Did god create evil?

[Dad Ernie]

Greetings Trust in the Lord,

I say:  That is what I am trying to tell you that God did create evil but HE DOES NOT COMMIT AN EVIL ACT.

Please use some reason here. God CANNOT do anything that goes against His nature, and that includes creating "evil". Since God defines evil as it is revealed in pride, lust, greed, disobedience to His commands, et al., it becomes obvious that God does not and cannot do any of these things, including CREATING them. Consider this verse:

Genesis 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

With the follow up verse of:

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Please note that God's purpose is to do good and even out of the "evil" of Satan or man, is already prepared with a plan to use it for our good and His glory.

Blessings,

Dad Ernie

[godrulz]

Ernie: Again, clear and concise and in my mind unrefutable and faithful to the Word and God's obvious character and attributes. Right on!

YYUR YYUB UCUR YY4 Me

(Too wise you are, too wise you be, you see you are too wise for me)

[Guest shilou]

So you guys what your saying is God created Satan with no foreknowledge of the havoc he would create? Your saying that God had no idea that this would happen and He created man thinking everything was going to go great and then Lucifer snuck this in on Him so He had to scramble for this grand scheme to reconcile man to Him? Is there some scriptural proof of all of this? Is there some scripture that says evil never existed before Lucifer's fall or what we know of it?  Seriously think about this, God could have stopped all of this before it got to the perfect creation He started here, or He could have stopped it at Adam and Eve. He could have just done away with Satan and His followers right from the onset and none of this would have taken place. Why didn't He? I understand the reason to be that God desires a relationship with us where we make a choice to love Him as oppossed to have to, or just follow along without knowing anything else. There is a clue here in the Pharoh of Egypt he was created for the very purpose to be evil, to be so prideful that he would risk even the loss of his own son and all the other first born Egyptian children. God says He hardened Pharoh's heart for this very purpose to bring glory unto Himself. God created Lucifer capable of being prideful, capable of feeding so far into that pride that he would risk losing heaven to feed it. God knew this and Lucifer was built up in glory and he was beautiful and decked out with jewels and his pride swelled. He was created for the very purpose that he fulfills. He was created to bring a breach between God and us so we then could make a choice. Is this uncomfortable? Well it should be, and when you realize that God could only give us a choice by creating an enemy then you truly have come to the point where you realize how very small we are. But you also come to realize how much God wants us to love Him only through our own free will, and with that God, this great and glorious creator capable of putting the planets in motion just wants to be loved in a way we want to be loved. Maybe He was just sick of beings falling at His feet just because He was God, so He created a choice. He created His own enemy. He created Him for a purpose just as He creates everything for a purpose. what you guys are seriously saying is God created Satan with no idea that he would one day be capable of having his pride get out there, and because God had no idea it would go like this He threw all this attention and stuff at him and whoops I made a mistake one of my angels went off the deep end and got the humans involved, now I have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to fix this. You guys are having a hard time thinking God created this situation, I'm having a hard time thinking that God made a mistake.

In Yashua's love

Shilou

[IslandRose]

Here is my understanding of this matter.

[Dad Ernie]

Greetings IslandRose,

You have a good grasp of the subject.

Shilou,

what you guys are seriously saying is God created Satan with no idea that he would one day be capable of having his pride get out there

Are you a Calvinist Shilou? It would appear so from your conversation. Which would mean that you believe in TULIP & OSAS, or a modification thereof.

By God having "foreknowledge" of an event does not mean that He is either an author of it, creator of it, or does he participate in it in any way.

He knew you were going to "sin" before you even did it - whatever that was. He did not issue a command to put "sin" in your heart, but because of your earthly nature, made of the same dust that Adam was, you thought of yourself in earthly terms just as Adam perceived when Satan said: "You surely shall not die." or "it is good to make one wise." This was the deception Satan put over on man. God knew through His "foreknowledge" that these things were going to happen and He had already mapped out a plan from "before the foundation of the world", that Jesus would die for your sins and mine. God would make good come out of the evil that Satan intended.

We are not saying that God did not know that evil or sin would rear its ugly head, but instead planned for that in advance.

