Did god create evil?

[traveller]

Traveller: What are your thoughts, feelings, insights, conclusions so far on this topic?

I don't know that I can relate to you exactly what my thoughts are, but I will attempt.

Upfront, I will say that I do not believe that God created evil. I do think that He created the tree that was able to produce evil. That's what I think evil is anyway, a byproduct of satan. Just as God's nature is Goodness and Truth, His fruit is all that is holy and good. satan is the opposite and bears bad fruit, which is evil. Evil, my opinion, is the action of destroying the good that God created.

I'm sorry, but that is the best that I can do at this point in my walk. I tend to keep things simple. I know that without the blood of Jesus to wash away my sins, that I cannot be allowed in to see my Father. He can not look upon sin. So, did He create something that He can not physically tolerate?

Something else. I fully admit that when I come across something of God's character that I do not understand, the fault is fully within me. For instance, if anything causes me to question God's motives, the error is in my thinking or my lack of knowledge, and not in God's actions.

[Dad Ernie]

Greetings Godrulz,

On Kumar's outline:

2. So God knew evil would occur when he created the world (I say He knew it as a possibility, not certainty).

I generally liked what Kumar had to say, but if the bolded inserted comment is his, I would have to disagree with that particular phrase. God MUST know EVERYTHING with an ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, in order to have done this:

John 17:24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

Ephesians 1:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

1 Peter 1:20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

God had His plan all worked out BEFORE the foundation of the world telling me of His perfect unchangeable knowledge of all things.

Dad Ernie

[godrulz]

Ernie:

I bought Kumar's book and it is glossy with nice pictures. It would be a good gift for those who are skeptical of the claims of Christianity.

Kumar's outline was from my handwritten notes. Your bolded addition in brackets was my thoughts as you know (I stated that in fairness to Kumar). His argument is based on God's absolute foreknowledge, believing as you do (I think his principles work with both our views).

I agree with you that God had His plan all worked out before creation in His mind. We differ in that I see it as a possible plan that was only activated after the Fall. You would see it as a certain plan because of His absolute foreknowledge. The plan became actual when God cursed man and Satan and prophesied the coming Messiah. It was finalized with the cross.

I will summarize some more of Kumar's thoughts when I have time.

I trust Nancy is well. I still pray for her. PM me if there is info. that would let me pray more specifically for her.  God bless.

[Dad Ernie]

Greetings Godrulz,

We differ in that I see it as a possible plan that was only activated after the Fall.

The key is the word BEFORE the foundations of the world. This meant certainly before the "fall".

I will summarize some more of Kumar's thoughts when I have time.

I am looking forward to it.

I trust Nancy is well. I still pray for her. PM me if there is info. that would let me pray more specifically for her.

The day after her surgery, we got word that Nancy is doing well. They are awaiting further test results to see if the cancer has advanced past what the doctors initially believed. I certainly appreciate your prayers. I sent out prayer requests to hundreds of people and all the responses I got back from the forums and from personal e-mails, I collected and forwarded them to her and my son before the surgery. Nancy made sure to let us know that she felt the "prayer covering" and appreciated it and they gave her peace.

Thanks and God bless,

Dad Ernie

[godrulz]

Traveller, are you still staying tuned? See my April 25 posts...before Kumar, I'll revisit Boyd's book "Letters from a Skeptic". It is exciting to see Boyd's father come to faith as his objections to Christianity were wisely and lovingly answered. This is a conversational book, so I'll quote or paraphrase a bit to create interest for people to read it in context from the book (very readable book). This thread has exhausted itself, so I hope some of these thoughts will help us share our faith with a skeptical culture (more important than getting us Christians to agree on whether 'God created evil').

1) "Why has Christianity done so much harm?"

"...I don't think God can be held responsible for what the Catholic Church - or any church, or any religion whatsoever- has done or shall do...the God whom the Bible talks about...is a God of love, and this entails that He is a God of freedom, for you cannot have love without freedom. We were created with the ability to choose love, and thus with the potential to choose its opposite-evil. To assume that God is responsible for our evil- even the evil committed 'in His name' - is, I suspect, to assume that humans are robots who simply act out a divine preplanned program. But if that were the case, we could never be loving beings. I want to argue that, ultimately, all evil in the world comes from free wills other than God. What God wills and does is always good. Whatever is not good has its origin from someone or something other than God."

2) "Why is the world so full of suffering?"

