GOD CREATED EVIL, Period!

[Doucit2]

This is a very interesting thread proposing a question that often crops up when discussing the origin of all things with a logical atheist.

A while back I came across a (true) story that, for me, explained it very well......

Back in the early part of the 20th century there was a theology professor in a German university. He was a self described atheist and was renown throughout the country for his impeccable logic, and systematic dismantling of all those who argued against him. One of his most favored propositions, which he often liked to try on his christian students, was the following -
Do you believe the bible to be true? the student would answer yes
Do you believe that before God created all things, there was nothing? again, the answer was yes
So by implication, ALL things are from God, whether directly or indirectly? again, yes.
Do you believe there to be anything beyond Gods ability? the answer, no.
Do you believe God created the Devil with the capacity to be evil? since the Devil is evil, and you just conceded ALL things are from God, God must have been the first to conceive evil, and thus brought it forth from nothing. for if nothing is beyond Gods ability, he could have created free will, and the devil and all other things without the capacity for evil..
It was at this point most of his students were subdued....Until one day..
A young student, replied with the following questions for the professor -
Do you believe that cold exists? the professor mocking replied yes, of course it exists, have you never been cold??!!
The young student corrected the professor by saying, in fact cold does NOT exist, what we perceive to be cold is simply the absence of heat...there is no way of measuring coldness other than measuring how much heat is present. at absolute zero, there is no activity and nothing to measure.
He then went on, do you believe darkness exists? the professor cautiously answered yes, we all know of darkness, so it must exist.
again, the student corrected him by saying, darkness does NOT exist, for us it is simply the absence of light, for the only way to measure darkness is to measure the amount of light present. so as it goes for coldness and darkness, evil does NOT exist in its own right, it is simply the absence of God. Evil is the darkness men suffer when they don't have the presence of God in their heart.

I found this explanation the most accurate i have heard. incidentally, the student was Albert Einstein.

I originally posted this post in the general discussion forum.

 

[bricklayer]

Evil is not a creation.

It is a privation of good.

 

[Hismessenger]

There is a hole in the students thesis for if there is no cold, how do you measure heat. At absolute zero there is still an ambient temperature so how do you gauge absolute zero without the presence of Hot or Cold.

hismessenger

 

[bricklayer]

Although absolute zero cannot be achieved (3rd Law), measurements are relative to that which remains.
Heat cannot be measured by its absence.

Quite literally, evil is a privation (an absence) of good.

Evil and cold are privations of things.
They are not, in and of themselves, things.

 

[drichards85]

I can only give a brief answer to the original post, but will respond in greater depth when I have time. One of the questions was, how could a good and perfect creature (i.e. Lucifer) rebel against its Creator and become imperfect and evil? To this I will point out that the Scriptures nowhere teach that Lucifer, Adam, and Eve were created perfect; it says they were created 'good.' That good = perfect must be demonstrated rather than assumed. Also, I think there is confusion over innocence and perfection, and that the latter is supposed to be 'sinlessness.' But the two do not pick out the same concept. Perfection suggests a state of completion, while innocence suggests a lack of experience.

It makes much more sense to say that Lucifer, Adam, and Eve were not created perfect, since they were not in a state of completion because they had not passed through temptation, and that they were created innocent because they lacked the experience of sin. This would explain just as well if not better why it is possible for a good and innocent creature to use his or her will to become impure and evil. At the same time we avoid all the nonsense of God being the author of evil.

 

[bricklayer]

Would you therefore hold, Drichard85, that these persons acted against God's will, essentially subjecting God to their wills?

Or, is it possible that they acted against God's nature but according to God's will?

We cross a very bright line when we imply that a necessry being act contingently, know contingently, or emote contingently.
A sovereign being subject is too much a contradiction to pass for a thoughful conclusion.

God is either absolutely sovereign or absolutely not.

There is all the difference possible between human-free-will and human-sovereign-will.

