Quick thoughts on whether we should say God is responsible for evil

Someone asked me about whether we can say God is responsible for sins.  Here’s my quick answer:

I would say “God decree entrance of evil yet He is not responsible for evil”. I think I understand what you are trying to say by responsible in that God’s decree is “universal, eternal and free” (free in the sense that His decree is not contingent upon other things besides His own will and His nature). If any and all of the phrase “universal, eternal and free” capture it better what you are trying to convey I hope it can be used (or modified and better worded than what I’m doing on the fly).

1. To say God is responsible for evil is something I would want to back away from largely because I don’t want people to think God is culpable for evil. Culpable as in at fault.
2. I see God’s decreeing evil to happen also must be kept in mind that there is a creature and Creator distinction. We as creatures are called into account for what we do when we violate God’s laws. But with God no one can call Him into account, no one is above God as judge. He takes life away but is not a murderer, he takes things away but is not a thief, etc.
3. I like the book analogy with the problem of evil. Writers can have characters in their story who are evil but we don’t attribute the attributes of the characters to that of the attributes of the writer nor does the author become responsible in a culpable way concerning the characters’ flaws. John Frame uses this analogy and I think others argues something in this line. So analogously I see there’s something like that with God’s decree.
4. Historically reformed writers back away from saying God is the author of evil for the meaning of “author” in the course of this subject of the problem of evil has the sense that “author” means having that attribute, which of course God is not evil. But it seems when we talk about God as say “author of salvation” we don’t do that way and somehow conclude God needs to be saved. I think Reformed writers have a point about avoiding the term “author” to minimize confusion
5. I enjoy the Ex Lex approach of Gordon Clark and Jay Adam’s. There’s no law for God to obey that comes from God (since He’s the source of morals) which prohibit God from decreeing evil, so one can’t say there’s a law God violate in decreeing evil other agents besides Himself doing evil. Keep in mind evil are done by creatures who are called to obey God’s laws.
6. Presuppositionalists would also points out to argue God is evil makes no sense in an unbelievably worldview