So that I can understand...
By quoting this small part of Amos, are you saying that disaster coming to a city is evil, and that the Lord did it?
I'm a bit curious, because the OP was saying God created evil....
If God brings disaster isn't that evil?
Not saying God is evil. Whatever He does is right and good. It may be that the city deserves evil to be brought upon it.
And this is the point.
No one is saying that God arbitrarily works evil, but He does visit His wrath upon the wicked.
If the question is whether God "creates" evil, tha answer is no, He does not.
But if the question is whether God ordains the evil done by contingent causes, whether they're people, the weather, geologic changes, etc. and whether there is any purpose to this then the answer must be, in the providence of God, yes.
Because nothing happens beyond the providence and control of God. There are no moral free agents.
If God is Who we say he is, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, immutible, etc. there can be no disconnect between His knowledge of a thing and His ordination or decree of it.
But this does not make Him complicit in our sin or the author or creator of sin and evil. It means that the wickedness done by His creatures is always in the service of His greater Glory and Purpose.
And, of course, the ultimate illustration of this is the cross.
It was no accident. It happened, as the Apostle says, according to the perfect plan of God.
But there are many others, the evil which befell Job, the treason of Judas, the flood, the sending away of Israel into bondage, the selling of Joseph into slavery, the list goes on.
In each case someone sinned, whether it was Judas, the Romans, Joseph's brethren, the Babylonians.
How can we say that God ordained the ends but not the means in these cases? Especially since in most cases He actually tells us that He brought the thing about?
How can we say that He does not ordain both the ends and the means in any or every case?
In OT times they believed that everything - good and evil - came from God.
This is not what James says in his letter:
"every good and perfect gift is from above," (James 1:17)
Evil is neither good nor perfect.
There is nothing in that which excludes judgment or wrath or the ordination of wicked means.
The rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike.
Some still believe that everything comes from God.
Woe then unto the wicked though for a season they profit.
God is in control. There are many times when God has decreed something and what is the outcome of it. Man will make a "Choice" that brings about what God has ordained to be. Need some examples. I just gave you one with Nebuchadnezzer. How about Pharoah. And then there is Jonah. And then there is Elijah and then.............. Need I go on. Our choices are to the fulfillment of God's devine will. Who then is in control? Man or God.
God is in control, in the sense that he is in charge and nothing can happen without his knowledge; nothing takes him by surprise.
He does not control us, in the sense that he does not make us do anything or dictate our actions.
When the rich young ruler decided not to follow Jesus, Jesus didn't make him.
When many people stopped following Jesus after he fed 5,000 people, (John 6:66) he didn't block their way so they couldn't leave.
God told Adam not to eat from the tree; he didn't bar his way so that he couldn't, nor did he force feed him the fruit so that he HAD to eat it.
God called Moses to the Promised Land. Moses didn't get to enter it because he sinned, but God didn't make him sin; he chose to.
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
I'm saying that Amos spoke according to his understanding at the time. We all do - it's all we can do.
For centuries people believed the earth was flat and at the centre of the universe, so they would have taught accordingly. In the NT people believed that illness and disability were the result of sin. Hence the disciples question to Jesus in John 9 about the blind man; who sinned, him or his parents?
Besides, I said in an earlier post that sometimes war or disasters happened in the OT which were obviously seen to be bad by the nation of Israel, but were in fact sent by God to chastise or correct his people so that they would repent.
As a general principle though, I don't believe that God sends evil or suffering. The only reason for doing that would be to punish us, and Jesus has already taken that punishment.
He may USE suffering to get a non believers attention; I don't believe he sends it though. The devil does that, he wants to turn people away from God. But God can use anything the devil sends for good. IN all things, God works for the good of those who love him. The devil is the thief who has come to destroy, God rescues us and uses these things for good.
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
I am not generally one for this kind of impossible argument, but I have been thinking about this a little recently. Sin is not the existence of something, but the absence of God, as He alone is righteousness. God didn't create darkness, he created light, but in differing quantities. Sin seems to merely be choosing to accept one's own righteousness over God. Not something God would have had to create, and can easily be present in a perfect creature with a free will made in the image of God. Man didn't choose evil to be evil, he just chose himself without understanding the consequences of that decision. God made everything good, including man. He was perfect, an chose to be his own righteousness. Eating from the tree wasn't evil because it was an inherently evil act, it was expected of man to do that (as made obvious by the plan of redemption) but is a result of choosing one's own righteousness over God. Now we see the truly evil consequences of our seemingly okay acts and treat evil as if it were a substance in and of itself that God had to have made, but that seems to be fallacious reasoning. It wasn't the eating of the fruit that was evil, it was the choosing of one's own righteousness over God.
Sin is falling short of God's standards and glory (Rom 3:23).
But good post.
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Disasters are evil, but it depends if you believe it was GOD who sent the disaster.
