Idea of evil

Gen 2:9 He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad.

Gen 3:5 God said that because he knows that when you eat it, you will be like God and know what is good and what is bad."

Before the supposed fall, it seems human kind did not know good and evil, only good.

And it was God who knew what evil was.

How in the world did he come up with the idea of creating evil?

From where did it even originate?

How did he even have the the thought to let/cause such to happen?

Mat 5:28 But now I tell you: anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing with her in his heart.

How could God not have imagined evil in his heart prior to letting such happen.

Dear FundiMentalist. Until the Serpent tempted Adam and Eve, they did not know the meaning between good and Not good. God told them not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, because if they did they would die. They believed the tempter`s lies, rather than the loving warning of God. Adam and Eve were banned from Eden, and instead of repenting, they moved farther and farther from God. We know the world is an imperfect world, we know we are surrounded by temptations of all sorts, and instead of resisting temptation, men and women became wilful slaves of the lying adversary, Satan the archenemy of God. In time Jesus came, He paid the price which God`s Holy Law demanded, and we were reconciled to God. Jesus died for all, and we all have to learn to love God again, to say NO to Temptation. God is Love and God wants us back again, and Jesus will lead us back to where we we came from. But first we must REPENT, become the loving and loyal Children of our Heavenly Father. Love is the Key to God`s Kingdom, FundiMentalist, Love with heart, soul and mind for God, and love for each other, as Jesus taught us. I say this humbly and kindly. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

Hi FundiMentalist,

FundiMentalist said:

Gen 2:9 He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad.

Gen 3:5 God said that because he knows that when you eat it, you will be like God and know what is good and what is bad."

Before the supposed fall, it seems human kind did not know good and evil, only good.

And it was God who knew what evil was.

How in the world did he come up with the idea of creating evil?

From where did it even originate?

How did he even have the the thought to let/cause such to happen?

Mat 5:28 But now I tell you: anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing with her in his heart.

How could God not have imagined evil in his heart prior to letting such happen.

Click to expand...

You are still thinking of good and evil as two separate things which were created separately. I covered this earlier in your other thread, but evil is merely behaviour or actions that are wrong, and in order to judge so we need a standard by which to set right and wrong, which comes from God. He has specified correct behaviour and action, and by not doing so, we do evil.

As soon as you have good, you have the capacity for evil too. A good way to think of this, is how do you have light without too having darkness? You cannot, darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good.

Cheers,
Digit

Digit said:

As soon as you have good, you have the capacity for evil too.

Click to expand...

Ontological arguments are always so weird.

Anyhow, look at this one prior to the supposed rebellion of Lucifer (we'll just skip over the Satan/Lucifer conflation for the moment).

Before Lucifer's rebellion, there would have been just God. Supposedly "good."

And by your quote with "the capacity for evil tool."

You're suggesting God has the capacity for evil???

Emmy said:

Dear FundiMentalist. Until the Serpent tempted Adam and Eve, they did not know the meaning between good and Not good. God told them not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, because if they did they would die. They believed the tempter`s lies, rather than the loving warning of God. Adam and Eve were banned from Eden, and instead of repenting, they moved farther and farther from God. We know the world is an imperfect world, we know we are surrounded by temptations of all sorts, and instead of resisting temptation, men and women became wilful slaves of the lying adversary, Satan the archenemy of God. In time Jesus came, He paid the price which God`s Holy Law demanded, and we were reconciled to God. Jesus died for all, and we all have to learn to love God again, to say NO to Temptation. God is Love and God wants us back again, and Jesus will lead us back to where we we came from. But first we must REPENT, become the loving and loyal Children of our Heavenly Father. Love is the Key to God`s Kingdom, FundiMentalist, Love with heart, soul and mind for God, and love for each other, as Jesus taught us. I say this humbly and kindly. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

Click to expand...

Emmy, thanks but I think the OP flew over your head.