As much as one may like to believe the man is the sovereign master of his destiny, we cannot escape the fact that, no effect can transcend its cause. God is the efficiet cause, the uncaused cause. He is the cause of all things. We are effects, plain and simple. These roles do not, CANNOT, change.

 

[drichards85]

Bricklayer, first some presuppositions. You wrote that "God is either absolutely sovereign or He is not." I believe that God is sovereign, but I fail to see how this sovereignty eradicates human free will. I believe it is possible for humans to act against the will of God yet not subject God to their wills because God also wills them to be free. Perhaps you could demonstrate why sovereignty and human free will are incompatible, rather than just assert it. A big assumption here is that the will of God is simple, that He wills only one thing rather than a number of things, which again needs to be argued for rather than assumed. I grant that God desires our repentance, but I also believe that He desires us to repent through our free choice in co-operation with His will.

It strikes me as ironic when you say that God is sovereign and therefore not subject to anything, but then you subject Him to necessity. Which is greater then, God or necessity? Necessity is a category of Greek pagan philosophy, not of Christian revelation.

Addendum: Would anyone like to answer my questions as to why Adam and Eve were assumed to be sinless, why we equate sovereignty and necessity, why the will of God is assumed to be simple, and how it is possible for a sovereign God to be subject to necessity? Unless we deal with these presuppositions this discussion will get nowhere.

 

[OzSpen]

drichards85,

It makes much more sense to say that Lucifer, Adam, and Eve were not created perfect, since they were not in a state of completion because they had not passed through temptation, and that they were created innocent because they lacked the experience of sin. This would explain just as well if not better why it is possible for a good and innocent creature to use his or her will to become impure and evil. At the same time we avoid all the nonsense of God being the author of evil.

That's not how the following Hebrew scholars see this situation in Genesis 1:31,

And God saw everything that he made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day (ESV)

C. F. Keil & E. Delitzsch wrote:

God saw His work, and behold it was all very good; i.e. everything perfect in its kind, so that every creature might reach the goal appointed by the Creator, and accomplish the purpose of its existence. By the application of the term "good" to everything that God made, and the repetition of the word with the emphasis "very" at the close of the whole creation, the existence of anything evil in the creation of God is absolutely denied, and the hypothesis entirely refuted, that the six days' work, merely subdued and fettered an ungodly, evil principle, which had already forced its way into it (Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes, Vol. 1, The Pentateuch n.d. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, p. 67)

Another Hebrew scholar, H. C. Leupold wrote of Gen. 1:31,

The writer says with emphasis that no imperfection inhered in the work God had wrought up till this point [FONT=&quot](Exposition of Genesis 1942. London: Evangelical Press, p. 99)[/FONT].

To infer that the perfect God (Matt. 5:48) made the imperfect in the beginning is to demean God's perfection.

However, making the perfect human beings with a will to choose is different from your inference about Adam & Eve's original sinfulnness with your question:

Would anyone like to answer my questions as to why Adam and Eve were assumed to be sinless

They were sinless for the simple reason that they had not committed the original act of sinning (Gen. 3) and were originally created "very good."

It makes much more sense to take God at his word. The original creation was created "very good" and "God made man upright" (Eccl. 7:29). That could not mean that God created original human beings who were sinful.

Theologian, exegete & apologist, Dr. Norman Geisler, concludes:

God did not make this world the way it is: He made it perfect (Gen. 1:31; Eccl. 7:29). It was the fall of humanity that brought ugliness into the world (Gen. 3; Rom. 5, 8). So God is not responsible for the ugliness in the world, only the beauty (Systematic Theology, vol. 2, 2003. Minneapolis, Minnesota: BethanyHouse, p. 245).

