Question for Christians

If he did create evil, does this not make him fully responsible for its existence? I don't see any way around this. It has nothing to do with free choice. Free individuals can only choose from options that are real. The entity that created an option has to be considered responsible for its existence. What is the alternative?

 

Your theories all fair enough

Apart from the fact it points back to the original question, why did he create evil? Why did he have to judge, and challenge the human race in a potentially harmful way.

There is no answer to the question. Whether or not 'God' created evil for a beneficial purpose is irrelevant to the fact that he did- and in the same breath Christians insist he is the almighty good.

That's like me being a chef and insisting my menu is the greatest, but sticking a duffer on there to really make some of the rest seem better. That menu, is now not perfect or the greatest.

That was an awful comparison but go with it lol

 

This is a very interesting point! If man is made in God's image, why does man drift towards evil when God is 100% good?

I think we need to look closer at what exactly is the meaning of being created in his image. It certainly does not necessarily mean an exact duplicate, after all a Picasso copy is not even close to the worth of an original Picasso! In the same way a photograph (or artist’s portrait painted on canvas) of me would be in my image and reflect some of my characteristics, but it would never even come close to being all that I am or be able to do all that I can do.

Therefore I would suggest that what the Bible means is that in some ways we are like God, we are similar to God (though not on His level) in the following ways:

1. Man has rational intelligence. He has ability to reason, invent, communicate, etc., in ways far beyond animals. His ability in this regard allows him to communicate with God and understand God's will for him in a way that no animal ever could.

2. Man has a will, and a power to choose. He is a free moral agent. He is able, without absolute controls (like a robot), to choose between alternatives and determine which course he will pursue. He is therefore accountable before God to make the choices and pursue the goals that God instructs him to.

3. Man has emotions. He can experience joy, love, anger, hatred, sorrow and many other feelings. The Bible also attributes such feelings to God.

4. Man has a conscience. He is able, not only to distinguish right from wrong, but also to have an inherent sense of guilt when he has done wrong and a sense of approval when he has done right.

5. Man has a spirit nature which has the opportunity to be with God in eternity.

But here is where we are very different from our Creator, unlike us, God is holy, righteous and true, and He would never do anything inconsistent with his perfect nature, so God cannot sin. Since holiness, righteousness, and God's other perfections are who God is, if God were to sin, He would cease to be God.

However we are not gods and we are not holy, we are fallen, we have inherited Adam's sin nature and we therefore find sin very tempting. That is why we need a Saviour to save us from ourselves and bring us back into fellowship with God.

Certainly God could have programmed us to never choose sin, but then we would not be free as we would not be making a free choice so wouldn't that defeat the reason we were give free will in the first place?

 

And who made up the rule that only short answers are valid answers?

 

God did not create evil; He merely created the possibility for evil by giving men and angels free will.

When men and angels exercised their free will by disobeying God, they actualized the possibility for evil.

God therefore cannot be blamed for evil. He is only responsible for creating the possibility of evil. By giving angels and men free will, He created the possibility of evil.

Fallen angels and fallen men are responsible for evil through their abuse of free will, we misuse our freedom to destroy ourselves and nature. Thus, our own choices sometimes produce evil over good. It is impossible for God to have created man with free will and evil not be a consequence.

 

I think what you are missing is the seriousness of the offence is increased by the importance of the person offended against. It is one thing to insult a beggar in the street and another to insult a King or President (which in many countries will see you immediately hauled in front of a firing squad and executed!)

Hell is a place of punishment and people are punished because they've done wrong. God, as a totally righteous being, cannot let even one sin pass unpunished. He must be just, that is his nature. Every man will be held accountable for any act of disobedience against God's law.

However, God is not only a just God, He is a gracious and merciful God, too. So He provides a way that we can escape this judgment by allowing that Jesus takes our punishment for us.

Jesus is like the close relative or dear friend who sees you have a debt you cannot pay, so He pays the debt instead of you. Once your debt is paid, you are considered clean before God and can now have fellowship with Him. God maintains his righteousness and justice because the penalty has been paid, while still showing His grace and mercy.

