I was told to post here - so here I go.
Did God create sin? - No
Did God create imperfect humans to damn to hell? - No
Did God create Himself? - No
Gen 2:7 - God created Adam's body, then breathed life into it - not created life, but breathed it in - or placed it in depending on what translation you use.
The origin of evil - seems to be a problem area for those who are not Christian, and for those who are Christian.
My answer? Not a popular one - is that God did not create everything - that part of us was not created by Him - but that He is selflessly trying to mold, to refine us out of the goodness of His heart. He will not take away our free agency, but will give us ample opportunity and resources to change if we choose to. It is the only way I can justify a loving God.
comments? Did God create everything? Yes or no?
Yes, God created everything other than himself. God is the only uncreated Being, since God is Being itself and God's being is eternal. Nothing else exists apart from God.
You justify the idea that God did not create everything as a way to deal with the problem of evil and hold to belief in a loving God.
But the solution is worse than the original problem. For if evil is something that exists without creation, then it is also an eternal Being and can never be overcome. When good and evil are both eternal, there is no hope for the abolition of evil.
Better, IMO, to follow the thinking of C.S. Lewis here. Evil is not a thing in itself. It has no being in itself. It is a defect of being. As darkness has no being in itself but is the absence of light, evil is not a thing in itself, but the absence of love and goodness. Evil cannot exist apart from goodness, for it needs what is good to sustain it. After all, every temptation to evil depends on convincing us that we will get some good from it.
Gen 2:7 - God created Adam's body, then breathed life into it - not created life, but breathed it in - or placed it in depending on what translation you use.
My answer? Not a popular one - is that God did not create everything - that part of us was not created by Him - but that He is selflessly trying to mold, to refine us out of the goodness of His heart.
I want to comment on this interpretation in particular. It is a feature of much dualist thinking. Note how you are identifying the "life" the "breath" with God. But then, what of the body? Is it then something less that the breath/spirit? Is the body, in particular, the source of human evil, with the uncreated spirit within exempt from sin?
Perhaps you did not mean to imply this, but it is so common in dualistic thinking that I believe one must always be alert to this danger of linking what is material (like the body) more closely to imperfection than the spiritual.
And, historically, where this link is made, we see the development of hierarchical societies in which those seen as close to the earth (peasants, indigenous people, labourers, artisans and, above all, women) are subordinated to those who do not work with their hands, or even do not work at all, but live at leisure from the toil of their "inferiors".
We need to remember that "humus" and "humility" come from the same root and the humble ones of the earth are an especial care of God who is their protector.
Scripture, in fact, tells us that the greater sins are those of the spirit--those that Jesus identifies as coming from the heart. It is the spirit that lifts itself up in pride, envy and anger and expresses itself in slander, false witness, theft and murder. The body and its needs can be a source of temptation, but body and spirit alike are prone to sin and one is not more pure or close to God than the other. So it makes no sense to think of differentiating one as "not created".
He will not take away our free agency, but will give us ample opportunity and resources to change if we choose to.
Finally, a special comment on this phrase. I do not think God merely gives us "opportunity and resources to change if we choose to." What God does is change us. God does not just mark a way for the lost sheep to return if it chooses to. God goes out, finds the lost sheep and brings it back on his shoulder.
I once recall hearing a Jewish commentator say that this was the one respect in which Christianity differed from Judaism. Judaism (and most other religions) tell us that God welcomes us when we turn to God. (The Qur'an IIRC says that for each step we take toward God, God takes two toward us.) But the first step is always initiated by the person who seeks God. Only Christianity has proclaimed that God takes the first step of seeking out the sinner, even before the sinner repents. That is why the writer of Revelation speaks of Christ as "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."
I think you mean well when you try to explain things so that God is seen as loving in spite of the evil in the world. But (as C.S. Lewis says in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), there is magic and there is deeper magic in the love of God. The deeper magic is that God loves so much that he created the world and us in it knowing that evil would come of it, but knowing that evil will be overcome by his love.
