Anonymous Asks (387)

“Why does God allow deception?”

Google the phrase “Why does God allow”. Stop there. The number one answer by a long, long shot is “suffering”. Even my browser’s AI response assumes that’s what my open-ended question is really asking. Second highest is “evil”. Third is “tragedy”, which may or may not have a malevolent component. I often associate tragedy with natural events that hurt people, or things like dying young.

Way down the list is “Why does God allow me to struggle and fail?” Hey, I sympathize.

An Interesting Question

“Why does God allow deception?” wasn’t even on the first ten or fifteen pages of my search. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting question. Think about it: If Satan had not deceived Eve, perhaps sin might never have entered our world.

Well, perhaps. I rather think it would.

I didn’t stop to read all the Christian, religious and philosophical responses to any of these questions why God allows this or that horrible thing to occur, but if I had to guess, I expect a large number of responders would have answered “free will”. Moral or immoral choices with all their natural consequences removed would not be free. If your nose grew two feet longer every time you lied, the effect would be much the same. It would definitely limit your options. I believe God wants people to be able to choose for themselves between good and evil. So do many Christians.

Even large numbers of Calvinists agree in practice, if not in theory. In the abstract, they make a sovereign God accountable for every bad choice in human history. In the real world, they discipline their children for bad behavior. Huh? Makes no sense to me, and probably makes no sense to the child. Inconsistent theology, but still quite a bit better than the alternative.

Free will or moral agency has always been the best answer to most “Why does God allow” questions. Even the most hardened determinist knows at some level that it’s true.

Deception and Agency

But let’s come back to deception. Falling prey to deception does not remove the victim’s moral agency or responsibility. Sinning because we have been deceived about our motives or about the outcome of our actions gives us no excuse in the court of God. It’s better, I suppose, than sinning consciously and rebelliously, but the damage deceived people do to others and to themselves is little different than the damage inflicted by rebellion.

Let’s go back to the original sin. Paul plainly tells Timothy, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”

The Nature of the Deception

So what was Eve deceived about? The serpent spoke truly that in eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree, Eve’s eyes would be open and she would be like God with respect to the knowledge of good and evil. The text plainly states that in the moment they ate, “the eyes of both were opened”. No deception in that bit.

No, the only real lie the serpent told is when he said, “You will not surely die.” That’s the core deception. Eve took the chance he was right, not taking into account the possibility of immediate judgment followed by delayed execution of the sentence. Nor did she take into account that “to die” might be a metaphor for something far worse than the immediate end of her existence, like eternal separation from God and all his blessings entail. Having never seen or experienced death, she was simply not sophisticated enough to consider all the word’s potential implications. Note that having been deceived did not excuse Eve from her disobedience. God laid out the negative consequences for her choice just as he did for Adam and for the serpent.

Who Said the World Was Fair?

Some might ask, how is that fair? Eve may have thought she was doing something good in pursuing knowledge. Eve had no idea sin and death would seep into every crack and corner of human existence because of her disobedience. She could have no clue that creation would fall with her and her husband. She had no idea her new sinful nature would pass down to all her children and contaminate the lives of billions of others. The poor woman didn’t understand the full implications of what she was choosing. How then is it fair to hold her accountable for her choice?

Well, my answer would be very simple. She knew she was breaking the command of God, and that’s all she needed to know to be fully responsible for her actions. God did not sit Adam down and fill him in on all the moral, theological and physical consequences of disobedience prior to Eve’s conversation with the serpent. He didn’t need to. He’s God, after all; the only thing he had to say was, “Don’t do it.” That was more than enough for Adam and Eve, and the answer “But God said” would have saved Eve and everyone since a whole lot of trouble and misery.

The Limits of Human Knowledge

Let’s face it, in asking an infinite God to explain the reasoning behind his commandments to finite man, we are asking for the impossible. Our politicians can’t see the potential implications of their actions, or they wouldn’t engage in ninety percent of them. Your doctor can only guess at whether his treatment suggestions will work for you, or make things worse. Our lawmakers can’t see the loopholes in the laws they write. You and I can’t see the long-term effect of our disciplinary choices on each of our children. No decision in all of human history has ever been made in full knowledge of all the ways it could possibly go wrong. Not one.

Sure, once in a while God graciously tells us why we should not do this thing or that. Most of the time he does not, and it’s a perfectly sensible and fair way for a vastly superior being to deal with the mental, physical and moral equivalent of a house pet or infant.

How many Christian teens or twenty-somethings have entered into unequal yoke relationships with unbeliever, only to find out by hard, personal, irrevocable experience the difference between light and darkness, righteousness and lawlessness, and Christ and Belial? I would argue every single Christian who ever made that awful, stupid choice was deceived to some degree, but every one is fully and completely responsible for the consequences that flow from it.

Not the Issue

God doesn’t need to tell us why. He just needs to tell us “Don’t.” That’s more than good enough. Or at least it should be. It’s not like we lack for examples of deceived people who did incredible damage. They start in Genesis and continue all through scripture. Moreover, they are living all around us.

Furthermore, deception is not the real issue. Eve may have sinned first, but Adam’s sin caused the fall of humanity, not hers. Tragically, Adam was not deceived at all. Scripture tells us that. Take deception out of the world, and you still wouldn’t solve man’s most basic problem, which is rebellion. The satanic “I will.”

No, he won’t, and we won’t either.