Why does evil exist?

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

I have heard people ask, "Why didn't God just create man without the ability to sin?" This would require taking away our free will, and we would have been robots. God is a God of relationships, and you can't have an intimate love relationship with a robot. I heard one person ask, "Well, then, why couldn't God create people who were incapable of sinning, yet still have free will? After all, God can do anything, can't He?" But this is like asking "How many angels can fit on the head of a pin?" or, "Can God create a rock so large that He can't lift it?" God creates REAL things, not absurd, illogical nonsense.

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

I see that some of the things I have said, tapero has already stated. Oh, well, that's OK, because sometimes we need to hear things more than once, and we are talking about something extremely important here, after all. And sometimes (at least, with me), it takes repetition before certain things set in.

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

Let's try to look at this logically.
First, God created everything.
Second, God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.
Third, evil exists.
So, if God created everything, and God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, then it logically follows that God is in control of evil. Not only that, but, if God created everything, then God must have created evil as well.

But there is a flaw in this logic. Let's back up to "God created everything." True, God did indeed create the angels, the earth, the planets and stars and galaxies, the animals, the fish, the insects and microscopic organisms, the birds, and man. However, God did not create demons. Demons are the result of holy angels rebelling against God. Neither did God create sin. Sin is a choice made by people who misused their freedom to think and choose. God allows the consequences of man's sin to continue for now (murder, rape, etc.), but He will not allow it forever. I think He only allows it for now, to show us what is the natural result of going against perfect knowledge and goodness. When you defy goodness, the result is evil. When you defy knowledge, the result is stupidity. However, even though God is not responsible for evil, God (because of His love) decided to save some of us anyway. If He saved everyone, He would be excusing evil and crime, and that would not be a very just God. If He condemned everyone, He would not be a very loving God. He also knew that we could never save ourselves, because foolish sinners can't do much of anything except sin (yes, it is true that we are created in God's image, and there is some goodness in us, but even that goodness is tainted by selfishness and pride, so we are sinful at our core). What God did was, He stepped in and offered to pay the penalty for our actions Himself. That is the greatest act of love this world has ever seen. So, simply put, this is our only hope, and if we accept Christ, we will be saved from Hell. If we reject God's plan to save us, then we are rejecting God's help, and the only other place for us to go is Hell, because we are not letting God help us.

 

[kulenok]

First of all, I want you to know, God did not create Satan as the evil, vile, discusting being he is in present state. Satan was first a being, an angel called Lucifer. He was one of the most wonderful angel there was, that was how he was created. But, he is no longer wonderful, or powerful (well powerful he is, but not holy power). He made himself be his present state because of pride. He became so proud of himself, that he formed a rebeliion. Some say that he was able to recruit about 1/3 of the angels that where there. And, considering the number of angels, that is a lot of angels on his side. He wanted to overthrow God to sit on his throne and posses his power. He failed. ANd he and his followers where deformed, and demented, but not destroyed.

Because of this, Satan and his angels, now fallen angels and more commonly known as demons are on earth, inside the spiritual realm. But they are not the cause of all evil. See, they like us, had free will. It was not satan that forced Eve to take the forbidden fruit, it was him that tempted her. That let us discern good and evil, and let s make out own choices. So you see, Satan is not the full source of evil, it is us. We are the ones that go after sin, violence, lust, theft, and all kinds of other vices. We are tempted by Satan, but the choice to accept is stricly ours, its always been this way. So evil simply represents the lack of good. Just like darkness is the lack of light, because light is photons, darkness cannot be mesured on any scale. Darkness is where there is not light, and in the same way evil acts. Its the same with heat and cold, cold is the LACK of heat energy.

So God never created evil itself, we did. Us and satan did, although he did it first, we think much like him. He was after power, he lusted for it. In today's world, money is power, so we do everything to get extra cash.

Like I said before, its not God's fault that there is evil, that there are all these murders, thefts rapes and what not. It is ours. We have only ourselves to blame for the worlds present state. We made the choices. Sure, we can try to blame Satan, after all, he tempted us. He may have tempted, but you accepted. That leaves you at fault, not him.