FundiMentalist said:

Gen 2:9 He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad.

Gen 3:5 God said that because he knows that when you eat it, you will be like God and know what is good and what is bad."

Before the supposed fall, it seems human kind did not know good and evil, only good.

And it was God who knew what evil was.

How in the world did he come up with the idea of creating evil?

From where did it even originate?

How did he even have the the thought to let/cause such to happen?

Mat 5:28 But now I tell you: anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing with her in his heart.

How could God not have imagined evil in his heart prior to letting such happen.

Click to expand...

hmm..
not going to research this, gonna just say my thoughts,

God created all things and called them very good.

angels were created on day 1 - so i understand (tho of course is debatable, but can provide a tad to help in this.)

satan an angel, now a demon, having sinned in heaven now on earth.

God who in no wise created evil, tho no dummy be our God quite aware of everything that ever could be.

days later

so trees are in the garden, God creates Adam and Eve and gives Adam the commandment what Adam may and may not do.

satan a serpent speaks to eve and eve has no recollected accurately as you double check what God said to Adam, and what Eve says to satan, they don't match of course, so she had her knowledge of the words of the command wrong.

and apparently satan struck in her a desire to be like God knowing good and evil

Eve does what God told Adam not to do.

So God who is all and always was and always will be is more intelligent, as he has all knowledge there is, and hence knows all that can be.

He did not create evil.

He, being the Almighty God He is, out of His goodness; created angels, man, and all their is,

all he created was very good, and he created all there is

and some angels, and adam and eve fell (sinned)

the let it happen again; is because God is so gracious that he gave angels and man free will, so that's how it happened, cause he did not disallow a being he created to do as freely willed to do.

As God is not evil, and has all knoweledge that their is, and you are implyng with the verse at end that God sinned in His thoughts and is evil because man is evil and has sinned and God created man, you are saying God then also is evil. Not.

Not accurate.

God knows all that can occur. As with all we've discovered to date that God created, and named theories and etc, named things, found stars, moons etc, all our scientific research, medical, whatever, is just us figuring out what God gave us, which is everything.

God is not evil. Evil does not reside in God meaning, such as can reside in a human. Such as when I am evil. God is not that way, can not exist in God.

And again, sin is against God, and God can not sin against himself.

So, he did not create evil, nor is evil within him, but he knows all that can be.

FundiMentalist said:

Ontological arguments are always so weird.

Anyhow, look at this one prior to the supposed rebellion of Lucifer (we'll just skip over the Satan/Lucifer conflation for the moment).

Before Lucifer's rebellion, there would have been just God. Supposedly "good."

And by your quote with "the capacity for evil tool."

You're suggesting God has the capacity for evil???

Click to expand...

Hi FundiMentalist,

Yes, why would He not. I haven't read all of this - so don't be mad if it says something odd, but if you are open to visiting and external link, have a read as the first few bits of what I read seem to concur with my thoughts on it:

Clicky!

Cheers!
Digit

Thanks for the link. Familiar address to the Problem of Evil.

My question is slightly different though. Before evil existed in the real world, wouldn't God have had to first envisage it in his mind?

Hi FundiMentalist,

FundiMentalist said:

Thanks for the link. Familiar address to the Problem of Evil.

My question is slightly different though. Before evil existed in the real world, wouldn't God have had to first envisage it in his mind?

Click to expand...

You mean, before good existed in the real world, wouldn't God have had to first envisage a world without good?

I think no, as God has always been, and if God is love which is what we are told, then good has always been present.

Cheers,
Digit

Why do you deny the scriptures?

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Hi FundiMentalist,

FundiMentalist said:

Why do you deny the scriptures?

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Click to expand...

I like how you bring up scripture to back your claims, yet you carefully pick and choose those which support your position. So you are positing that you believe this part of scripture, yet not the rest? Interesting.