When referring to the fall of Lucifer, Geisler's understanding of Scripture is:

The Bible declares that God made all things perfect (Gen. 1:31; 1 Tim. 4:4) [Note: he equates "very good" with "perfect"]. This would include the angel Lucifer, who became known as Satan. In God and in His heaven, there was no sin (Hab. 1:13; James 1:13), yet Lucifer sinned and rebelled against God (1 Tim. 3:6), leading one-third of all the angels with him (Rev. 12:4). How could a perfect creature, made by a perfect God and placed in a perfect environment (heaven), commit a sin? Sin could not arise from God, nor from Lucifer's environment, nor from his perfect nature. Whence, then, sin? . . .
Sin arose from Lucifer's free will. God made perfect creatures and gave them perfect natures and perfect freedom. but with freedom, though good in itself, comes the ability to sin. So, sin arose in the breast of an archangel in the presence of God.
Freedom is good, but it contains the possibility of evil. God made Lucifer perfectly good; Lucifer made evil. God gave him the fact of freedom (which is good); Lucifer performed the act of freedom to rebel against God (which is evil). God provided the good power of free will, but Lucifer performed the bad action of free will (ibid., pp. 496-97).

 

[Zeena]

Addendum: Would anyone like to answer my questions as to why Adam and Eve were assumed to be sinless

Because they were created in the image of God, Who is sinless, praise His Holy Name!

why we equate sovereignty and necessity

God is greater than nececessity, He is greater than all.

God doesn't need anything. He wants us to be the object of His affections in Christ Jesus, but man are capable of refusing. Love is a two way street, after all..

God freely and purposefully allows us to either chose life or death, blessing or cursing. I believe He's instilled the conscious within man so that they get exactly what's coming to them, choosing what they DESERVE.

I also hold, that Calvinism is one big scheme concocted in order to dull the conscious, that we might be justified in our own eyes, rather than His, thereby having some measure of peace in this world, yet not in the next.

why the will of God is assumed to be simple

Because false doctrine has taught us that original sin has permeated the human existance and they need to rely on this doctrine of the will of God in order to continue in their deception.

and how it is possible for a sovereign God to be subject to necessity?

He cannot be.

It is not possible that the Sovereign Lord NEEDS ANYTHING!
For then, He is not a Sovereign, but dependant.

Unless we deal with these presuppositions this discussion will get nowhere.

Amen.

 

[Zeena]

To infer that the perfect God (Matt. 5:48) made the imperfect in the beginning is to demean God's perfection.

So then, now that you are born again, are you now perfect?

Hebrews 11:40
God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

You see here perfection as a process no?

James 1:4
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

You see it's a process of transformation and not merely something we recieve in one go? God is in the character building process;

James 2:22
Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

1 Peter 5:10
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

Revelation 3:2
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.

 

[bricklayer]

I've made the above asertion, by definition.

Sovereign and necessary are absolutely interchangeable, so are subject and contingent. Actually, it was within this symantic that I came to understand God's sovereignty.

I, at first, needed to think it through in necessary and contingent terms.
It was much easier, for me, to keep track of that train of thought in those terms.

God is necessary, everything else is contingent.
God is sovereign, everything else is subject.

Human-free-will does not euqate to human-sovereign-will.

A free-will, be it God's, human or angelic, is no more and no less that a will free to act according to its nature.
It is our nature to be contingent.
Human-free-will does not equate to human-sovereign-will.


If I may, I came to my present understanding, some years ago, during a study of logic. I came to believe that the first-principles of logic emanate from God's nature and constitute the necessary standard of sound reasoning. The first-principles are the basest of ideas, they are literally undeniable. Without them, there would be no language. Everyone who has learned a language has learned a philosphy, basically: these sounds stand for these meanings, etc.

I calibrate my reasoning with the base presuppositions of:
existence
identitiy
non-contradiction
exclusion
causality
necessity
contingency
Existential: causality, necessity, and contingency
analogy
and the correpondence of truth

The idea the a sovereign subjecting Himself, is oxymoronic.

The bible is full of people freely exercising their wills, but one only need broaden the context adequetly to see that, in each and every case, they were doing exactly what God prescribed. God's sovereignty is the primary backdrop in scripture, it is everywhere, it like the white on the pages.