I don't, though I believe he sometimes allows them. This may seem like a fine distinction, but for me it's a question of motive.
God is good, love, holy, compassionate, kind and a loving heavenly Father. We have already seen that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, (James 1:17), and that if earthly fathers know how to give good things to their children, so does God, (Matt 7:10-11). What father would say to his child, "here is my good and perfect gift for you, I want to give you an earthquake, or a disability?"
Satan sends these things; his motive is to destroy and draw people away from God. God sometimes allows what Satan sends, for reasons of his own.
Originally Posted by Bulstrode Whitelock
Not saying God is evil.
Exactly, but the OP states that God created evil. I do not see how anyone can create evil unless they are themselves evil, and God is not evil, he is love, hates evil and cannot tolerate sin. So it's impossible for him to have created it.
Originally Posted by Bulstrode Whitelock
But if the question is whether God ordains the evil done by contingent causes, whether they're people, the weather, geologic changes, etc. and whether there is any purpose to this then the answer must be, in the providence of God, yes.
God KNOWS about it - the devil cannot get anything past God, and nothing takes God by surprise. But did he will, appoint and send it - I think not. He SENDS good things to bless us, but ALLOWS bad things sometimes to get our attention/refine us.
Originally Posted by Bulstrode Whitelock
If God is Who we say he is, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, immutible, etc. there can be no disconnect between His knowledge of a thing and His ordination or decree of it.
I believe there can. God KNEW about all the killings that have gone on in schools and on the streets. Did he ordain or will that they should happen? Did he whisper in someone's ear that they should get a gun and start slaughtering innocent children? Did he want men to rape girls before killing them, and other vile acts? Heaven forbid! PEOPLE have chosen to do these things - God may even have spoken to them and warned them not to go ahead. They may have been in contact with Christians who tried to warn them of what would happen, or witness to them. Pilate's wife had a dream and told her husband not to have anything to do with Jesus, because she saw that they would all suffer greatly if he did. It didn't stop Pilate.
Originally Posted by Bulstrode Whitelock
If the question is whether God "creates" evil, tha answer is no, He does not.
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
And, of course, the ultimate illustration of this is the cross.
Yes, the one time in history when God has willed, planned and brought about the suffering of another person. But note, that person was Jesus, and Jesus was God. God was the judge who set the death penalty and then paid it himself.
God wated the salvation of the world to happen in this way; he knew everything and knew it would be for good. The devil did not know everything. He thought that having Jesus killed would be the end of Jesus and a victory for him.
He intended it for evil; God meant it for good.
__________________ "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Yes, the one time in history when God has willed, planned and brought about the suffering of another person. But note, that person was Jesus, and Jesus was God. God was the judge who set the death penalty and then paid it himself.
Depends on your definition of 'suffering'. God willed, planned and brought about all kinds of horrible things in the OT...including the ordered killing of 'sucklings' (infants). I guess if His army killed those defenseless babies in a 'humane' way there would be no suffering?
Also...how about Job? The Bible tells us that Job was 'righteous' and 'upright'. O.k...so God didn't do those horrible things to Job himself...but he allowed it. And when you are omnicient and omnipotent...then allow those horrible things to happen to someone who loves you...that says something. He might have well just done it himself...it makes no difference to Job I'm sure...
It is very difficult to reconcile the God of the OT with 'God is Love' (from the Apostle John).
Hugs,
CC
__________________ It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. -Gal 5:1 (NIV)
I don't see much in the view that God never sends disaster which corresponds with the Bible.
That being said, it may very well be that your view of the Bible is different than mine, I really do not know.
I haven't been here very long.
But I do confess that I have trouble with the idea that the Old Testament wants correction by the New, or that there is some external hermeneutic necessary to understand the Bible as a whole.
It seems to me that the Bible is consistent from Genesis to maps: We are all sinners. God is serious about sin. God punishes sin. God sometimes uses mediate means to do so.
But I am not saying that each instance of disaster is sent from God as a particular response to a specific wickedness.
E.g. I disagree with those pastors who argued that Katrina was God's answer to the sin of New Orleans.
But hurricanes, war, terrorist attacks, plane crashes, earth quakes, school shootings all happen as a result of sin and are at least a part of its burden. It is difficult to understand that if they are a part of its burden they are, in some sense also its penalty but the conclusion seems obvious to me.
When God removed Adam and Eve from Eden, He cursed them.
Nothing happens outside the will of God.
So all that is left to us is to ask what God's purpose is in all this?
Any view which would obscure the great necessity of repentance and fear I find repugnant.
But that's just me.
For the record the cross is not "the one time in history when God has willed, planned and brought about the suffering of another person". The Bible is full of examples of this. I gave a few. The cross is just the greatest.
But even if it were the only example, it would be sufficient to establish that God is NOT Someone who just "permits" evil.
Linear Mode