However we can use our free will to reject that offer and we can elect to pay for our own sins. This is a dumb choice because it takes an eternity to pay for just one sin let alone a lifetime of sinning. No amount of suffering in this life or the next will pay for them, nor will all the good works we try to do. Only one thing will pay for our sins on our part and that is eternal separation from God.

Eternal separation from the God you rejected results in eternal torment because when you reject God you reject all His goodness. If you have nothing that is good (no rest, no comfort, no peace) then eternal torment is the result, there is no other option.

God allows us to taste of both in this life so we can make an informed decision about where we wish to spend the next life. It is unfair to ask how God can send people to hell when He's done all He can to stop them from going there!

He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die in our place, to suffer instead of us, so we can have a gift of eternal life without having to work for it. He has given us His written word and His church to point the way (although many times imperfectly in regards to the latter.)

If God is the author of all good and people have the free will to follow Him or separate from Him, then it must follow that people will suffer if they don't choose to follow him and they must accept the consequences of their choice.

 

I think God does take responsibility for creating the potential for evil and that he would not have allowed it unless the ultimate amount of good that will result from it will far and away outweigh the bad and that it was the only way that that ultimate amount of good could be actualized.

 

I agree! If there was only a choice of good then there is no choice at all.

For it to be meaningful, good things must result when we freely choose good and pain and suffering must follow when we choose bad otherwise there would be no difference between good and evil and no reason to choose one over the other.

 

This I grant and I am ready to assume the consequences, for being fallen from the Garden of Eden, because I believe that suffering was an Act in itself in finite deliberation that I cannot be sure of already at existing. I only now take vigilance onto my subject of concern.

 

What if your menu did not contain any "duffers" and the problem was some of your customers ignored the chef's recommendations (and common sense) and put sugar on their fries and salt in their coffee and then complained it tasted bad?

Meanwhile, other customers came every day and always ate the high cholesterol items that were meant to be a once in a while treat and then blamed the chef when they suffered from blocked arteries and some customers refused to eat anything at all and eventually died of starvation.

Surely the fault is with the customers misusing their freedom to make all the wrong choices?

 

I wrote up a long response last night on this topic, and deleted it in the midst of a crises phone call from a friend, but I think this question is a good one.

I believe the question itself has to be looked at more directly, because it is based on a number of conclusions that I do not agree with.

The first of which seems to be evil as a force. There is power in darkness, but only in that people surrender themselves to it. And darkness, sin, or evil, is just that the lack of the presence of God.

And this is a huge concept that sounds kooky to speak on here, because it's trying to explain something that is conceptually bigger than words can contain, and that is that those in service to Christ, the ultimate expression of Love, are not necessarily the same people who call themselves Christians and vice-versa. There are some that definitely cross into both fields, but one is not the other.

In that same way there are those in service to Love that will never know the name of Christ but have already received His spirit.

Further I believe God is Love, and that this is the message that Christ came to teach us, to enter into experiential relationship with the great known of Love.

Because of these core beliefs in my soul, I cannot subscribe to the concept of God condemning 7 out of 10 of His children, or any such thing. Christ travels many paths to reach the hearts of his children.

In addition because He is just and loving I cannot assume to understand the verdict of his judgement. Nor can I guess how any being on this planet will be judged. Nor is it my place. My place is simply as a follower to live in love and spread love and joy wherever I go to those I come in contact with, to be the love that Christ spoke of.

Can we as human beings even put ourselves in the head space to understand the judgement from the perspective of God? I don't know that it is possible. It is like ants understanding that they are on a planet named Earth floating around the sun in space. It's so beyond the conception of an ant. In the same way I imagine the judgement of the Lord to be beyond my ability to even think I understand.