Sovereign means not-subject.
Necessary means not-contingent.

What it comes down to is this;
Can a sovereign be subject? or Can a subject be accountable?
No, a sovereign being subject is dismissable, on its face.
Yes, we are utterly subject (even our choices) and utterly accoutable.

This is not fair, in the sense of equality, but it's not about us, now is it?

The idea that each man must be sovereign over his own destiny for God to be justified in sending anyone to hell is a conjured up bloated opinion of man. The ONLY justification God gives for His prescription of His creation is His sovereignty. Who are we to question God? Certainly, we act contrary to God's nature (sin), but it is not possible that we act contrary to His will. Sin and redemption from sin is not plan-B.

God is either absolutely sovereign or absolutely not.
This is a self-evident statement, a tautology,
but the world-view implications are life changing.

Be still, and know that He is God.

 

[bricklayer]

Evil is not a creation, it is a privation, the absence of good.

Cold is not a creation, it is the absence of heat.

Darkness is not a creation, it is the absence of light.

Death is not a creation, it is the abscence of life.

Evil is akin to a hole in a cloth, it is the absence of cloth.

No, God did not create evil, but He did prescribe the existence and absence of all that exists or is abscent.

 

[drichards85]

OzSpen, you have not really answered any of my questions so far. The question in my last post had a typo: I did not mean to ask why Adam and Eve are assumed to be sinless, for I also believe they were created sinless. I meant to ask, why are they assumed to have been created perfect? See my post before last. All the Scriptures say is that they were created 'very good,' but it is unclear to me what textual ground we have for asserting that this goodness consisted in perfection, since perfection in particular picks out a concept altogether different than goodness, and implies a state of completion. Those authors do nothing to demonstrate the goodness = perfection, or that the only way for a thing to be good is for it also to be perfect. They just assume and make the leap from 'good' to 'perfect' without any explanation.

Zeena, what I said about my question on sinlessness applies to you since I meant to ask why Adam and Eve are assumed to have been created perfect? I agree that God is not subject to necessity, but my question was pointed against bricklayer's implication that God is a 'necessary' being. This makes necessity greater than God and thus God actually loses His soverengty. Bricklayer also refers to God as 'efficient cause' or 'uncaused cause.' Perhaps I should call Aristotle to tell him he has been plagarized, for none of this is in the Bible. As for your respond to question about the simplicity of God's will, I am confused as to whether you agree with me or no. My point is that there is a major assumption here that God cannot both will my salvation and my free co-operation in salvation. I fail to see why this is an inconsistent position, and nobody here so far as told me why. Also, I think the verses you quote demonstrate nicely that perfection is something other than what the people are given to believe, other than mere sinlessness.

 

[bricklayer]

GREAT POINT, drichards85.

That really sets the foundation for a thread, I started, titled "it seems to me".

I would like to know if your observation leads you to a similar conclusion.

 

[drichards85]

Bricklayer, give me time and I will respond to your longer post in full. I will need to dig up some references to show that your conception of God is pagan and Greek rather than the product of Christian revelation. You would do well to study Plotinus, Origen, and Augustine together to see just how much you have been influenced by the Neoplatonic perversion of early Christian doctrine, but more anon.

 

[bricklayer]

Origin and Augustine I've read, a bit.

I hope that you're not going to throw babies out with bath water.

Please calibrate your response to a bricklayer with a tenth grade education. I see that I'm out of my league with you.

 

[Zeena]

Zeena, what I said about my question on sinlessness applies to you since I meant to ask why Adam and Eve are assumed to have been created perfect?

I never assumed the were created perfect, but I know they were innocent.

I believe the tree of knowledge of good and evil was put there by God to TEST and REFINE thier characters, nothing more, nothing less, which they failed.

