Samuel Rutherford: 7 Reasons Why God Permits Sin
Posted at Reformation Scotland : This question may sound speculative. But it is not something on which Scripture is silent. It does involve deep mysteries. Yet, it is a practical question that concerns our own experience and understanding of Scripture. We live in a time when iniquity abounds. We need to know that God is not powerless and defeated by it but rather that He overrules it to a greater good and His greater glory. The Bible does not give us a proof text that summarises teaching about this in just one place. Yet through comparing different parts of Scripture with each other we can understand its teaching. The Westminster Confession (6:1; see also Larger Catechism Q19) declares that God “permits” sin, but that it is not a “bare permission” (5:4). A “bare permission” would mean it was an involuntary decision whereas it was possible for God not to permit it. It is an active permission. He has “joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing...