If what you were saying is true, then we and all of creation would be mindless robots. Robots cannot love as God loves us. A person has to be free (free will) to either accept or reject God's love and to love freely or not to love at all, before love has any meaning.

Your actions are inexcusable, as are mine. Your sin deserves the death penalty, as does mine. If God had perpetrated sin in us then it would be He that would be the guilty one. But as it is, we are guilty, every one, as we stand before the Lord on Judgment day. It is by our own sin and not God's that will condemn us, and either we accept the free grace that God offers in Jesus Christ so that we might live, or else we shall die.

Blessings,

Dad Ernie

[Guest On Fire]

Hey everyone!

Godrulz & Dad Ernie, you say that God could not have created anything evil.  So tell me this then, God could not have created the lake of fire then, because God would not create anyplace He would not want them to go.

The Logical answer is this:  God Created Everything, Period

If God can not create everything, then He would not be God!

think about that one!!!

[Ovedya]

Hey everyone!

Godrulz & Dad Ernie, you say that God could not have created anything evil.

[godrulz]

OF, The Lake of Fire is not evil, but the beings who end up there are. It is a place of separation from God and comes out of God's righteous judgement and holiness (your argument is weak and irrelevant to this issue). It is not eternal, but was created for the devil and demons WHEN they rebelled. It was not intended for man originally, but it is now wicked men's destiny also IF they rebel like Satan.

Island, your 'simplicity' is right on. Let's not overcomplicate the obvious here.

Shilou, you misunderstand or misrepresent our position (reread it slowly). God was not surprised by rebellion and had a contingency plan in His great wisdom and knowledge from the creation of the world. Your argument is also weak and does not necessitate that God creates evil. Evil spoiled things, but the only alternatives would be to wipe everything out when it happened (He didn't) and start over OR originally create beings as robots without free will and the ability to enter a love relationship with the triune God (He didn't). God felt (in

[Guest harvester]

God rulz, do you think that we are saying that God has sin in him, just because he created evil?

[Guest shilou]

Island Rose

Romans 9:16 It does not, therefore, depend on the man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh:"I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom he wants to harden. Keep reading that chapter and pay attention to what it says. God made some to display His power through wrath. God also shows His glory through saving us from evil that of Satan and that of our own desires. Now had God never created this situation how could He show His glory? All through out the OT God allows the Israelites to have their heads, and everytime they get themselves into a situation that only God can save them from. Kind of sounds like us doesn't it? Over time and lessons learned we come to acknowledge our absolute need of God and in the process we also fall desparately in love with Him because He can harden whom He chooses and on us He chose to show mercy. Now that is pretty spectacular.

When I came to this understanding especially with the story in Exodus I was well how shall I say quite shocked. I mean what happens to those whom He chooses to harden? At some point in all of it I had to say ok God I love you and accept you just the way you are without trying to fit you into the box of who I want you to be. And with this knowledge my gratitude for the gift of Grace I have been given has grown. God is the potter and I am the clay and who am I to decide how He should do things. People want to deny these things because it is uncomfortable well you can't deny it because God says he will harden whom He choose's for His own purposes and to say anything else is to say God is a liar. Had God not created a choice there would be no choice to make for Him or for us. All of scripture, our entire salvation rests on that choice that we make and that He makes about us.

Read the story in Job, I mean come on that man lost his entire family all because Satan challenged God. Not because of anything he did wrong, not because he fell into temptation but simply so that God could prove Satan wrong. Put that into your life, your children, your spouse, your home and everything in it, top it off with disease. Often times we tend to think in terms of just the words of the Bible without stopping to think how would I have reacted in that situation. We don't see the mind boggling pain that man went through so that God could show Satan he was wrong. Now this doesn't fit into the feel good stuff that people want to believe about God, but it's the truth. that's called loving God on His terms not mine. God created Satan knowing full well he was capable of evil. Just like in God rulz example of the car, it was created with full knowledge that it was capable of movement. It was created with a purpose just as Satan and the rest of Gods creation was.

And God rulz I have no idea what a calvinist believes in, I have never read up on it. I only use scripture and guidance by the Holy Spirit.

In Yashua's love

Shilou