This is an excerpt from a chapter by D.A. Carson in “Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace” entitled, “Reflections on Assurance.” We had to read this for a class. My good friend Phil praised this paragraph to me and I join in his exclamations. Carson discusses how God relates to good and evil while being sovereign over both:

[A]lthough God, by virtue of the fact that he is sovereign, stands behind both good and evil (e.g., God can be portrayed as the one who incites David to number the people, the one who sends a strong delusion so that people will believe the lie, the one who sends nations to war, the one of whom Romans 8:28 is predicated), he stands behind good and evil asymmetrically. He stands behind evil in such a way that none of it takes place outside the limits of his sovereign sway, but so that no evil is chargeable to him; he stands behind good in such a way that all of it is credited to him. Do not ask me to explain how this can be so: these are components of the biblical “givens,” perspectives that the biblical writers teach or assume. (pg. 271-272)