recently began reading your book Desiring God. I thoroughly appreciate your emphasis on Christian hedonism, and hope Christians everywhere will realize our greatest joy is not from God but in God, as you point out. I also appreciate your love for C.S. Lewis, particularly his sermon “The Weight of Glory." His writings have long been an invaluable influence to me.

However, I also have great concern about some points you argue in Appendix 3, “Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?” I believe the problem of evil and how it relates to the sovereignty of God is one of the most important issues Christians have to wrestle with, so I was eager to hear your perspective on this, as well as that of Jonathan Edwards. I don’t doubt Edwards was one of the most brilliant theologians in American history, and certainly God worked through him in powerful ways in the Great Awaking, but I find his thoughts and yours on the way God ordains evil deeply disturbing, and quite honestly, inconsistent with the overall picture of God given in the Bible.

If my understanding is correct, the main thrust of Edwards’ argument you cite in the end of this section is that evil is itself a part of God’s glory:

It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same
reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that
all parts of his glory should shine forth…It is not proper that one glory should be
exceedingly manifested, and another not at all…


And that God ordains evil so that the contrast of evil against His goodness will allow people to fully recognize and appreciate God’s glory:

Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness,
justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and
punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very
imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others
do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them;
nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.

Please understand, I do not question yours or Edwards’ motives; I believe fully that you (as was he) are a man of fervent commitment to Christ and one committed to authority of his Word. Indeed, it is that realization that most deeply troubles me about the arguments you both propose. An argument that seems so hard for many Christians to grasp and so inconsistent with the way so many understand the character of God would be much less troublesome if it did not come from such devoted, and otherwise trustworthy Christian leaders.

The idea that evil is an integral part of God’s glory, serving to highlight other parts of his character, strikes me as an ivory tower philosophy which is only as plausible as it is distant from specific realities of evil. I don’t think this idea can be held to in the teeth of true wickedness.

Though there are many more—overwhelmingly more—examples of evil, three that I think give us a clear-eyed sense of the real gravity of the issue are these:

In recent months in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, militiamen have raided villages and used rape as an unconventional weapon on civilian women. There are many women who have been brutally raped with gun barrels, and as a result, suffer from perpetual incontinence and have trouble walking. Because of the cultural stigma such disabilities bring, some of them have been shunned by their communities.

The philosopher, Eleanore Stump, references the following scenario that took place during the war in Bosnia: “A young Muslim mother in Bosnia was repeatedly raped in front of her husband and father, with her baby screaming on the floor beside her. When her tormentors seemed finally tired of her, she begged permission to nurse the child. In response, one of the rapists swiftly decapitated the baby and threw the head in the mother’s lap.”

In 1937-38, the Japanese military seized the city of Nanking, China and killed over 360,000 prisoners of war and civilians. People were mutilated. Tens of thousands of women were raped. There are accounts of babies being taken from their mothers, tossed into the air and caught on the end of bayonets.

Are you proposing, Dr. Piper, that these things are in some way parts of God’s glory that “should be exceedingly manifested,” and that “the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.”

Would you say this—would you even believe it silently—if you had been present to witness these atrocities? Would you comfort the families of these victims with the quotes from Edwards?

With the examples above clearly in view, are you telling us that these things are exactly what God meant to happen, and that in seeing them, we are in some way seeing part of God’s character?

You say that Edwards’ answer to the question “Why does God ordain that there be evil?” is “stunning.” It is stunning indeed!

Another point in this section of the book that troubles me is your view of the Christians who don’t accept the determinist view you propose:

What I have seen in more than twenty years of pastoral ministry and six years of
teaching experience before that is that people who waver with uncertainty over the
problem of God’s sovereignty in the matter of evil usually do not have a God-entranced
worldview. For them, now God is sovereign, and now he is not. Now He is in control,
and now He is not. Now, when things are going well, He is good and reliable, and when
they go bad, well, maybe He’s not. Now He’s the supreme authority of the universe, and
now He is in the dock with human prosecutors peppering Him with demands that He
give an account of Himself. (pg. 337)


This is a strawman, and I can’t believe a man of your intelligence and experience is not fully aware of that. Those with an Arminian view do not hold that God’s sovereignty is compromised by the thought that God allows his people freedom. God, in His sovereignty, allowing freedom to those He created, can be seen to display his sovereignty and loving character all the more because He could have withheld freedom from us, but chose to give it because it is necessary to experience the highest kind of love, which He most wants between us and Himself. If such is the case, it is not God who is responsible for evil, but people who have abused their God-given freedom.

You end this section by admonishing us Evangelicals “who are seeking the glory of God, look well to the teaching of your churches and your schools. But most of all, look well to your souls,” warning against those who try to “absolve [God] by denying His foreknowledge of sin or by denying His control of sin.” In warning us to guard our souls, I take the implication to be that those who deviate from the determinism you propose could be in danger of damnation.

Though I don’t espouse the specific philosophy (open theism) you are critiquing here, I find your remarks to be terribly unhelpful to the greater Evangelical mission. I live in central Utah, and am among a small group of Christians who are trying to communicate Christ to a deeply non-Christian culture. As you may know, one tenant of Mormonism is that Protestants are a hopelessly fragmented group with no sense of their own identity, characterized by constant infighting with each faction condemning the other for disagreeing with its own unique interpretations.

Condemning people for disagreeing with a deterministic philosophy as it relates to one of Christianity’s most difficult questions goes along way in reinforcing the Mormon misconception.

There is also great irony in a warning against unorthodox teaching coming from someone who teaches that Jesus didn’t really die for the sins of the whole world, but only for an elect number.

My hope is that the Calvinist-Arminian debate will be a discussion among Christian siblings. One of the reasons this debate continues as it has is that the Bible is somewhat ambiguous on the matter. There are many passages which, when taken in isolation, can be used to support each side. So it will not do for any of us to give a “This-is-what-the-bible-says” buttressing to our side of the argument, and it would be shortsighted and unbecoming of sincere followers of Christ to denounce each other as heretics for not agreeing on this issue. As important as the philosophical debate between determinism and freedom is, neither of these are non-negotiable points of Christian orthodoxy.

In Christ,

Mike Mitchell