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To: Dr. Eckleburg
"I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." -- Isaiah 45:5-7

Besides being exquisite (Isaiah is truly exquisite!), how could this be otherwise?

Excellent link, Dr. E. Though it will take me a while to get through it.

I did catch the part on evil, how it came into the world, etc, and that's something that has been on my mind on and off again for a while now. It put things in a perspective that I understand, and I think already understood to a lesser degree, but was influenced against my own sense of things by how aghast all seem to be at the notion that God could allow it, or be, as Isaiah notes, the maker of it.

Not so long ago, PBS aired a documentary on the Holocaust. This documentary was produced in the 60s or early 70s, and all of those who were interviewed and part of the documentary were Jews who had survived the Camps. One guy said that he remembered that sometimes a pile of bodies would quake a little as a lot of the people were not dead yet. He was so visibly shaken when he was talking about it, and it made me wonder how all the survivors reconciled such a horror with the Mercy of God? It must have been anguishing beyond imagination. The thing is though, that if you've experienced tragedy, the peace you're seeking can only commence when you let go of trying to make sense of what only God can make sense of.

Left strictly to my own understanding of things, I prefer to not second guess what God allows or forbids. It seems a conceit beyond bounds to pretend to know such things. But I can't seem to accept the idea that evil was unleashed without God's knowledge or permission. No, God created it all according to his Good and Perfect Will, and I don't have the mind to unravel that Mystery, and I don't want to pursue the pretense that I do.

3,217 posted on 03/04/2006 1:40:47 PM PST by AlbionGirl ("Obiter Dictum, my Liege? Hardly, you simple, silly child!")
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To: AlbionGirl; HarleyD; Forest Keeper; OrthodoxPresbyterian; ears_to_hear; qua
Amen, AG. Here's a shorter article by Greg Bahnsen which really speaks to your excellent post.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

3,218 posted on 03/04/2006 3:56:42 PM PST by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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