Anyhow, you should be careful about using out of context English translations to prove a point. That passage is a declaration of God's omnipotence, His authority over everything good and bad, light and dark and his propensity to often use evil for good, the worlds losers to be His champions. Linky for you.

Cheers!
Digit

FundiMentalist said:

Gen 2:9 He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad.

Gen 3:5 God said that because he knows that when you eat it, you will be like God and know what is good and what is bad."

Before the supposed fall, it seems human kind did not know good and evil, only good.

And it was God who knew what evil was.

How in the world did he come up with the idea of creating evil?

From where did it even originate?

How did he even have the the thought to let/cause such to happen?

Mat 5:28 But now I tell you: anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing with her in his heart.

How could God not have imagined evil in his heart prior to letting such happen.

Click to expand...

Shrug.

The bible doesn't do much to explain why evil exists in the first place - it's much more concerned with what its consequences are and what God has done and is doing about it.

Digit said:

Hi FundiMentalist,


I like how you bring up scripture to back your claims, yet you carefully pick and choose those which support your position. So you are positing that you believe this part of scripture, yet not the rest? Interesting.

Anyhow, you should be careful about using out of context English translations to prove a point. That passage is a declaration of God's omnipotence, His authority over everything good and bad, light and dark and his propensity to often use evil for good, the worlds losers to be His champions. Linky for you.

Cheers!
Digit

Click to expand...

What is was doing was prooftexting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prooftext

And you're spot on right that it is horribly sloppy exegesis.

Wondering if somebody would, or could, call me on it.

Also, I'm quite pleased you picked up the issues with the KJV interpretation of the verse.



Anyhow you also might be interested in...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package-deal_fallacy

ebia said:

Shrug.

The bible doesn't do much to explain why evil exists in the first place - it's much more concerned with what its consequences are and what God has done and is doing about it.

Click to expand...

Possibly evil exists because God, as first cause, caused it and God retains responsibility for its existence.

Or it's just a human term for describing some bad stuff.

FundiMentalist said:

Possibly evil exists because God, as first cause, caused it and God retains responsibility for its existence.

Click to expand...

We see God most clearly in Jesus of Nazareth, and that vision of God rules out the possibility that God would choose to create evil out of choice.

It's possible however that the possibility of evil has to exist as a consequence of something else that is good - but one is into the realms of (interesting) speculation.

Or it's just a human term for describing some bad stuff.

Click to expand...

You could say that, but even so it's a useful term for a valid concept. Relabelling it as something else isn't going to make the world a suffering-free place.

ebia said:

We see God most clearly in Jesus of Nazareth, and that vision of God rules out the possibility that God would choose to create evil out of choice.

Click to expand...

Jesus would have been there, then.

Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him.

If God didn't create evil out of choice, what did he create it out of?

FundiMentalist said:

Jesus would have been there, then.

Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him.

If God didn't create evil out of choice, what did he create it out of?

Click to expand...

Like I said, assuming that evil is a created thing at all, that would be interesting speculation.

FundiMentalist said:

Gen 2:9 He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad.

Gen 3:5 God said that because he knows that when you eat it, you will be like God and know what is good and what is bad."

Before the supposed fall, it seems human kind did not know good and evil, only good.

Click to expand...

No they new neither good nor Evil. So they did not know good either.

And it was God who knew what evil was.

How in the world did he come up with the idea of creating evil?

Click to expand...

Knowing Good and evil does not nessecary say that one created Evil.

From where did it even originate?

Click to expand...

From rebellion against the will of God.

How did he even have the the thought to let/cause such to happen?

Click to expand...

Its call free will.

Mat 5:28 But now I tell you: anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing with her in his heart.

How could God not have imagined evil in his heart prior to letting such happen.

Click to expand...

Once again knowing Evil does not mean that one created it.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

FundiMentalist said:

Why do you deny the scriptures?

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Click to expand...

Why ask the question if you think you already have the answer?

Isaiah 45
7 I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the LORD, do all these things.’


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

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