Why did God create evil?

Nimbo said:

So there is a Lord and no other. He formed the light and CREATED THE DARKNESS. Again, WHY?

Click to expand...

Nimbo, I sent a PM, and as I have said in another post on this thread. NO ONE can answer why or say that God didn't create bad or evil. NO ONE except God. Only opinions from us can be offered, proof, fact, not possible. We could debate for 10 years and we still wouldn't have a definite answer.

Nimbo said:

But if God was the CREATOR of "ALL" and I MEAN EVERY SINGLE FREAKING THING, then He must have CREATED EVIL.

Click to expand...

I believe rebelling againts God = evil, made possible by allowing free will. 1st sin in heaven was made by the falling angel ribelling against God. 1st sin in mankind was caused by Adam not obeying God's instruction not to eat the fruit.

Evil was not created. Anything that goes againts God is evil, no evil if there's no angel, no mankind, i.e. if there's nothing/noone to rebel againts God.

Just my thought, merely for discussion purpose. Only God knows.

Nimbo said:

What was His purpose in doing so? I am looking for answers from facts, evidence, and logic and reason. I have heard this question many times: Why did God create Satan and evil, and why did He allow Lucipher (Satan) to betray Him in heaven? And why did He cast Satan down to Earth where He also created Adam afterward? Because He did create Adam in a place where Satan was roaming, did He not expect humans to sin? And if He knew humans were going to sin, then why did God react to the eating of the fruit from the tree with such anger and wrath?

Click to expand...

....My discussion of this topic from an earlier post.


(...) writes:

"I know God is punishing my family and I don't know why? I am so angry at God."


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********


V writes::


Ego based humans always look for an enemy to blame things on. It is humans nature to be deluded. Going back to the earliest humans, man has always looked for an 'enemy to blame' for lack of rain, too much rain, pestilence, disease and all the rest of his 'supposed' ills. Sometimes there is someone to blame for certain problems, which is usually US. Other times it is just how things are and no one is to blame. When you stop looking for an enemy to blame your problems on you have made a big breakthrough with finding acceptance and peace. It is always good to remember that all problems are created in the mind...man's mind. As well that all of man's problems are 'individual ones' and are not the problems of anything other than 'individual' man's.

When a forest fire occurs from natural means and burns a mans home or kills him it may be 'bad' for him. But nature has bigger goals in mind than pleasing the self centered wishes of puny man. The forest fire serves other purposes of regeneration within natures plans and not mans demands. When it floods, nature is just reclaiming what is hers. But man decided he 'owns' nature and does not wish to give it up...greed, attachment and delusion. Again, nature has bigger plans than mans when it floods and replenishes nutrients and keeps the balance in check with its work. It is good to remember that nature does not bow to man and in the end all men will bow to nature.

But what else can you expect from an ego based, delusional human that thinks the world revolves around them? One that thinks even nature and God must serve them, each of them as an individual, above everyone and everything else? This is why Buddhism stresses the idea of no self, a concept that helps cut through these delusions. It is an important concept in itself, one that is too long to go into here, so study it up on your own if you wish to lose the delusion and think clearer. But Buddhist are not out of the water by any means. Much delusion in that tradition as well. Instead of God to blame, they dump it on karma...man has always looked for an enemy to blame his woes on.

In Buddhist practice they distinguish the three unwholesome roots as the roots that cause suffering within man. They are: DELUSION, GREED and HATE. Out of these three, delusion is the foundational root, for without seeing delusions for what they are, you cannot distinguish the other two unwholesome roots of greed and hate. But this is only restating the eightfold path of right actions, right thoughts, right view, right intentions, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. Within the sickness of s delusional mind many spiritual practitioners get stuck in the place of trying to be God. They think they know better than God. they think they rule nature and know better than nature. As such they demand their prayers must be answered in full or their ego gets hurt. Deliver the goods God ... or I will not worship you.

In the 12 and 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous it tells us we mistakenly think God is Santa Claus and must come through with our demands, just as we did as greedy children making up a long, impossible list for Santa to fill. Can you imagine if everyone's prayers were answered according to our self centered and conflicting demands? Everyone would be billionaires, some would sprout wings and fly or grow gills and live underwater and no one would grow old. Death...no one would ever die...except ones "enemies" that the misguided might prayer for to die. This is not how the world and spiritual laws work. In the bible it reminds us that God's way is not man's way, and we can all be very grateful for that, as we can see what has happened when demigods take power on earth.

