***Answer Me***

[supyo2]

Did God create Evil when he created Man and Satan?

 

[ManofGod4]

The best way to answer that is in the book of Genesis...

 

[mr73140]

Did God create Evil when he created Man and Satan?

God created Adam and Eve perfect beings; satan was a fallen angel; fallen because he rebelled against God; in fact, he wanted to be God; satan was cast out of heaven from the presence of God. Adam and Eve were instructed by God not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge; the tree of good and evil; warning them that they would surely die if they disobeyed; satan in the form of a snake enticed Eve to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, she did and then she gave it to Adam to eat, and he did. Thus...satan was evil when he was cast out of heaven (wanting to be God); he enticed Eve to commit an evil act (disobedience); and Eve share her evil act with Adam (disobedience). satan used the only three points against Adam and Eve that he uses against us today; lust of the eye, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Hope this reply helps. God Bless.

 

[dayhiker]

Did God create Adam and Eve with the ability to sin?

Did God know they were going to sin before He created them?

 

[99percentatheism]

Did God create Evil when he created Man and Satan?

It looks like it.

Now, do we have to choose it?

 

[Hentenza]

Did God create Evil when he created Man and Satan?

Evil is not a creation. You can't hold a jar of evil. Evil does not exist by itself. Evil is merely the absence of good. So no, God did not create evil.

 

[Emmy]

Dear supyo2. I ask this with love: " Can Love create Evil???" According to Strong`s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible: " Satan`s origin is unknown." Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[Walter Kovacs]

"God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata — of creatures that worked like machines — would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.

"Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God. He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes: you could not be right and He wrong any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source. When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on. If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will — that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings — then we may take it is worth paying.

"When we have understood about free will, we shall see how silly it is to ask, as somebody once asked me: 'Why did God make a creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong?' The better stuff a creature is made of — the cleverer and stronger and freer it is — then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. A cow cannot be very good or very bad; a dog can be both better and worse; a child better and worse still; an ordinary man, still more so; a man of genius, still more so; a superhuman spirit best — or worst — of all." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

 

[Armistead14]

Based on what you wrote, will heaven by joyless. Will we have free will in heaven to sin, to know evil, so we can know love?

Evil stems from human emotions, such as hate and greed. Who created these emotions?

Someone else said Adam and Eve were perfect before the fall, obvious they were not. They knew right from wrong and good and evil before the fall. Perfect beings wouldn't fall. Satan convinved them they could be like God before they ate, this shows they knew envy, jealously. Anyone that reads the story can see they had total concept of good and evil before the fall and the freewill to use it.

 

[Walter Kovacs]

Scripture never claims that Adam and Eve , or even Eden, for that matter, was perfect. So that's a non-issue.

Based on what you wrote, will heaven by joyless. Will we have free will in heaven to sin, to know evil, so we can know love?

Free will in heaven? I'd hope not, since IMO heaven will be the ultimate ratifying of our wills for their originally created purpose. Heaven is...it, for lack of a better term. That's our purpose, to be in heaven and then on earth taking part in the renewed creation. I imagine we will still be able to make decisions, but our nature will be glorified, from glory to glory, so our will, if we have one, will be bound to the father. We will have the desire not to sin, but instead of failing, like Paul says, be will be empowered NOT to son. We will simply be how we are supposed to be. 'Not my will, but your will be done', will become our ultimate reality.


"...to all eternity it lies in man's power to reject God... eternity signifies unending progress, a never-ceasing advance. As J. R. R. Tolkien has said, 'Roads go ever ever on' ...The Age to come is not simply a return to the beginning, a restoration of the original state of perfection in Paradise, but it is a fresh departure. There is to be a new heaven and a new earth; and the last things will be greater than the first. 'Here below", says Newman, "to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.' But is this the case only here below? St. Gregory of Nyssa believed that even in heaven perfection is growth. In a fine paradox he says that the essence of perfection consists precisely in never becoming perfect, but always reaching forward to some higher perfection that lies beyond. Because God is infinite, this constant 'reaching forward' or epektasis, as the Greek Fathers termed it, proves limitless. The soul possesses God, and yet still seeks him; her joy is full, and yet grows always more intense. God grows ever nearer to us, yet he still remains the Other; we behold him face to face, yet we still continue to advance further and further into the divine mystery. Although strangers no longer, we do not cease to be pilgrims. We go forward 'from glory to glory' (2 Cor 3:18), and then to a glory that is greater still. Never in all eternity, shall we reach a point where we have accomplished all that there is to do, or discovered all that there is to know. 'Not only in this present age, but also in the Age to come,' says St. Irenaeus, 'God will always have something more to teach man, and man will always have something more to learn from God'" (Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, pp 135-138).

 

[Hentenza]

Scripture never claims that Adam and Eve , or even Eden, for that matter, was perfect. So that's a non-issue.

God called His creation, not just good, but very good. In His eyes, it was just as He wanted it, perfect.

Gen. 1
31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

 

[elopez]

Did God create Evil when he created Man and Satan?

Evil cannot be "created" in the usual sense as it would mean with man. To say that God created evil would therefore be to equivocate the meaning of "create." So no, God did not create evil but simply allowed for the possibility of evil to transpire.

 

[elopez]

And for the record, very good =/= perfect. Christ was perfect, not just very good.

 

[Cuddles333]

Did God create Evil when he created Man and Satan?

Satan is not 'evil' but he is the influence that causes moral evil to be the result of much of mankind's actions. He is the agent that causes sin in all people.

