Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?

http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:awKbhBecxmwC:www.desiringgod.org/Online_Library/OnlineArticles/Subjects/Suffering/GodAndEvil.htm+Piper+Is+god+the+Author+of+sin%3F&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 ^ | 8/18/02 | John Piper

[RnMomof7]

Thanks for the testimony Jean

[RnMomof7]

How about this: Evil only exists because God allows it. If He chose, He could create a universe in which there is no evil. However, He chose to create this universe, and He also chose to allow evil to exist.
Are we all in agreement on these points? (I will be surprised if we are not.)

I THOUGHT that was what I said????? *grin* Can anything exist or occur without His permission?? Ithink not!

[RnMomof7]

Then, who exactly is the "designer of evil"? Does evil exist outside to the agency of God? Is it something that is outside of His control, a factor that He "just has to live with"? (In other words, is it a blight on His perfection?)

A bit of Arminian duelism???

[RnMomof7]

Can something never planned or designed exist? Can evil exist without Gods permission? Is evil equal in power and authority with God?

[xzins]

See #59 & #60 together. See if that makes you want to change your question. Regards, and a coffee break bump, X.

[theAmbassador]

A God created evil bump!

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things].

[theAmbassador]

(In other words, is it a blight on His perfection?)

An interesting question as it would seem that under the Arminian system there is evidently another "god" out there who can create. By this I mean that there is another being who can by his very thought and word speak into existence from nothingness.

Consider this as well concerning God's creation of evil:

1. The existence of evil is ultimately a good thing.

2. The existence of evil is ultimately for the good of the saints.

[RnMomof7]

Evil is the violation of, the rebellion against, the rejection of, the GOOD. The order created was good, true, life-enfused, holy, eternal......in short, it was perfect.

Who created man that He could rebel? Who created rebellion?

[xzins]

Rn, listen....the bible says ALL was GOOD. It also speaks against the thought that one would call "good, evil; and evil; good." I don't say it, the bible says it.

Evil was not created. Evil is VIOLATING the created order.

God is responsible for creating man. God is responsible for giving him free will. However, it is only a device of human logic that associates from that, that God is, therefore, the creator of evil.

The VIOLATING of God's will is what evil is. Evil was not created. All that created was called good. There is no similar verse that says in the creative days that something was called evil.

[xzins]

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things].

The word means "calamity," "disaster," and/or "evil in the physical realm." You know: earthquakes, fires, floods, tornados, etc.

This verse testifies that God uses these as judgements.

In the creation day, and it cannot be denied, everything was declared GOOD.

[Jerry_M]

"Evil then, comes from the free will choice of lesser created beings."

But, you make it sound as if those "free will choices" are outside the control of God. However, that it the classic non-Calvinist answer, that God dare not interfere with the "free will choices" of His created dirt.

[Jerry_M]

"In the creation day, and it cannot be denied, everything was declared GOOD."

All that God does is good. Then, now, and in the future. (Otherwise, He wouldn't be God.)

And yet, we see that He commands the winds and the rain, and even when the winds and the rain destroy homes and cities, that is "good" due to the fact that it is He who is at work.

[xzins]

All that God does is good. Then, now, and in the future. (Otherwise, He wouldn't be God.) And yet, we see that He commands the winds and the rain, and even when the winds and the rain destroy homes and cities, that is "good" due to the fact that it is He who is at work

There is not a word you have written here with which I disagree.

Prior to the fall, was it possible for Adam or Eve to have been killed by a tornado?

[Jerry_M]

No, due to the fact that they didn't live in Oklahoma.

;>)

[xzins]

I lived there in tornado alley for a year and a half.

Regarding Adam and Eve, that kind of "evil"/natural calamity could not have happened.

[Jean Chauvin]

xzins (post #44): "He (God) alone is eternal"

xzins (post #69): ""Evil was not created"

I see a little inconsistancy going on here. If God is sovereign, then the system of evil is also a created reality. If God did not create the system of evil, then your #44 is null and void.

God, now, by necessity must co-exist with evil. He simply cannot do anything about it. You have with a few key strokes simply dismissed the Sovereignty of God and replaced it with:

~and~

xzins, you now have a system in which God is eternally subject to and must eternally 'live with' the possibility of evil.

What comfort is this? God has promised those of us who believe eternal bliss! According to your 'openness' heresy God simply cannot gaurantee this promise. The 'free-will' which is central to your faith rules this out. The 'free-will' you set up must now require the ever present possibility of 'rejection', 'sin' and 'evil' in the heavenly realm.

What gaurantees can you give to me that we will not see another fall in the new heavens and the new earth?

Jean

[RnMomof7]

Who created EVIL?

Who made man in such a way that man would seek it?

Where does evil come from?

[RnMomof7]

Regarding Adam and Eve, that kind of "evil"/natural calamity could not have happened.

And yet they could 'commit 'evil deeds...in the garden..who created the will that could concieve and carry out evil deeds?

[fortheDeclaration]

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things]. The word means "calamity," "disaster," and/or "evil in the physical realm." You know: earthquakes, fires, floods, tornados, etc. This verse testifies that God uses these as judgements. In the creation day, and it cannot be denied, everything was declared GOOD.

Note from the 1599 Geneva Bible, I form peace and war, prosperity and adversity as in Amos 3:6

[ponyespresso]

Can something never planned or designed exist?

Which goes back to my very first issue that I raised in this thread. Two 10 year old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were found dead, murdered. If you say that there is nothing that has ever that God did not plan or design, then, using that logic, God is the engineer of the murder of these two schoolgirls.