Just as if you wanted a train a child up in the way he should go, in order to mature them.
Reward and punishment

I agree that God is not subject to necessity, but my question was pointed against bricklayer's implication that God is a 'necessary' being.

Well, I didn't see your questions addressed to anyone in particular.

Would anyone like to answer my questions..
*snip*

As for your respond to question about the simplicity of God's will, I am confused as to whether you agree with me or no. My point is that there is a major assumption here that God cannot both will my salvation and my free co-operation in salvation. I fail to see why this is an inconsistent position, and nobody here so far as told me why. Also, I think the verses you quote demonstrate nicely that perfection is something other than what the people are given to believe, other than mere sinlessness.

Who is this addressed to please?

FTR I believe they go hand in hand
God DOES will the Salvation of ALL MEN EVERYWHERE, and men are free to either accept or reject the Living God.

Well, since no one else is posting I suppose I could elaborate;

Men who sin constantly will have thier conscious dulled to the point of basically, no return.
There is still Light while he still has breath, however. But good luck seeing Him through the darkness!

Hebrews 12:17
For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

John 1:5
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Men who do good deeds are more apt to chose to confess thier sins and believe on Jesus for the Salvation of thier souls.

Even as I quoted from the writing of the Apostle John from Scripture earlier;

John 3:20-3:21
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

 

[Zeena]

Zeena, what I said about my question on sinlessness applies to you since I meant to ask why Adam and Eve are assumed to have been created perfect?

Or, are you asking WHY [other] people believe that way?

If so, it's for the simple reason they can say they are perfect within themselves while they continue to quench and grieve the Holy Spirit for continuing in sin.

2 Corinthians 10:12 & 18
For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.

 

[drichards85]

Bricklayer, whether I throw the baby out with the bathwater remains to be seen. As for being out of your league, I would not want you or anyone else to shy away from discussion with me simply because my explanations seem academic or well-researched. Though I study a lot, it in no way signifies that I am smarter than anyone here, just that I have more knowledge concerning the relevant fields. Let us consider your notion of nature and will, to see what they imply and if there are other alternatives.

One of your basic premises is that God is a necessary being, while we are contingent beings. Though I do not have references handy, it is all over the literature that being (Gr. ousia) is one of Aristotle's ten categories. In the Metaphysics Aristotle lays out the ways in which we speak of things that are, ascribing to them for example location in space and time. Among his categories of being was Being or Ousia Itself. I do not have time to go in to the nuances of this metaphysic and all its implications, but one of the efforts made in the early Church was to disentangle the notion of a "Supreme Being," that is, one who is subject to the categories of being such as space and time, from the Tri-une God of Christianity ultimately revealed in Christ.

After several controversies, some of which said that God was a creature rather than one in essence with the Father, or that the Holy Spirit was only a creature, or that Christ had only one nature or one will, etc. it was determined that the Tri-une God does not fit in to any Greek conception of God. Thus in His essence He is beyond the categories of being, such as space and time, including Being Itself, all of which may be predicated of created being but not of the Uncreated Trinity. It is not that God experiences past, present, and future all at the same time so much as in His essence He is outside of time altogether. The same is true of space: God may access both time and space throug His activity, but His very "existence" is no existence, not in the sense that it applies to us. This is to say, that if God exists, His existence is unlike anything we can compare it to in the created realm and thus there is no analogy between any created nature and the Divine Nature.

To call God, as you do, a necessary being, is to posit two things: first, that God exists in the same "sphere" of existence that we do, and that He is subject to necessity, at which point He ceases to be sovereign since there is something else "behind" God which forces Him to act a certain way. This dovetails into your discussion of nature and free will. According to you, a will is only free to act according to its nature. Your confusion here is twofold. First, it fails to make an adequate distinction between nature and person. Second, it supposes that natures determine persons such that persons are nothing more than instances of nature; thus our wills are determined in accordance with our natures. What happens when we map this schema on to God and Christ? We end with a lot of confusion, especially since, if God is not free than He is not sovereign, since necessity implies that there is something "behind" Him to make Him act the way He does. Of course if we consider the implications of this, then creation would have to be eternal, since if God in His nature has the ability to create and His action is necessitated by the kind of nature He has, then creation becomes necessary rather than created out of freedom and therefore contingent.