"..there comes a time to begin to think through who is REALLY responsible for this evil. And when we do this, my contention is that responsibility CAN'T be attached to God...if God is going to give free wills to HIs creatures, He has to allow for the possibility of them misusing that freedom, even if this means hurting others. To be significantly free is to be morally responsible, and to be m.r. means being m.r. to each other. What is the freedom to love or not love unless it is freedom to enrich or harm another? God structured things this way because the alternative would be to have a race of robots who can't genuinely love- but that's hardly worth creating, is it?...why doesn't God intervene every time...? The answer...is found in the nature of freedom itself. A freedom which is prevented from being exercised whenever it was going to be misused simply wouldn't be freedom...if God really gives us freedom, it must be, at least to a large extent, irrevocable. He must have, within limits, a 'hands off' attitude toward it. God creates free people who can do as they please, not determined instruments who always end up doing what He pleases."

(note: does this not fit the reality we see around us?)

3) "Is the risk of freedom worth all the suffering?"

"...the risk of freedom must be exactly proportional to its potential for good...if I can love them a great deal, I can hurt them a great deal...the fact that we humans (and Lucifer- my idea) have such an incredible amount of potential for evil..is indicative of the fact that we also have an incredible potential for good...(we can have Hitlers, but also Mother Teresas...and I don't see how you could have the latter without at least risking the possibility of the former)...the risks involved in creation are not only, or even primarily, for human beings. God Himself risks a great deal in creating the world...biblical perspective..reveals a God who throughout history has suffered from the ill choices of human beings, and He suffers because He loves (Hosea)."

4) "Why does God create earthquakes and famines?" ('natural evil')

a) "...most of the pain and suffering in the world is the result of evil people, not nature, and that even the pain caused by most natural disasters could be minimized or eliminated if humans were what God created us to be...(my summary...there is more than enough food in the world for everyone, but we do not love our neighbours as ourselves. Political wars, arms races, etc.)

b) "..it may be that a good deal of what we call 'evil' is simply due to the fact that anything which God could create would be limited in certain respects. The very fact that what God creates is less than Himself introduces limitations and imperfections into the picture. Any created thing must...possess a limited set of characteristics which rules out the possibility of it possessing other char. incompatible with these. But this can lead to some unfortunate consequences...the dependability of the world (water, air, rocks, weather, etc.) which makes it possible for rational, morally responsible creatures to live works against us in certain circumstances..every positive feature of any created entity is a potentially negative feature in certain circumstances. The limitations of reality go hand in hand with the definiteness of reality. I don't really regard this as an inherent evil: its just the way things have to be."

c) "..human free wills aren't the only free wills which have been created. The universe is inhabited by innumerable spiritual free beings as well= angels/demons...demons are now in a state of war against God and everything that is good, and the earth is their battlefield...(they had great potential for love and great potential for evil cf. Lucifer, the most beautiful of God's creatures is now undiluted evil)...the earth has literally been sieged by a power outside itself. There is a power of pure evil which now affects everthing and everybody on the earth. The Creator is not the only influence any longer."

[godrulz]

Traveller, are you still staying tuned? See my April 25 posts...before Kumar, I'll revisit Boyd's book "Letters from a Skeptic". It is exciting to see Boyd's father come to faith as his objections to Christianity were wisely and lovingly answered. This is a conversational book, so I'll quote or paraphrase a bit to create interest for people to read it in context from the book (very readable book). This thread has exhausted itself, so I hope some of these thoughts will help us share our faith with a skeptical culture (more important than getting us Christians to agree on whether 'God created evil').

1) "Why has Christianity done so much harm?"

"...I don't God can be held responsible for what the Catholic Church - or any church, or any religion whatsoever- has done or shall do...the God whom the Bible talks about...is a God of love, and this entails that He is a God of freedom, for you cannot have love without freedom. We were created with the ability to choose love, and thus with the potential to choose its opposite-evil. To assume that God is responsible for our evil- even the evil committed 'in His name' - is, I suspect, to assume that humans are robots who simply act out a divine preplanned program. But if that were the case, we could never be loving beings. I want to argue that, ultimately, all evil in the world comes from free wills other than God. What God will and does is always good. Whatever is not good has its origin from someone or something other than God."

2) "Why is the world so full of suffering?"

"..there comes a time to begin to think through who is REALLY responsible to this evil. And when we do this, my contention is that responsibility CAN'T be attached to God...if God is going to give free wills to HIs creatures, He has to allow for the possibility of them misusing that freedom, even if this means hurting others. To be significantly free is to be morally responsible, and to be m.r. means being m.r. to each other. What is the freedom to love or not love unless it is freedom to enrich or harm another? God structured things this way because the alternative would be to have a race of robots who can't genuinely love- but that's hardly worth creating, is it?...why doesn't God intervene every time...? The answer...is found in the nature of freedom itself. A freedom which is prevented from being exercised whenever it was going to be misused simply wouldn't be freedom...if God really gives us freedom, it must be, at least to a large extent, irrevocable. He must have, within limits, a 'hands off' attitude toward it. God creates free people who can do as they please, not determined instruments who always end up doing what He pleases."