Many women say they can't understand men, just as many men say they can't understand women. Well, to further distill this we can say that God's way / Higher Power's Way / Nature's Way is not man's way as well as man's way is not woman's way. Every creature has it's way and when you can come to peace with this you will have an easier time of it. To start on your peace journey look for insight into the other creatures suffering and problems. This technique comes from my Buddhist practice. This is easier to do with men or women than with God. But it can still be done non the same with your higher power, as I mentioned above with the impossibility of satisfying all the demands of a selfish and conflicting world.

The 12 and 12 of AA also reminds us that believing in God or a Higher Power requires "reliance and not defiance." Once we have this reliance and lose the defiance we can develop "faith that works under all conditions" and we come to realize that "our whole trouble had been a misuse of willpower. We tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's or our Higher Power's intention for us." There never is a good time for most of us to die, yet we all come under natural law and must die. so making egocentric demands on God to bypass natural law to be immortal for us or our loved ones is not realistic. My earlier post called "The Definition of a Miracle is the Suspension of Natural Law" discussed this issue.

Change is internal

It seems that many of us get stuck with looking for hope of change someplace else other than within us. All change is ultimately internal in nature, but we have hopes that someone else will do it for us, rather than we doing it ourselves. Many religious practitioners feel that any good change in their lives will come from the outside -- as a gift from God / gods without much effort from ones own self to change...all they have to do is to pray 'hard' enough - again delusional thinking. There is nothing wrong with asking humbly in prayer or meditation, but there is something wrong with delusional prayer...especially when you think you are the God and know better than the God or Nature. Whenever I pray I always end it with AA's Step 11 - "Praying only for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out." I take it out of my hands and turn it over to God. Developing gratitude is very helpful with recovery work.

Now, some people talk of enlightenment or miracles happening, but even these areas of great change still must be ultimately rooted inside the person, as no one can beat them over the head with them and force the change upon the individual. One thing to be mindful of is that once we do change life will still not be perfect. Perfection is again ego based as it is the nature of humans to not be perfect. As the old Buddhist saying goes: Before enlightenment you chop wood and carry water ~ After enlightenment you chop wood and carry water. So, develop all the positive changes you can in your life, but be sure to look at such changes in proportion and not as some magic bullet to nirvana. True happiness and serenity is composed of many qualities and not just one. The first step in finding peace with these subjects is to cut through the delusion.

Whether you believe in God or not, delusion will undermine either path you take as is shown I the quote I include above from (...). Developing a good vipassana practice of seeing things clearly in terms of impermanence, suffering and non-self is very important Seeing things for what they are helps prevent further uprising of new passions from ignorance. Once the new flow of delusion has been lifted, you start the process of 'awakening.' You awaken to a whole new life.

A quote on finding peace from Thich Nhat Hanh

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way. This means that we can realize peace right here in the present moment with our look, our smile, our words and our actions. Peace work in not a means, each step we take should be peace. Every step we take should be joy. Every step we take should be happiness. Are you massaging Mother Earth every time your foot touches her? Are you planting seeds of joy and peace? Enlightenment, peace and joy will not be granted by someone else. The well is within us and if we dig deeply in the present moment the water will spring forth. If we are determined, we can do it. We don't need the future. We can smile, breath fully and relax Everything we want is here in the present moment. Peace is every step. Shall we continue our journey?"


Take Care,




V (Male)

A xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx living a life of Voluntary Simplicity and grateful recovering Debtor, Drug, Alcohol and Substance Abuser, Compulsive Overeater, Clutterer, Hoarder, Rageaholic, Speculative Gambler, Compulsive Spender, Sex and Sensation Addict.

TheTruthinFiction said:

We are not connecting. God's intentions are not known to anyone, no matter how much they tell you they are known. It would be an opinion that God wouldn't want us to be a group of clones. If you created something would you want it to be a simple thing or a complex thing? Also without putting evil or bad why would you believe in a God? If you woke up everyday, everyone smiled at you, it never rained, you never got sick, why would you want to reach Heaven, where those things are rewarded?

