Replies

In your formula evil is part of God's creation because it happens.

Your humanistic approach to life is showing. Is evil not part of God's creation?

Satan is a created being, and anytime God might want Satan expunged from His creation all God has to do is erase him. Poof! Satan is no more!

Apparently that's not how God wants His creation to exist, neither now nor from the beginning.

"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.
Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it." -- Isaiah 45:5-8

Rebellion is part of the human condition. It is in our DNA. We are disobedient by nature, and unless God takes us by the throat and removes our heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh, unless God gives us new ears and new eyes, unless God graciously puts His Holy Spirit within us to renew our minds and cleanse our spirit, unless we are born again not by the will of men but by the will and purpose and predestined design of God, we will happily stay in our natural, God-denying state, to our everlasting demise.

"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
But there are some of you that believe not.

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." -- John 6:63

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." -- John 1:12-13

Thank you oh so very much for your wonderful insights and those beautiful Scriptures!

Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed [it], Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? [What] if God, willing to shew [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? – Romans 9:20-24

He is the Potter, we are the clay.

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? - Matthew 20:15

To God be the glory!

“Rebellion is part of the human condition. It is in our DNA. We are disobedient by nature.”

That’s garbage.

We were created in the image of God, from the beginning. We would have remained as such if not Lucifer had taken a hand, and convinced Eve to disobey God.

Rebellion is not in our nature, but free will is in our nature. We were fearfully and wonderfully made, and we were known by God from before we were born. Made in His image.

We get to choose to love God.

God doesn’t whack us with the Holy Spirit, and then eventually we come to God. WE CHOOSE. God can intervene, but so can evil.

God has set the table with Christ’s sacrifice. If we accept this gift, we eat and live. If we don’t, then we are banished and die.

That simple. Nothing humanistic about it. God created free will too. Love isn’t love unless its freely given and freely accepted. The salvation of the Lord is the ultimate act of Love toward his human creation. Christ wasn’t compelled to give it, He gave His life freely. Those saved accept that salvation freely.

Kosta: In your formula evil is part of God's creation because it happens.

Dr E: Your humanistic approach to life is showing. Is evil not part of God's creation?

No, it isn't.

Satan is a created being

God did not create him evil.

Apparently that's not how God wants His creation to exist, neither now nor from the beginning...Isa 45:5-8

Sounds positively Manichaen to me. It doesn't surprise me that all you can quote to support your view is the Old Testament. That's because God who creates evil is not to be found in Christ.

Rebellion is part of the human condition

Of the fallen human condition. Not of the created human condition.

and unless God takes us by the throat and removes our heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh, unless God gives us new ears and new eyes, unless God graciously puts His Holy Spirit within us to renew our minds and cleanse our spirit, unless we are born again not by the will of men but by the will and purpose and predestined design of God, we will happily stay in our natural, God-denying state, to our everlasting demise

I don't see Christ doing any of this. You must know some other God.