(note: does this not fit the reality we see around us?)

3) "Is the risk of freedom worth all the suffering?"

"...the risk of freedom must be exactly proportional to its potential for good...if I can love them a great deal, I can hurt them a great deal...the fact that we humans (and Lucifer- my idea) have such an incredible amount of potential for evil..is indicative of the fact that we also have an incredible potential for good...(we can have Hitlers, but also Mother Teresas...and I don't see how you could have the latter without at least risking the possibility of the former)...the risks involved in creation are not only, or even primarily, for human beings. God Himself risks a great deal in creating the world...biblical perspective..reveals a God who throughout history has suffered from the ill choices of human beings, and He suffers because He loves (Hosea)."

4) "Why does God create earthquakes and famines?" ('natural evil')

a) "...most of the pain and suffering in the world is the result of evil people, not nature, and that even the pain caused by most natural disasters could be minimized or eliminated if humans were what God created us to be...(my summary...there is more than enough food in the world for everyone, but we do not love our neighbours as ourselves. Political wars, arms races, etc.)

b) "..it may be that a good deal of what we call 'evil' is simply due to the fact that anything which God could create would be limited in certain respects. The very fact that what God creates is less than Himself introduces limitations and imperfections into the picture. Any created thing must...possess a limited set of characteristics which rules out the possibility of it possessing other char. incompatible with these. But this can lead to some unfortunate consequences...the dependability of the world (water, air, rocks, weather, etc.) which makes it possible for rational, morally responsible creatures to live works against us in certain circumstances..every positive feature of any created entity is a potentially negative feature in certain circumstances. The limitations of reality go hand in hand with the definiteness of reality. I don't really regard this as an inherent evil: its just the way things have to be."

c) "..human free wills aren't the only free wills which have been created. The universe is inhabited by innumerable spiritual free beings as well= angels/demons...demons are now in a state of war against God and everything that is good, and the earth is their battlefield...(they had great potential for love and great potential for evil cf. Lucifer, the most beautiful of God's creatures is now undiluted evil)...the earth has literally been sieged by a power outside itself. There is a power of pure evil which now affects everthing and everybody on the earth. The Creator is not the only influence any longer."

[godrulz]

This topic is scrambled. My last post was on page 4 here on May 8 and has a question/answer summary from Boyd's book (Traveller and Ernie previous request 0142 hrs was the edited one...2 similar ones are on here?)

[traveller]

Godrulz - thank you - I just now found your "Traveller are you still staying tuned" post. Yes, I am, and I thank you for your diligence. When I have time, and feel like unscrambling (!) I will go back over this thread. Again, thnk you!

[Guest mcm42]

This is a great question. Technically God and Evil have existed for all time. Let me explain.

If God is Holy, Just, and Perfect, their must be something that is unholy unjust and imperfect, which we call evil. The very fact that God is holy, assumes he is NOT something else, which is evil.

God has nothing to do with evil, evil is what God is not. So if God is something Evil is the opposite. (other words can be used but the forum is about evil)

SO in reality since God's existance assumes a choice, like GOd (holy) or unlike God (unholy or evil). So did God "create evil". Indirectly yes, directly no.

It's a sticky issue really. The answer is that God originated evil, by being totally not evil. That is when Evil came into existance, the second God became God. Since God has always been God, there has always been a choice of "not God" or Evil. God creates the beings, and allows God-controlled choice, ultimatly for his own Glory.

Hope this helps.

[mobile21]

<font color='#000000'>I say let's get some scripture going to prove our points. Also I find it interesting that we forget that God existed before the beginning of the story in Genesis. We do not know what was going on there before our story began, all we know about God is in relation to us, which is all He revealed to us. But He is the Alpha and the Omega so obviously if we are created, which would mean we are a created being capable of evil, then evil comes from somewhere. And it comes from somewhere before we existed. Now the question remains from where? Does anyone have any scripture to show where their reasoning comes from?

In Yashua's Love

Shilou</font>

"Evil" is a concept that does not belong to christianity.

There is no good or evil.

There's only God and His creation. What we call "good" is what is according to God's plan and what we call "evil" is the series of choices that go against it.