It is interesting how no other species of high intelligence practices moral evil as we do. This has to be because Satan is not as interested in them as he is us. The New Testament says that we humans have an animal nature in the Koine Greek word for carnal and that word is 'sarkikos'. So it cannot be because all other animals have an animal nature and we don't. Because we have this nature nature, Satan is able to easily manipulate us. This would explain why Eve was so easily taken advantage of by him in the Garden. If Satan did not exist, we would not sin even despite our animal nature.

 

[dayhiker]

Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.

Did God know Adam and ve would rebell? Or was it just a possibility?

Seems to me God knew before He created Adam and Eve that they would choose to disobey and He created us anyways. After all God is all knowing.

 

[Hentenza]

And for the record, very good =/= perfect. Christ was perfect, not just very good.

God looked at everything that He had made and called it very good. Are you saying that God looked at everything that HE had created with His own "hands" and found fault in it?

 

[Blueforest]

Isaiah 45:7 says God creates evil. And the word "evil" is Ra, which does mean evil in every sense of the word, including morally.

As for evil not being a thing and "you can't put evil in a jar", you can't put "good" in a jar either, so good must not exist. You can't put "love", "courage", "hope" or "justice" in jars either, so they must not exist.

As for heaven being a place with no free will... that does indeed sound dreadfully boring. God created man with the capacity to sin (because He didn't want robots) so that... one day, He would make us all... robots? Huh??

 

[Hentenza]

Isaiah 45:7 says God creates evil. And the word "evil" is Ra, which does mean evil in every sense of the word, including morally.

Context is necessary to determine the meaning of a word. Most words have a definition semantic range just as Ra does, however, one can not use the whole semantic range equally which is why the context determines the meaning. In this case the context is what God is going to do for Cyrus. The word Ra here is contrasted with שָׁלֹ֖ום (well being). The proper definition given the context is calamity not evil. God can certainly create calamity and He did that many times to force Israel to come to repentance.

As for evil not being a thing and "you can't put evil in a jar", you can't put "good" in a jar either, so good must not exist. You can't put "love", "courage", "hope" or "justice" in jars either, so they must not exist.

Evil is the absence of good. Good is not the absence of evil. If fact, evil is the absence of God. As an analogy, evil is like a hole in dirt. There is dirt all around it but the hole is an absence of dirt.

Evil is not one of God's attributes consequently is not part of His creation. Good, on the other hand, is one of God's attributes consequently is part of His creation. It is absurd to consider evil as some sort of entity which is self maintaining. Good is self maintaining but evil is not.

As for heaven being a place with no free will... that does indeed sound dreadfully boring. God created man with the capacity to sin (because He didn't want robots) so that... one day, He would make us all... robots? Huh??

I don't think that you will consider Heaven to be boring just because you can't sin there. We, as Christians, do not live for or in sin so it should be a rather simple transition.

 

[Blueforest]

Context is necessary to determine the meaning of a word. Most words have a definition semantic range just as Ra does, however, one can not use the whole semantic range equally which is why the context determines the meaning. In this case the context is what God is going to do for Cyrus. The word Ra here is contrasted with שָׁלֹ֖ום (well being). The proper definition given the context is calamity not evil. God can certainly create calamity and He did that many times to force Israel to come to repentance.



Evil is the absence of good. Good is not the absence of evil. If fact, evil is the absence of God. As an analogy, evil is like a hole in dirt. There is dirt all around it but the hole is an absence of dirt.

Evil is not one of God's attributes consequently is not part of His creation. Good, on the other hand, is one of God's attributes consequently is part of His creation. It is absurd to consider evil as some sort of entity which is self maintaining. Good is self maintaining but evil is not.




I don't think that you will consider Heaven to be boring just because you can't sin there. We, as Christians, do not live for or in sin so it should be a rather simple transition.

So calamity is not "evil?" I beg to differ. Tell that to the homeless after Japan's tsunami, or those who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.

If God creates calamity or "bad" (the other possible meaning for Ra), then that is surely evil, is it not? I'd say someone who smashes my windows in my home and destroys everything I own is committing evil, wouldn't you?

Is having no free will and effectively being robots the only way man cannot sin? If so, that leaves open a whole host of questions and problems.

 

[Hentenza]

So calamity is not "evil?" I beg to differ.

Calamity can be perceived to the recipients as evil but it doesn't necessarily has to be. Take for example the exile of Israel to Babylon. God used Nebuchadnezzar to exact punishment on Israel because of their wickedness. Several prophets including Jeremiah foretold the wrath of God for a few years prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Israel continued on its wicked ways and did not repent. The Jews that were doing wicked things probably considered God's punishment to be evil because they wanted to continue in their wicked ways instead of repenting. however, the calamity was punishment by a just God not evil.

Tell that to the homeless after Japan's tsunami, or those who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.

Did God create those?

If God creates calamity or "bad" (the other possible meaning for Ra), then that is surely evil, is it not? I'd say someone who smashes my windows in my home and destroys everything I own is committing evil, wouldn't you?

Did God smash the window in your house and destroy everything that you owned? Did God forewarn you that if you didn't stop your wicked ways He was going to cause such calamity?

Is having no free will and effectively being robots the only way man cannot sin? If so, that leaves open a whole host of questions and problems.

It is obvious that you consider your view of things higher than those of God. Do you actually have free will now? Do you choose to do evil in favor of doing good?

Heaven will not be a place where sin will be possible. Does that bother you? Why?