I do believe that evil or bad was created for us to struggle and rise above, by having faith in God.

It's a common, I want to use the word, "misconception" but I don't want to come off as self-righteous either, but it is common for a majority of us Christians to believe that God doesn't create evil. Here is hopefully, a helpful Bible quote.

NIV:
Isaiah 45:5-7: I am the LORD and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of it's setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster, I the LORD, do all of the these things.

Click to expand...

Well said. We do not know the answers to everything, nor will we. Why did God create evil? I really don't care why He did, He has his reasons, his plan. I'm just glad to be on the right side. The things I don't know, I'll ask the Lord. If I don't know in this life, I'll ask Him when I see Him. If He doesn't want to answer certain things, so be it, it's not meant for me to know. I can answer your question, but it will be speculation - it is a dangerous place to speculate about god.

A guest Pastor at our church mentioned something very interesting:

"Why is there evil? So we won't take G-d granted!" Hmm...I wonder how much we would take G-d granted if we were all in Eden.

G-d bless,
sc

I hate to sound cliche, but the answer remains. It's very simply free will, no matter how you look at it.

Food for thought: Evil isn't evil, it's the absence of that which is good. We as humans choose whether we want to be "lambs without blemish" to God or not, because the only way we can is if we choose to be saved, baptized, and follow the Word. Lucifer had the same choice. There's the creation of evil. God made everything the way it is for a reason - He isn't outside of His own logic, or, not a contridiction to Himself. Because God has given us free will, we can choose whether or not to follow His way. Since there is no "way, truth, or life" other than His Son, there has to be a second path, right? Such is the path of sin, inherantly evil, chosen by both Lucifer, Adam and Eve.

So that must bring you to "Why was free will created at all?" I assume that it's because God wanted us to love Him by our will, not His. Of course that might not hold water to some people, but I suppose I'll ask Him when I see Him.

God did not create evil. There is a verse in the bible that says God does not tempt, decieve, and some other things. But in no way did he create evil. Everything was perfect when God created the world, but man sinned because satan decieved them by making something look good that wasn't good at all. Because of our sin our eyes have been open to the evil of this world. God not want us to see evil and sin but we choose to.

If evil wasn't inherited by God, then that still doesn't explain where EVIL came from. If God is the CREATOR if ALL, then where did evil COME FROM and HOW DID IT COME INTO EXISTENCE?


Of Course God Created Evil, that does not mean God (IS) Evil. You could be the Best Parent in the whole world, but your son or daughter could be the worst person in all the world. Does that make you evil for what your child did. With out evil you would not know what good was. God gives us a choice, he offers us life, all we have to do its take it, just like Eve in the garden, she was told not to take the fruit, it brought death, now we are told by God to take what he has offer us by the death of Christ, to bring us back to life. Without choice then there is no life, you are just a slave. God wants to be our Father, and we his Sons & Daughters.

God did not create evil. What He did, however, was create the possibility of evil. This all goes back to the debate over free will, which I think is critical to why we are created in the first place.

God is love, and pretty much by definition love is not love without someone to love. So His very nature compelled Him to create beings with which to have a love relationship. The other side of love is that you can't really love someone unless you alse have the freedom to not love them (e.g. a robot programmed to say "I love you" does not actually love), so God therefore gave the angels and us free will. Now, what to me is so profoundly amazing about God is that, being omniscient, He knew that we would screw it all up by choosing to rebel against him (sin), but He chose to create us anyway knowing the pain and sacrifice He would have to make to reconcile us back to Him. That is the kind of love that He has for us.

God had every hope and intention of us being good and perfect, but had to allow us the choice to choose evil instead. So, if pressed to give evil's origin, I would say that Satan/Lucifer "discovered" evil by being the first to choose it.

We are created in the image of God.

First and foremost.......................


1. We can do whatever we want choice wise.
2.He wants us to do right
3. Satan doesn't!
4. His angels have the choice to do whatever they want too!
5. They did wrong.
6. God did not create evil, he simply allowed it to happen, just like tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. ThEy HaPpEn!!! They just do. God doesn't make them happen, he may not want them to happen, maybe he does, I don't know. But he doesn't make them happen. The rain falls on the just and unjust alike. Natural stuff is natural stuff. Animals kill each other, that, is natural. We don't. We aren't animals, we are humans, special in the eyes of God. We have the choice to do right or wrong, we aren't robots. We can choose God or reject him. He wants honest people who really love him, not a bunch of robots who do what they are told.

