alpin,
You would like a response to:
"Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil : I the LORD do all these things."
The English Standard Version (ESV) translates Isa. 45:7 as: "I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord who does all these things."
While we know that all sin and evil originated with Adam & Eve's fall into sin (Genesis 3), Christianity's support of monotheism (one God and Lord) means that Yahweh is the sole ruler and controller of the universe. While God is not the source of evil, he does rule over everything that happens in our world.
Thus, good and evil, no matter where and how they originate, are never out of God's control. I know that this raises questions with practical issues like the consequences of Hitler's and Stalin's regimes, the sexual abuse of young children, etc., we must realise that God allows such to happen as the outworking of what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Could you imagine living in a world where God would instantly intervene with every sin and evil that was committed by everybody in the world? I'm thinking of some of my own actions in the last year.
I consider that this verse in Isa 45:7 does not mean that God is the instigator and origin of all evil but that good and bad things lie totally in God's power as far as the consequences (physical and moral) are concerned.
There are similar statements in verses such as Amos 3:6b; Isa. 14:24-27 and Isa 44:24 in which it is stated that "I am the Lord who made all things . . ." (ESV).
This action of God's ultimate purpose being achieved through the free-will choice of human beings committing evil is beyond my comprehension. But that is the word of the Lord. This is Rom. 8:28 working itself out in human history through God's providence. John Calvin explained it this way:
"Thieves and murderers and other evildoers are the instruments of divine providence, and the Lord himself uses these to carry out the judgments that he has determined with himself. Yet I deny that they can derive from this any excuse for their evil deeds. Why? Will they either involve God in the same iniquity with themselves, or will they cloak their own depravity with his justice? They can do neither" (1960, vol. 1, p. 217).
Later in the Institutes, Calvin's heading to ch. 18 is: "God So Uses the Works of the Ungodly, and So Bends their Minds to Carry out His Judgments, That He Remains Pure from Every Stain" (1960, vol. 1, p. 228). Calvin approvingly quotes Augustine (but does not give a bibliographic reference): "There is a great difference between what is fitting for man to will and what is fitting for God. . . . For through the bad wills of evil men God fulfills what he righteously wills" (in Calvin 1960, vol. 1, p. 234). Augustine continues, "But God, as He is the supremely good Creator of good natures, so is He of evil wills the most just Ruler; so that, while they make an ill use of good natures, He makes a good use even of evil wills" (2005, XI.17).
I hope that this brings more light than darkness.
Sincerely, OzSpen
References:
Augustine 2005,
City of God, in
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (ed. Schaff. P.), available from:
http://www.ccel.org/fathers/NPNF1-02/ [5 January 2005].
Calvin, J. 1960 (ed. McNeil, J. T., transl. Battles, F. L.),
Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia.
Read Jer 3:12-14 not just 12. i.e. the "acknowledge" clause of Jer 3:13 and "turning" in Jer 3:14 tell us who he is addressing, those that repent. Jer 17:1 also address Jer 17:4 to a specific group of people, those that "is written with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond, engraved on their heart". i.e. to those that won't or can't repent. So God will be merciful and forgive those who repent, and won't to those who don't. I fail to see the contradiction.
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