Posted on 07/22/2007 7:40:38 PM PDT by xzins
I looked up the passage, 1 John 5:7-8, in my bible and the footnotes reference the later addition to some of the manuscripts. Looks like reading footnotes is valuable. ;)
We come back to interpretation again. I took the liberty of going to http://www.tektonics.org/gk/godevil.html to find the following:
Isaiah 45:7 “I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.”
Amos 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
Lamentations 3:38 “Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?”
Jeremiah 18:11 “Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you.”
Ezekiel 20:25,26 “I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live. And I polluted them in their own gifts...
Is God the source of evil, according to these passages? In the first four verses, the word “evil” is ra. This word does indicate moral evil elsewhere. But there are meanings offered in Strong’s for this word like “adversity” and words of similar nature. Ra can therefore be used in both senses.
Now with this in mind, how do we determine the proper translation of ra in this case? The answer is simple, once we consider the literary parallel in the verse in question. Note the antithesis in the first part of the verse from Isaiah: light/darkness. The second part of the verse must also be therefore reckoned as an antithesis. The word we translate “prosperity” is a familiar one: shalom. We commonly translate this word “peace” - but it is NEVER used to indicate moral goodness, the antithesis of moral evil! We must therefore translate “ra” in terms of its specified antithesis, and that is why it is thoroughly proper to give it the meaning of calamity/disaster/adversity here. (Presumably skeptics would “argue by outrage” and say that God has no right to cause us adversity. For more on this, see Glenn Miller’s article on this verse.) The verse from Amos offers a similar parallel, to the blowing of a trumpet — a sign of calamitous judgment, not moral evil. The same is the case for Lamentations, where ra is placed in opposition to a word that means “beauty” or “bounty” or joy, and the verse after which asks, “Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?” The verse prior in Jeremiah (”If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.”) uses the same word for “good” in opposition.
The verses in Ezekiel tell us that God handed the Israelites over to their sinful desires when they refused to obey him. God allowed the Israelites to govern themselves by pagan statutes as part of their punishment — in other words, they “asked for it”. God is not the source of this sort of evil; we are!
Yes. God, through our own free will, allows us to experience evil. I think that there’s a huge difference in allowing us to experience something that we’re attracted to, or desire, or through negligence comes upon us; and in actually creating something bad.
If you allow your child, while running through the house, when specifically forbidden, to trip and fall, are you causing the pain? If you allow promiscuous humans to contract the HIV virus of their own free will due to their promiscuity, are you causing AIDS?
Our view is that God is the parent, remonstrating and setting limits. He allows us to go beyond the limits, but we will suffer the consequences.
I think you’re headed off to totally depraved or some aspect of TULIP. I don’t accept your premises in most of your theology.
Please try a different analogy or tack to save time and further communications.
thanks...
Did he intend the Flood? Did he intend the capture in Egypt? Did he intend the distruction of the Temple in Jerusalem? Did he intend on his Son dying on the cross?
LoL..
If I knew that my child was going to die from the fall, I would not allow the child to run through the house!
If you could, would you remove your child’s free will?
What would you do to stop your child? What are the limits of your control? Would you essentially take away that child’s free will if that is what it took?
What if your child reached adulthood and was determined to commit suicide? To what extent would you stop your child?
If you could, would you save your child to the utmost?
If I wished to save my child from all suffering and loss to my utmost, I must not bring him into the world.
But knowing life means suffering and loss, knowing that free will means making the wrong choices too, we have children.
Perhaps, in some tiny measure, we can see God’s creation in similar manner.
Calvinism is based upon the premise that humans are evil descendents of Satan and that they don’t deserve any better than to squat for eternity in hellfire.
Except of course for the chosen few, who waft about with wings in white nightshirts. And nothing that any of them can do matters. Nothing has an effect. God has created a bunch of people and is going to roast them, undeservedly, forever. It makes me wonder what kind of mind, what kind of psychosis could come up with that.
What I would do is not the same as God would do. My children are very thankful.
God wanted the world in this way. That's the only acceptable answer. For us it requires that we decide if we trust God or not.
It certainly made possible the most glorious event in all creation: the sacrifice of our Christ. That alone would make worthwhile all the calamity of all time.
It also makes possible the saved ones at the end of time. God loves them with the love of a Father.
Whether or not my surmisings are accurate, one must still decide amidst all the tragedy that creation has brought, if one trusts God.
Especially this part:
one must still decide
;)
Thanks for your post, friend..
So please do not feed into this trend, dear sister in Christ.
Certainly it's true that the Spirit bloweth wherever it list, and no man can see its comings and goings....
Also kosta moves in this Holy Spirit. So that makes us brother and sisters in Jesus Christ.
Then there was the disparagement of Greek "nomenclature," which I think is unjust. Arguably, the Greeks knew about the Logos before the Christians did.
Yet it all works to God's Purpose, in the End, for which the Beginning was made. Jesus Christ, Son of God, is Logos, Alpha, and Omega -- and the Rock on which we stand.
All glory and praise be to God -- "the Lord of Life, with His creatures"!
I’m assuming “suzy” means you are female.
Your children are right to be very thankful for you.
Sorry for the disconnected statements. I meant the second to be:
Your children are right to be very thankful for you as their mother.
At the risk of sounding as truculent as I did yesterday, I would point out that I asked what you would do, and to what lengths you would go.
Would you put your 5 year old in leather restraints to stop them from running around the house, or would you let them experience the consequences of running and slipping and falling on the tile floor after you had demonstrated reasonable remonstration and direction that they were not to do it?
I have met many Christians who worry themselves sick over these things, as if somehow they are the jury on a court that judging God. What exactly is wrong with a Christian who cannot decide to place it all before our Lord and trust Him.
Actually, in re-reading my post, I see I left off the last part of the sentence and you were left to guess. The sentence should have read “My children are very thankful that I am not God.”
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