The implications for Christology are much more baffling but I will save it for now. Suffice to say I think it is important to consider that there exists a definite distinction between persons and their natures, as shown in the dogma of the Holy Trinity and in classic Christology, with two natures in one divine person. If we fail to distinguish these two then the doctrine of God and Christ collapses, and confusion ensues in other areas as well, such as original sin and predestination. It is more accurate to say that natures circumscribe persons, or rather set boundaries around what it is possible for persons to do, but do not in fact determine how and what those persons will. Thus, our nature was created good but we were able to will in opposition to a good nature, because natures do not determine persons. How does this work out in reference to God? Is He too limited by His nature? We we could say that in theory He is, but then His nature is altogether different than ours. It knows no limits or boundaries, so it is inappropriate to talk about God as if we have full knowledge of His nature in the first place.

Anyway, these are just a few insights for you to consider. If you need me to unpack anything for you, don't hesitate to let me know. I realize you are probably unfamiliar with some of these concepts and so cannot really engage without having studied the relevant material, but I'd be more than happy to discuss some of the finer details of some of these concepts. Protestants, Calvinists, Lutherans, etc do not exist in a philosophical background without any assumptions, I am just trying to point out in what those assumptions consist.

 

[bricklayer]

Wow, good stuff.

Sometimes I want to dance and sometimes I want to wrestle ...

Much of what you point out is due to the presuppositions upon which I built. We all have them, as contingent beings. We, here, could never be exhaustive, but elaboration is due.

I am left to belive that the origins of concepts such as "being" did not come about by chance. This takes me to another point you glanced,
the analogy principle. I am left to believe that the first-principles of logic emanate from God's nature and that language is a construct. Language can therefore be, at best, analogous to God, because it is a finite expression of an infinite.

I find your discription of God's transcendence very thoughtful. We agree on non-temporallity, but God is more the just transcendent, He is also immanent.

Your more interesting points were those about:
God not being free to act contrary to His nature and therefore not truely free,
God being limited by His nature.

First off, what is it that could compel God to act contrary to His nature, do exactly as he pleases? The idea that He could be compelled or would not need to be compelled to act contraray to his nature is dismissable as contradictory. By definition, a being acts according to its nature.

This would be limiting to God, as you said, "God is limited by His nature", but it is God's nature to be Unlimited, infinite, necessary, pure actuality with no potentiality. Any change would cause the first limit on God.
God's nature is to exist, necessarily, inifinitely, etc.
What we're talking about is the inviolate balance of His infinite perfections.
This is His holiness, His glory.

As to the nature of a person, I am left to believe that it is triune:
intellect-emotion-will, be that person human, angelic or a the Persons of the trinity.

I do not see any instance in history where any creature acted contrary to God's will.
I do see much done cotrary to His nature.

In a nut shell, if I'm not way off here, what you're saying is;
God doesn't want what God doesn't like, and there is a lot God doesn't like.
Therefore God doesn't get everythingg He wants.
Therefore God is not sovereign.

I am left to believe that;
God gets everything he wants constantly, and there is a lot God hates.
Therefore God wants to reveal what he hates.
God gets everything He wants constantly, whether he likes it or not.

There is one thing worth repeating. The origins of these concepts concern me no more than the "changes" to the bible over time. From my point of view, none of it happened by chance anyway. However, whatever I can learn from you doesn't either.

There is one thing worth adding, only because you glanced the subject.
The triune nature of an act is: intent-affect-effect.
In God's being, He is one.
When God acts, the intent is attributed to God the Father, the affect is attributed to God the Holy Spirit and the effect is attributed to God the Son. Just an observation.