Posted on 01/11/2011 2:25:38 PM PST by WilliamIII
Last Saturday's shooting tragedy at a Tucson, Ariz., supermarket is stunning in its randomness. ... Whenever these awful tragedies: Columbine, September 11, Virginia Tech and others, happen, there comes the theodicy question. Why did God allow this evil to happen to innocent people? Why did perfectly innocent bystanders at a Tucson supermarket on a Saturday morning find themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time?
(Excerpt) Read more at onfaith.washingtonpost.com ...
God created evil? I do not think so. He created out of love entities that were given the 'free will' to love Him. The first fall was that of the devil because he the devil whose purpose was the anointed cherub that covereth: The devil was created perfect in his way from the day that he was created, until iniquity was found in him... The devil stopped loving the Creator and decided he could 'do things better'. (Interesting if one looks in political slogans of our recent past how liberals use the slogan 'we can do things better'.)
Yes, evil was planted in the Garden called the 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil' and he took advantage of the innocent newly created woman. Adam participated willingly as he was given the command from God to stay away from this symbolic tree. Adam was a liberal because when asked "Where art thou?" He first says "I heard Thy voice in the garden and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."
And when asked "Who told thee that thou was naked? Has thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?"
Here comes the first recorded liberal response .."The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, *she* gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
Most people think God blamed the woman but it was Adam that blamed not only the woman but God Himself for giving him the woman.... Liberalism at its beginning...
I have to agree. And the thoughts in my head are from now on, when I encounter a person that I perceive to be unstable or “weird” or whatever other word you want to call it, I’m going to try my best to remember them to God in my prayers. For we don’t have all the answers and we surely don’t know what all is going on with a person, but God does.
Simple answer: This world was cursed by God after the original sin. Disease, decay, and death and all manner of evil will continue until the final judgment. As Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”
The question is faulty and based on an unscriptural perspective. A high view of man and low view of God’s holiness and justice. Not unexpected from WAPO. The better question is why does God suffer a wicked world at all considering he destroyed it once in the flood? The answer is that the world is still under God’s wrath and will be judged at the appointed time but the good news is that all that God has given to Christ before the foundation of the world and all who trust Christ alone and his atonement for sin will be spared his wrath at judgment.
I realize this is a difficult concept to grasp, but it is important to do so: that there are negative consequences for getting off track is not the same as God applying the negative consequences for getting off track. It is sort of like a self-correcting system: when one gets 'off track', there are built in provisions for getting traffic back on-track, albeit with great pain and difficulty. When a child who has been told to not grab at things up on the stove actually disdains the teaching and grabs a hot skillet, it is not God burning the child's hand. Cause and effect does not mean God is a machine or puppet-master applying every effect.
When God commands that we not do something, He is cautioning that there are negative consequences designed into the system which will go into effect if we choose to disobey. But that these negative consequences exist and will happen is not the same as God applying the consequences to the individual in disobedience. Playing Russian roulette will eventually result in getting shot, but it is not God shooting you.
To mistakenly apply the actions of asserting the negative consequences as God doing them is tantamount to accusing God. Please see post #67 above, again. A natural disaster is not God spitting on the Earth; the consequences of sin is not God slapping the sinner, the sinner is responsible for his own sin and the negative consequences built into the system. Jesus Christ is God's Grace, offered to those who are off track and cannot get themselves back on track--which is all of us, for all have sin. Jesus is not God dangling an either/or hammer or dove in your face. The hammer was built into the good system which our ancestor Adam chose to deviate from.
Don’t be silly.
Satan is the god (small g) of this world, but he can do nothing outside the power of the Lord. Recall Job and the interactions between the Lord and Satan?
If God doesn’t control everything - then He can’t faithfully and reliably execute any of His plans.
Because until Christ returns, Satan’s in charge. We have an Advocate, we aren’t alone, but the Bible’s clear about this.
Still, somehow, this will serve the will of God.
He didn’t allow it...we did.
“allowed”? No, Planned and Ordained.
Check out “The Star of Bethlehem” movie to get an awesome glimpse of the way the Lord has organized the ENTIRE universe to demonstrate His Glory and execute His plan. Not a single human decision influenced the timing and result of Christ's birth and crucifixion.
“God has given all of us free will. He allows us to exercise this free will, whether we use it for good or evil. “
John 8:34 - “Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”
Does a slave have free will?
Ephesians 2:1-3 - “And you were DEAD in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the bodya and the mind, and were BY NATURE children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. “
What can a dead man do for himself? How does a person who is by nature a child of wrath change his nature?
Jeremiah 13:23 - “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.”
Satan can do what people let him do.
So by your logic....that little 9 yr. old girl died because God wanted to teach someone a lesson?
So...my SIL..was killed in a car wreck a couple months ago. God caused that to teach her husband and 4 kids a lesson? Or someone else a lesson?
Don't be ignorant....Read the NT.
Right back at ya....You don't understand the Scriptures. That's okay...plenty of people think like you do.
I suspected correctly that there would be many inane responses to an equally inane question.
But thanks!!
lol. translator’s copout. same word is used in Genesis 3:9. riddle me that, Batman.
Which ones? The ones that say that nothing exists that God didn’t create? That He can do whatever He wants? That you don’t have a clue as to what He is about?
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