 

[Reformationist]

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[tapero]

Debate is not allowed in Questions by Non Christians so please do not debate. Any posts debating will be reviewed to see if removal is needed.

Thanks for your cooperation.

 

[Reformationist]

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[Digit]

Hello Reformationist,

I think a good way to think about it, is that you can respond and talk to the OP as much as you like, yet Christians should not engage each other here if they do not agree with each other's views. Often there are threads here that talk about controversial issues, like creation and evolution, and they can swiftly be derailed and the OP left very confused if we are allowed to challenge each other's viewpoints.

I hope that helps.

Cheers!
Digit

 

[Reformationist]

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[ebia]

I understand Digit. I've been around for a while. It just doesn't make much sense to respond to someone's post by directing your response at the OP if they weren't the ones who asked/discounted your view.

If your comment can't be directed to the OP, then it probably shouldn't be posted here. The purpose of this forum is to answer questions posed by non-Christians. That does mean that they will sometimes get a variety of substantially different answers - but that's a fair reflection of the diversity of Christian opinions.

I am onboard for the idea of not debating, though I feel that many of the mods see any conversation on biblical matters in this forum between two people of differing opinions as debate. Sometimes, as I said, it's just a conversation. You know, fellowship?

This isn't the place for fellowship or intra-Christian convserations; it's a place for non-Christians to engage with Christians with a set of rules that might be slightly artificial but actually work. As soon as we start discussing issues with each other we drift away from the purpose of this forum.

If you want to engage in a discussion with a fellow Christian over an issue there are plenty of more appropriate places for that.

 

[SonicBOOM]

this is one of my favorite subjects

alot of people would consider this an absurd answer, though if you open your mind I'm sure you'll grasp it's message. I think evil exists because it helps complete the plans of God. For example, alot of morel charecter traits could be accomplished without evil [like love and respect], but for some morel traits we need evil to boost us and give it context [such as traits like courege].

Another way this works could be that God could use the conseqences that are a result of evil to lead us away from evil. Evil is always a sour pill to take in wether we enjoy doing it or not, if we didn't have this sense of what evil was we wouldn't even be able to dicern the act itself. It's the feelings evil cause that we hate, not the act itself. Without these feelings we would never be able to move FROM evil TO good.

This is probably not a straight forward answer, but I tried my best hope it helps

 

[Reformationist]

Darrel, if you would ever like to address these topics and see the biblical support for my position, which is apparantly something that is completely unnecessary in this forum, feel free to PM me.

I wish you luck sorting through all of the nonsense that gets posted in this forum.

 

[DarrelDesoto]

Thank you all very much for your many responses. I appreciate everyone's time and efforts. I especially want to thank Live4HimAndLoveOthers who guided me to this forum and helped with technical issues and for his very thoughtful replies.

Due to time constraints, as I'm sure we all have, it can be awhile between my visits to this site, so if I don't respond quickly, just "have faith" , I'll be back.

First I'd like to say that it's fine to have rules to prevent this forum from being diverted from its principal purpose, but conversation among the contributers, and even a little debate, serves the educational purpose very well. And, I am relatively well educated and intelligent, as obviously all here are, and I can tell the difference between answers to my OP and auxiliary conversations and/or debate. Not to tempt anyone to disobey the rules, but I found the auxiliary conversations very enlightening, so thank you all for that, too.

That was a lot of posts and it will take me some time to digest them all, and it's probably too much to respond to each individual post (we'll all be here for eternity and I know most of you have someplace else you plan to be ), so like Live4HimAndLoveOthers, I will need to respond in pieces. For those who have offered me more personal assistance, I certainly appreciate your offers and may well take you up on it, but if you don't hear from me for awhile, please don't think I'm ignoring you; I will do my best to respond as soon as I can get one of those elusive round tuits.

As a short response for now, let me say that most of the responses were pretty much along the lines of what I've heard most of my life. The reason that I find these reasons so unconvincing is that they sound too much like the thinking of men rather than the thinking of God. It is very much in keeping with the purposes of men that we accept what we are told without question, or at least without daring to challenge the authority of those who tell us to do it. For me, it would seem that a perfect God would be capable of finding a better way to teach His children than the methods human parents use, which is basically to punish disobedience and reward obedience. I'm not a parent, but I know children can really be a handful. I hope that I would be able to find a way to teach my children what they need to know without resorting to cutting them off completely at the slightest transgression, as God seems to have done in the Garden of Eden.

If a person accepts Christianity and believes all that it says, then it is difficult to understand how a person like me could question God's purpose and plan as if I think myself better or wiser than He. But for those of us outside of any religion, the things claimed for and about God seem more like what men would devise to control other men rather than the things God would care about. It's hard for me to understand why God cares that we glorify Him. I think the Universe itself is pretty glorious all by itself. But, glorifying God is certainly a concept that men (and women) can understand and it provides a focal point for their attention and energies. Thus, worshipers are occupied and highly susceptible to the influences of the organized Church.

Also, from outside of any religion, we see all of these people saying, "Join us! Join us, not them!" So, how are we to know which, if any, to choose. The fact that Christians can find themselves debating each other's beliefs so easily that the webmaster of this site feels compelled to make rules against it in this forum just testifies to the fact that even you folks can't completely agree on what the correct belief is. Yes, you agree on general concepts, but at what point does the difference of opinions become significant? And, of course, I've seen some fairly vehement disagreements among Christians in other venues to the point that each later told me in private that the other was sure to burn in Hell. As a non-believer, of course, that just makes any choice I would make even more confusing.

What I find, in my own mind though, is that all of the confusion disappears as soon as I say, "There are no gods." Then, all the bad things in the world make sense. It's a much simpler explanation and it predicts the same result as all that you folks have said about God.

I'm short on time, but I would like to leave you with a final thought: You and I are both atheists. I just believe in one less god than you. When you understand why you have rejected all the other gods, then you will understand why I have rejected yours.

Thank you all for your help, and I will return as soon as time permits.

Thanks,
Darrel.

 

[Reformationist]

Thank you all very much for your many responses. I appreciate everyone's time and efforts. I especially want to thank Live4HimAndLoveOthers who guided me to this forum and helped with technical issues and for his very thoughtful replies.

Due to time constraints, as I'm sure we all have, it can be awhile between my visits to this site, so if I don't respond quickly, just "have faith" , I'll be back.

First I'd like to say that it's fine to have rules to prevent this forum from being diverted from its principal purpose, but conversation among the contributers, and even a little debate, serves the educational purpose very well. And, I am relatively well educated and intelligent, as obviously all here are, and I can tell the difference between answers to my OP and auxiliary conversations and/or debate. Not to tempt anyone to disobey the rules, but I found the auxiliary conversations very enlightening, so thank you all for that, too.

That was a lot of posts and it will take me some time to digest them all, and it's probably too much to respond to each individual post (we'll all be here for eternity and I know most of you have someplace else you plan to be ), so like Live4HimAndLoveOthers, I will need to respond in pieces. For those who have offered me more personal assistance, I certainly appreciate your offers and may well take you up on it, but if you don't hear from me for awhile, please don't think I'm ignoring you; I will do my best to respond as soon as I can get one of those elusive round tuits.

As a short response for now, let me say that most of the responses were pretty much along the lines of what I've heard most of my life. The reason that I find these reasons so unconvincing is that they sound too much like the thinking of men rather than the thinking of God. It is very much in keeping with the purposes of men that we accept what we are told without question, or at least without daring to challenge the authority of those who tell us to do it. For me, it would seem that a perfect God would be capable of finding a better way to teach His children than the methods human parents use, which is basically to punish disobedience and reward obedience. I'm not a parent, but I know children can really be a handful. I hope that I would be able to find a way to teach my children what they need to know without resorting to cutting them off completely at the slightest transgression, as God seems to have done in the Garden of Eden.

If a person accepts Christianity and believes all that it says, then it is difficult to understand how a person like me could question God's purpose and plan as if I think myself better or wiser than He. But for those of us outside of any religion, the things claimed for and about God seem more like what men would devise to control other men rather than the things God would care about. It's hard for me to understand why God cares that we glorify Him. I think the Universe itself is pretty glorious all by itself. But, glorifying God is certainly a concept that men (and women) can understand and it provides a focal point for their attention and energies. Thus, worshipers are occupied and highly susceptible to the influences of the organized Church.

Also, from outside of any religion, we see all of these people saying, "Join us! Join us, not them!" So, how are we to know which, if any, to choose. The fact that Christians can find themselves debating each other's beliefs so easily that the webmaster of this site feels compelled to make rules against it in this forum just testifies to the fact that even you folks can't completely agree on what the correct belief is. Yes, you agree on general concepts, but at what point does the difference of opinions become significant? And, of course, I've seen some fairly vehement disagreements among Christians in other venues to the point that each later told me in private that the other was sure to burn in Hell. As a non-believer, of course, that just makes any choice I would make even more confusing.

What I find, in my own mind though, is that all of the confusion disappears as soon as I say, "There are no gods." Then, all the bad things in the world make sense. It's a much simpler explanation and it predicts the same result as all that you folks have said about God.

I'm short on time, but I would like to leave you with a final thought: You and I are both atheists. I just believe in one less god than you. When you understand why you have rejected all the other gods, then you will understand why I have rejected yours.

Thank you all for your help, and I will return as soon as time permits.

Thanks,
Darrel.

Darrel, that was a very thoughtful and articulate post. In response to your "final thought," we who believe in God do so because He gave us faith. Faith in God is a gift of His grace and it is something that is foreign to our nature, as you, yourself, prove true. It is added to our constituent being for the purpose of redemption. He does not add it because we ask for it, nor does He do so because of anything at all meritorious in us, now or at any time in the future. In truth, the Gospel reveals that man is wicked in all his ways and has turned his back on God. He remains in this state of enmity because of this corruption of his nature. He is unable to overcome this corrupted nature and, without the intervening grace of God, will willfully and gladly remain in it until his death.

So, the reason you do not believe in God is because faith in God is not part of your nature until God adds it. You, like all unregenerate men, are not capable of inclining yourself to God in obedience based on a love and desire to submit to Him as Lord and Savior until He changes the spiritual polarity of your nature. When He does so, you'll no longer be able to deny the truth of God.

I wish you well and am available for any questions you may have.

God bless

 

[ephraimanesti]

I have a question that has plagued me for a long time. I have asked Christians, including ministers, preachers, and PhD theology professors, and none of them have given me an answer I can understand. They always end up telling me that we just can't know the answer. Perhaps someone in this forum could help me. Here's my question:

A basic Christian belief is that God exists and that He is omniscient (knows everything), omnipotent (can do anything), and benevolent (is compassionate and wants only good things to happen). Yet, very bad things happen to very good people all the time. For purposes of this discussion, we will call things like the Dec 26, 2004 tidal wave that killed over 200,000 people of all faiths, "Evil". So, why does God allow these things to occur? Why does God allow Evil to exist?

I have been told, "Well, God does not do Evil, the Devil does Evil." But, according to the Bible, God created everything, even the Devil. So why did God create the Devil to do Evil?

I've been told, "Well, it's just all part of God's Great Plan and not for us to question." That response is just saying, "Don't ask questions, just believe what I tell you." If God doesn't want us to understand, then why did He give us a brain to understand with? (I am reminded of a tag line I once read: If God had wanted me to think for myself, He would have given me a brain and a little bit of curiosity.) But, as I asked of one preacher, "So you're telling me that your God is so incompetent, so devoid of imagination, so impotent, that He cannot think of any other way to achieve His Master Plan than to destroy the lives of nearly a quarter of a million people, plus untold suffering of the injured, their families and their friends." He pursed his lips, glared at me, and walked away without answering. I really wasn't trying to be disrespectful or argumentative, and I said it very nicely, but I wanted an answer that made sense.

A popular saying among Christians is, "There are no atheists in foxholes." Well, of course not. When you believe you are about to die at any second, you'll grab for any hope at all, no matter how remote. You will beg whatever powers there may be to save you from a horrible, agonizing death and you'll disparately hope someone will answer. I'll bet there were no atheists in that tidal wave either, yet over 200,000 non-atheists were begging their God(s) to save them from certain death. Not one God responded. Not one God had the compassion, the awareness, or the power to answer their desperate prayers. After years of loyal devotion and sacrifice...nothing. For all their faith, for all their prayers, they might as well have been atheists.

In his book, "Evidence That Demands a Verdict", the Christian writer Josh McDowel wrote, "The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind cannot believe." Personally, I find it very difficult to believe that a God who is capable of creating the entire Universe, the vast distances, the vast matter and energy, and all the Laws of Nature, would really be so inept and callous as to allow such Evil to exist. Nor do I believe He would create a being to do His dirty work for Him. I cannot believe in such a God, so my heart could never rejoice in such a God.

For me, that is the central question mark of Christianity. Personally, I just could never serve such an Evil Being as one that would knowingly, purposely, with no regret, destroy half a million people just to keep His Great Plan on schedule. Perhaps some people have no problem with that, no doubts, no regrets, no wondering in the middle of the night, "Am I really on the right side here?", "Is this really the God I want to serve?" To serve, without question, without regret, without remorse, no matter what heinous deeds are done? That's not for me. Is that really for you?

So, why does God allow such things to occur? Does He have no better Plan than that?

Or, could it be that whatever God or gods there may be are either not omnipotent, or not omniscient, or not benevolent? Could it be that God is not perfect, not in total control? Or, could it be that there is no God. That everything happens according to natural, physical law? That the tidal wave was a tragic convergence of natural forces beyond any control? However you look at it, the description of the Christian God given in the Bible and accepted by all Christians simply doesn't jive with the existence of Evil (whether done directly by God, or by his front-man, the Devil). We can just refuse to try to answer the question. Just accept what we've been told since childhood. Never wonder about it. Refuse to discuss it. That's one thing we can do. Or, we can face the question. Ask ourselves. Ask each other. Ask our preachers and ministers and PhD theologians. And, perhaps, when enough of them have told us not to ask, told us just to accept without question, just pursed their lips, glared, and walked away...maybe, we'll begin to wonder: Is this really right?

So, for those who wonder how anyone could possibly be an atheist...that's one reason right there.

I look forward to your salvos.

Respectfully,
Darrel.

Evil exists because human beings are sinful and possess the freewill necessary to objectify their sin.

A BOND-SLAVE OF CHRIST,
ephraim

 

[Digit]

Hello DarrelDesoto,

Thanks for your reply. I know how it feels to have precious little time, so fear not, we understand I am sure. I've bolded a section of your reply below, which stood out to me, and I think it's relevant that this be addressed, because really what you are asking for, is the answer to a question, that us Christians were answered only in the Bible, yet you don't find that a convincing answer, so really, where do we go from here?

The reason that I find these reasons so unconvincing is that they sound too much like the thinking of men rather than the thinking of God.

It appears that you want God's answer, not ours, and the only way that He gaves us is as written. There are a number of tough questions that Christians face, and whilst they are important to us, I do not believe they should be the basis on which we accept faith in Christ or not.

If a person accepts Christianity and believes all that it says, then it is difficult to understand how a person like me could question God's purpose and plan as if I think myself better or wiser than He.

I think to a point in our lives, we all do this. We are not above doubts, concerns, anger and resentment of God. In many respects it's harder knowing what we know from our experiences, and then seeing something truly terrible and asking, "Why didn't God help?". It's a tough one, and I think it's why we are told to have faith, in some respects this means accepting what cannot be necessarily proven, but in Christian respects this often means trusting. We are to trust God. Much like the Cylons, God has a plan.

Thus, worshipers are occupied and highly susceptible to the influences of the organized Church.

Perhaps, I think it depends though. I mean really, we are all susceptible to a point about things, but I think here is the most important part, which is that we have a way to know God (the Bible), and if we know God, then need only answer to Him. A church can say what it wants, and it is up to us Christians to test it, and make sure it comes from God.

1 Thessalonions 5:21
"Test everything. Hold on to the good."

The fact that Christians can find themselves debating each other's beliefs so easily that the webmaster of this site feels compelled to make rules against it in this forum just testifies to the fact that even you folks can't completely agree on what the correct belief is.

In some respects we are separated by infighting, about various issues and so on, and in other respects we are united under God's banner. To a man, every person here who professes Christianity, believes in the same core values and points. Christ, salvation, the cross and so forth.

Yes, you agree on general concepts, but at what point does the difference of opinions become significant?

I think when someone tries to force that opinion onto others. The Bible says that if we personally find something sinful, then for us, it is sinful, but we must not proclaim this to others as such. Basically, we cannot make up sins out of nothing. A good example, is masturbation. The Bible is mysteriously silent on it, yet we know from archeological discovers that sexual aids/toys have been around since Biblical times. It would be odd for God to talk so clearly on sexual sin (beastiality, homosexuality, adultery, lust, incest) and not mention masturbation. For some Christians though, they hate it, and they feel convicted not to do it, so they do not. The problem (and subsequent fighting) comes from when Christian A who is ok with it comes into contact with Christian B, who is not, and they try to force their views on each other. We do this kinda stuff all the time, with a great many things, and it's compounded via the nature of the internet - that is, the internet is anonymous to a large degree, and that makes us all very brave and very clever people. It's one of the reasons I don't delve much into the forums that allow for this sort of thing, as internet battles are rarely won or lost, but they do have casualities.

What I find, in my own mind though, is that all of the confusion disappears as soon as I say, "There are no gods." Then, all the bad things in the world make sense. It's a much simpler explanation and it predicts the same result as all that you folks have said about God.

That's like saying that I find programming languages confusing, and instead of trying to understand them, I simply deny the existance of computers. This is dangerous in the realm of God though, because we have a history with Him, and there are consequences to our lives. People often neglect to remember that we were created immortal, and God is seeking to give us back that which we lost. Maybe it doesn't carry so much weight as we are so distanced from God via our sins, but the more we get to know Him the more this becomes apparent to us and we realise what He did for us, and how important it is.

Cheers!
Digit

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

I especially want to thank Live4HimAndLoveOthers who guided me to this forum and helped with technical issues and for his very thoughtful replies.

Thanks, Darrel, for that mention! I appreciate that. And...you're welcome!

we'll all be here for eternity and I know most of you have someplace else you plan to be

LOL!

I will do my best to respond as soon as I can get one of those elusive round tuits.

LOL!

It's hard for me to understand why God cares that we glorify Him.

I think it has to do with showing proper respect. God is really the only Being in all of existence that deserves to be glorified. He is perfect, and He is the original Being. Also, it has to do, I think, with a love relationship, because God is a God of relationships. It would be wrong to treat Him as our equal, because we are infinitely NOT His equal.

The fact that Christians can find themselves debating each other's beliefs so easily that the webmaster of this site feels compelled to make rules against it in this forum just testifies to the fact that even you folks can't completely agree on what the correct belief is.

Wow, that is convicting, and, from our side, not a good testimony. All I can say is that Christians are imperfect sinners, and they fail and fall. I myself try not to focus on other Christians, because they are fallible and sinful, and, if I put my faith in any of them, or put any of them on a pedestal, I will be disappointed. I try not to focus on myself, either, because I know I fail and sin all the time. I try not to look at the world system, because there are all kinds of problems with the world. What I try to do is look at Christ, because I know He will never fail me.

Again, Darrel, I want to thank you for your honesty, for showing the respect that you do, for asking the questions that you do, and for being forthright without being antagonistic.

I, personally, am glad that people like you force Christians like me to think about why we believe what we believe, and to point out our faults from an 'outside' point of view.

I also want to encourage you again to keep asking questions, and not to stop until you find answers that you are satisfied with. In whatever path you take, be fully convinced of it. "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still." Jesus Himself chastised the Pharisees for acting religious on the outside, but insincere on the inside.

May you find the ultimate peace and happiness, and may you experience Love to its utmost capacity. And may you never stop searching, and never be satisfied with anything less, until you have found Truth.

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

You might find this interesting:


The free will theodicy

Assume that both God and Man possess ultimate free will. This certainly entails the possibility of evil acts, making the free will theodicy plausible prima facie.
But must free will necessarily lead to evil? How did evil come to be in the first place? One explanation is that humans are corrupt at heart; but that would assume a will that is evil rather than free. Another explanation is that to be free we must act differently from God, and if God is morally perfect, our free actions must then be evil; but this confuses free action itself, with a way that we might recognize free action. A simpler explanation is that it may merely be a contingent fact that humans happen to choose evil by their exercise of freedom. And evil, having once arisen even by chance, plausibly led to more evil.
The free will theodicy argues that if God were to 'get involved' and start influencing human actions for the better, then human actions wouldn't be free any longer. Human freedom means that God cannot guarantee human perfection (see incompatible-properties arguments).
This requires that free will be a good in itself, greater than the evil it costs to allow such freedom. Why should it be better for God to respect human freedom? What's so great about free will? The response is that free will is what makes us valuable moral agents, and that, if God were to deny us our freedom, human society would be in a deep sense like an assemblage of robots: not only incapable of evil, but incapable of moral choice in general. Though value would exist in such a world, the free moral agency possessed by God and actual humans is argued to be far greater. All the cruelty that we humans freely perform is indeed regrettable, but it is the price of freedom.
This argument can only explain evil traceable, however indirectly, to free will. It does not explain other phenomena which are often classified as "evil", but have nothing to do with human choices, or possibly the choices of other free beings: Earthquakes, floods, disease and the like. According to this branch of criticism, free will does not seem to account for all the evil we observe, but only certain evil such as that we humans freely create—the so-called 'moral evil'. Christianity may trace natural evil to the Fall of Man, the free choice of Adam and Eve to disobey God, dooming all humanity to live in an imperfect world.
Some instances of moral evil also themselves involve violations of free will—e.g., murder or rape, and these present a slightly more complex problem. For God to step in and deny the violator his freedom would also be to protect the victim's freedom. In such cases, whose free will is more valuable—which instance of coercion would be worse? It is morally implausible that, given that choice, the best thing to do is to respect a rapist's free choice to rape rather than the victim's free choice not to be raped. So, for moral evil involving coercion, the value of free will may not justify God's inaction. However, all or nearly all evil involves people abridging each other's freedoms. But the problem the theodicy addresses is not whether the rapist abridges another's freedom (they do), but whether God will abridge anyone's freedom. For God to intervene on either side would abridge freedom.



For much more detail on this, go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

Here is my attempt at a simplistic summary of the issue of evil:

-God created a perfect world (i.e., Eden)
-Man, because he was given free choice, messed it up
-God allows man to suffer the consequences of man's own evil choices for a while
-God will create a perfect world again (Heaven)
-However, in order to allow man to participate in the second perfect world, and in order to reconcile a perfect God with rebellious man, God stepped in and offered Himself as payment for man's wickedness (i.e., Jesus dying on the cross)
-In doing so, God will give man a new nature that will not (once man is in Heaven) sin again
-All those who refuse God's plan to fix things and make things the way they were before (i.e., perfect) are consciously choosing to be outside of God's plan. Therefore, there is really no place for them. In addition, they refuse to allow their wicked natures to be changed. Therefore, the only thing for God to do is throw them in the garbage, because they are uncooperative creations who refuse to fulfill the purpose for which the Creator created them. Since God put eternal souls into man, they cannot merely be annihilated; therefore, they are cast into the incinerator. And, since they refuse God's payment for them, they have to pay it themselves. And, being unable to do so in their wicked state, their payment never ends.

 

[SonicBOOM]

Thank you all very much for your many responses. I appreciate everyone's time and efforts. I especially want to thank Live4HimAndLoveOthers who guided me to this forum and helped with technical issues and for his very thoughtful replies.

Due to time constraints, as I'm sure we all have, it can be awhile between my visits to this site, so if I don't respond quickly, just "have faith" , I'll be back.

First I'd like to say that it's fine to have rules to prevent this forum from being diverted from its principal purpose, but conversation among the contributers, and even a little debate, serves the educational purpose very well. And, I am relatively well educated and intelligent, as obviously all here are, and I can tell the difference between answers to my OP and auxiliary conversations and/or debate. Not to tempt anyone to disobey the rules, but I found the auxiliary conversations very enlightening, so thank you all for that, too.

That was a lot of posts and it will take me some time to digest them all, and it's probably too much to respond to each individual post (we'll all be here for eternity and I know most of you have someplace else you plan to be ), so like Live4HimAndLoveOthers, I will need to respond in pieces. For those who have offered me more personal assistance, I certainly appreciate your offers and may well take you up on it, but if you don't hear from me for awhile, please don't think I'm ignoring you; I will do my best to respond as soon as I can get one of those elusive round tuits.

As a short response for now, let me say that most of the responses were pretty much along the lines of what I've heard most of my life. The reason that I find these reasons so unconvincing is that they sound too much like the thinking of men rather than the thinking of God. It is very much in keeping with the purposes of men that we accept what we are told without question, or at least without daring to challenge the authority of those who tell us to do it. For me, it would seem that a perfect God would be capable of finding a better way to teach His children than the methods human parents use, which is basically to punish disobedience and reward obedience. I'm not a parent, but I know children can really be a handful. I hope that I would be able to find a way to teach my children what they need to know without resorting to cutting them off completely at the slightest transgression, as God seems to have done in the Garden of Eden.

If a person accepts Christianity and believes all that it says, then it is difficult to understand how a person like me could question God's purpose and plan as if I think myself better or wiser than He. But for those of us outside of any religion, the things claimed for and about God seem more like what men would devise to control other men rather than the things God would care about. It's hard for me to understand why God cares that we glorify Him. I think the Universe itself is pretty glorious all by itself. But, glorifying God is certainly a concept that men (and women) can understand and it provides a focal point for their attention and energies. Thus, worshipers are occupied and highly susceptible to the influences of the organized Church.

Also, from outside of any religion, we see all of these people saying, "Join us! Join us, not them!" So, how are we to know which, if any, to choose. The fact that Christians can find themselves debating each other's beliefs so easily that the webmaster of this site feels compelled to make rules against it in this forum just testifies to the fact that even you folks can't completely agree on what the correct belief is. Yes, you agree on general concepts, but at what point does the difference of opinions become significant? And, of course, I've seen some fairly vehement disagreements among Christians in other venues to the point that each later told me in private that the other was sure to burn in Hell. As a non-believer, of course, that just makes any choice I would make even more confusing.

What I find, in my own mind though, is that all of the confusion disappears as soon as I say, "There are no gods." Then, all the bad things in the world make sense. It's a much simpler explanation and it predicts the same result as all that you folks have said about God.

I'm short on time, but I would like to leave you with a final thought: You and I are both atheists. I just believe in one less god than you. When you understand why you have rejected all the other gods, then you will understand why I have rejected yours.

Thank you all for your help, and I will return as soon as time permits.

Thanks,
Darrel.

wow this is a really profound response I paticularly liked how you compared popular answers to understanding the mind of God like the mind of man [which alot of us try to do]. I guess the problem here [which i've kind of tried to get across other places on the fourm] is that if God doesn't exist, than there's no point trying to get inside his mind. However if he DOES exist, than there's no point in trying to get inside his mind because his thinking is higher than ours. This is really the problem with merging the human mind with relegein and this is where I see the most controversy.

The problem is simply this in a nutshell "do relegious people claim God's mind is higher in order to cover for their manpulation? Or do relegious people truly beleive in a real God who truly thinks higher than humans do?". If God exists and is higher than our minds than our concepts of morelity and life and pretty much everything would be inferer to his. Alot of his acts we wouldn't understand and we would have to take by faith. alot of this is what relegious people teach, however the quistion here is if it's true or not! There's really no real way to tell because if God existed than he would be superier to us and we wouldn't be able to understand him. so we are really stuck to be honest.

Though you have alot more of an open mind than I do i do not doubt at all that you will find what your looking for