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

God gave mankind a full choice between good and evil for a reason. Full love cannot exist without full choice.
Although God created the choice that set evil free within the heart of satan, causing pride and rebellion to rise up in him, God did not do evil. It is the same today. If I do evil, I cannot blame God for the evil I do.
God uses evil to bring about good, as all things work together for good, for those that love God and are the called according to His purpose. God has purpose in all things - even in the creation of evil, as it seperates the light from the dark and gives definition to what He wants to be known. How could one ever paint a self portrait without using the absence of light which is black - darkness. It is black, the absence of all light and color, that gives us the perfect outline and definition. Remember, God makes ALL things turn around for good in the end. Even the greatest evil of history was turned into the way for all of mankinds salvation at the cross....
There is nothing that exists that has not been made by God, and His word clearly says so in Isaiah and other scriptures.

Joh 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Nimbo said:

What was His purpose in doing so? I am looking for answers from facts, evidence, and logic and reason. I have heard this question many times: Why did God create Satan and evil, and why did He allow Lucipher (Satan) to betray Him in heaven? And why did He cast Satan down to Earth where He also created Adam afterward? Because He did create Adam in a place where Satan was roaming, did He not expect humans to sin? And if He knew humans were going to sin, then why did God react to the eating of the fruit from the tree with such anger and wrath?

Click to expand...

this is a loaded question..............in this age of great media and good teachers on every corner, such a question is intended to start silly strife and to promote wrong doing

jehusarrow said:

this is a loaded question..............in this age of great media and good teachers on every corner, such a question is intended to start silly strife and to promote wrong doing

Click to expand...

Dear Jehusarrow, Welcome to the forums. I disagree with what you wrote as Nimbo is sincerely seeking an answer to these questions. I don't believe God created evil, but if you read the responses you will see that others believe he did. This is the proper forum for this question. Blessings, Tapero

Dear Nimbo,

I don't know if you know what it is like to love God. It is something deep within and is wonderful. I say this because I don't know if you have loved God. I don't love him because there is evil in the world; I love him because He is God and I am known by Him. BTW, I still contend that God did not create evil. Take care, Tapero

Nimbo said:

Thanks again for all the answers. I think I should mention that when I type in CAPITALS and use exclamations that I'm not YELLING or getting angry!!!! Rather I'm just emphasizing a point.

So far, the free will idea is the most logical. And what Norwood said might be true: that if we are to experience love, then there would need to be something that would enable us to not feel love, as a means of differentiating the two ends of the spectrum. Which would make me wonder what heaven is like, since there's no evil or bad or darkness. Does that mean you can't experience love in Heaven?

Any other theories or thoughts on why a loving almighty being would allow his creation to go wrong? People often say that if God is all love and He created us, they see it as an "experiment gone totally wrong," and for that reason they don't feel as if God is Almighty and in control of his creation. Therefore, they deny God. And understanding their point of view, they have great reason to feel that way.

Click to expand...

Hi, just passing through and liked what I saw. I like this kind of question from someone honestly looking for truth. I have heard it said it is in the misuse of Gods creation that evil happens. He created everything to glorify Himself, then told us how to use his creation. One example I can think of in terms of misusing creation is to worship the creation instead of the creator. When anything becomes more important to us than God, we have made it sinful, or commited sin with it.

The Christian walk is the journey, continue your search for truth. Remember, it is about what God wants, not what we want. In all relationships, we should be more concerned about expressing love than recieving love

I'm just a cliche factory tonight.
timlamb

Nimbo said:

Yeah I'm just looking for the absolute honest brutal truth. And when I find it, I can then realy it and teach it to other people, the people who ask me this question time and time again.

If no one knows here, can someone point me to another forum or website where they answer this question (or at least try to)? Thanks again.

The free will theory still sounds the most logical. Any other theories, thoughts ideas??

Click to expand...

I find most evil and sinful things to be selfish acts. when we take the focus off of self we are less likely to sin, or do evil. That is also tied to free will. the will to serve God, or to serve self, or to serve any master we but above God.
Ramble, ramble
Bye