 

Nice post Changing Tide. Very well said. I am fully aware that when I postulate on what God is thinking or why he does as he does it is only vanity. There is no way to know God's mind and we are silly to even try. But try we must because we have the gift of reason. Keeping this in mind ------
If you take a line and extend it in the past for eternity - and then take a line and extend toward the future for eternity - and then take our time of life on this earth and lay it on this line - it would be invisible - minute in comparison to eternity - and yet many believe a just God would allow a soul to suffer to the end of that eternity (if there was an end) for an act that occured on that invisible spot - can this be a just God? Common sense and my understanding of Christ as God come to earth recoils at the very idea. It makes no sense when tied to compassion and grace.

 

Ddoright - I like where you're going with this and think we're seeing a lot on the same page.

Of course I think it's interesting to speculate and come up with theories and arguments for and against certain things. I have to at times sit and questions some very core beliefs that I've been taught my whole life and compare what I am told to scripture and bring it all before Christ to try and make some sense of it ... I mean, I guess that's just the process of being human.

It does open radical questions on the love of Christ and the compassion of God that creates some uncomfortable tension within a certain sect of follower.

*whomever believes in the legalism of Christ will surely be able to find convictions all around them on reasons why group x and group y are going to hell for sure and such.

*whomever who believes in the grace of Christ instead will begin to find reasons how all being can be redeemed.

* - Large assumptions on my part, but that's kind of how I feel the energy flowing. Grace creates a loving feeling of the true redemptive power of Christ.

It gets too easy to get into this "us-them" mentality with religion at times. I believe this so I am right. You believe that so you are wrong.

I think it's because people don't want to look at the possibility of more than one religion being right. Actually, screw that, religion gets funny regardless of how I slice it. Maybe spiritual truths carries the more correct energy I'm looking for?
People don't want to look at the possibility of more than one spiritual truth being right.
What if the Buddha and the Christ were actually the same spiritual being? Or different beings from the same God?
What if Christ came as man to die on a cross, but also as a prince to renounce all worldly value and lift mankind out of suffering through slavery to lie, want and delusion?
What if in calling out to Allah you are calling out to God who is also Christ?

What if these are names and words we've given to things to hide the true power and freedom God can give? What if Christ was his particular way of reaching out to a particular group of people, and to another group of people he reached out in other ways?

All conjecture, of course. Like I said, it is definitely fun to think about and reason on.

I need to spend more time with Christ and in his word to sort out a lot of these issues. I'm still young in my walk, and there is so much more to learn.

 

I have had classes dedicated to this question. Despite extensive discussion, I have not found a satisfying answer. I have come to a few conclusions.

Firstly, I feel that evil exists whether or not we know why. Therefore, I find it mostly fruitless to think about it because we will never know the answer, atleast while we are on earth.

Secondly, I find that people who need to answer to the question do so for personal reasons, possibly to provide comfort in the face of tragedy. Maybe one day I will find the need to contemplate this question but even when I do, it will be only to ratinoalize whatever pain I might feel.

Some other people who have contempleted the Problem of Evil is Saint Augustine and Rabbi Kushner.

 

Evil doesn't exist. It seems barbaric and cruel and awful to say as much; but against the infinity of time and space there is no good or evil. We, as a people, must stop comparing a given event to any other event...must simply accept each instant as a unique thing unlike any other.

 

I can certainly understand why God justly punishes those you do wrong to hopefully lead them in the right direction, but why would God punish for eternity? What purpose does it fullfill especially since it's his desire that eveyone be saved?

 

Evil is the result of bad choices and is not a creation of God.

There is no such thing as a "pit of fiery hell" where "the vast majority of his own creation will suffer eternal damnation". The dead are in a kind of dreamless sleep and are conscious of nothing and thus a "pit of fiery hell" would be pointless.

 

That sounds good to me.

 

The dissolution of the body and the cessation of certain sensational effects can be documented, the end of consciousness cannot.

 

how comes the sign language for Father Son Holy G are different than the Sign of the cross..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ0SFdg7IJs"]YouTube- Gloria in ASL, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit