Posted on 09/03/2023 10:10:00 AM PDT by daniel1212
So if we act, knowingly or unknowingly, on a desire to diminish God or even to diminish faith in God, then we can be certain we’ve made a losing move.
The answer to the question of evil is given to us by God in his word. One of the best is the book of Job.
Job shows us what to do.
I am not sure what you want me to “give” you...
Sold! Anything to avoid evil, misery, and suffering! Regards,For unless you want a world in which mankind is like a cloud or a robot, then allowing evil is a necessary good [...]
Ask your wife is she wants a android or you who choose here above the competition. Perhaps you only want a Stepford wife. Coming all too soon.
“What to do” is not an answer to the problem of evil.
It is an answer of “what to do” after disaster strikes.
I think we can agree that WWII was evil. If we hadn’t come together to fight it, which in itself may have been a “good” that overwrote any bad, think of how things would be different. The British Empire might still control half the world, probably bad. The population explosion of which I was a fragment, might not have happened. (I’ll call that really bad.) All the advances like antibacterials, radar, safer and faster transportaion, countless advances in medicine and technology, all good, would be very late in coming. The space race, which gave us artificial hearts and microcircuits, would probably not have happened. The super safe consumerist world that we’ve all profited by since 1945 would probably be later in coming or not at all. (The whole reason it happened was the American navy was the only one to survive the war.) I could go on and on, but the point is by allowing that one evil so much good resulted that I wouldn’t undo the war if I could. (Certainly, if I’d lost my whole family my view might be different.)
I face a third order vibration of this issue daily. My sister is in a declining mental state. If I help her in anything, I own that thing for the rest of eternity, and she loses the ability to do that thing. If I help her up from a seated position, she lost the opportunity for that tiny bit of exercise that she desperately needs. It irritates her mightily that I take this view, but the more I do for her the worse she gets. I can see where God might take the same view.
I always like to answer this one with another question...
If God were to eliminate all evil from the earth at 3pm Central time today, would you still be here at 3:01pm CST?
Then begin the conversation.
“Certainly, if I’d lost my whole family my view might be different.”
That is exactly the issue—who gains and who loses and why?
Some folks want to “blame the victim” but in many cases that does not align with true fairness.
“Happy talk” is when folks try to console the unjustly harmed victim with quotes from Scripture without tackling head on the question of “why us” or “why me”.
If there is no moral and unchanging law... there is no evil...
At that point right/wrong is purely subjective and ever changing...
So if there is no God... there is no real evil... only transient and subjective wrongs...
The problem of evil is hard, because this life is hard, full of both joy and unbearable pain and suffering. Jesus’ answer to the problem is just wait. He will conquer evil and will reign on earth dealing with suffering once and for all. He was either insane or he was who He claimed to be and has the power to make His promises come true. I’m counting on the latter. One thing I find interesting is that those who indict God with the problem of evil fail to apply the same standard to themselves. Although we humans are not omnipotent, we nonetheless have some limited power to fight evil. If we are not using our finite power to it’s fullest extent to thwart evil are we not guilty of our own personal problem of evil?
I think a lot of people believe in a magic wand type of God. And if you look at creation it’s far from a wave of the magic wand. I’m thinking... timelessly linear.
Would heaven be enjoyable if a lot of people were there who preferred to be somewhere else?
Thanks, though in forum answers and debates I try to use freely available sources.
bfl
The believer in God has to account for the existence of unjust suffering.
The atheist has to account for the existence of everything else.
People like to think that this is Heaven. It is not. God told Adam and Eve what to do and what not to do. They ignored it. Now people continue to disregard the laws of the creator then they tell Him how He should run the world.
I’m asking for a substantive answer rather than some form of repeating the question.
Have you read the book of Job?
What did Job do? What he did answers the question of evil.
“The believer in God has to account for the existence of unjust suffering.
The atheist has to account for the existence of everything else.”
Exactly correct—on both points.
This question is never asked of Muslims or Hindus or any other religion who espouses God.
If there was no evil, what would Democrats do?
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