WHY DOES GOD ALLOW EVIL?

Fantasywriter | 9/17/01 | Pastor Rick Warren/Saddleback Church

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Do you think God is powerless today?

Absolutely not.  Personally I like the way Cecil B. DeMille put it when he said that men can't break the commandments, only break themselves against them.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Your explanation of free will and free agency confuses me.  I simply free-agency as the ability to choose between good and evil.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Your explanation of free will and free agency confuses me.  I simply free-agency as the ability to choose between good and evil.

[the_doc]

There are a lot of terminological problems in this stuff, largely due to the fact that people don't pay close attention to what the will is.

It may help you to see where I am coming from if you go to a post I made on another thread:

The Reformers and Church Fathers on Nature, Grace, and Choice, #66

At the bottom line, it is obvious that man is a free agent. He chooses freely. Another way to say this is that man has free will in that he is free to do as he will. But the notion that man has the moral ability to choose contrary to his moral nature is false by the very definition of will.

The will always follows the nature. Unfortunately, people can't seem to keep this idea straight. This is why the Reformers opted for the free agency language over the free will language. (They discovered that every time they talked about free will, folks assumed that they were talking about the power of contrary choice--which doesn't exist anywhere in the universe. Even God doesn't have the power of contrary choice. He cannot lie, for example.)

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Man has been given the free agency to choose good or to choose evil.  God does not force man to choose one over the other.

[the_doc]

Why are you introducing the idea of FORCE in the topic? This will burble (ha!) rather than clarify the issues, in my opinion.

Again, an evil nature automatically, i.e., by definition, produces an evil will.

We would not even need the Bible to tell us this, since it is just a matter of surprisingly simple definitions. However, the Bible does go to the trouble of explicitly teaching that an evil nature produces an evil will. And this teaching has staggering implications in theology-- including implications for the things which seem to be disturbing you in the topic (for example, the "force" idea).

[Snicker-snack, by the way!]

[usconservative]

You may hear misguided minds say “This must have been God’s will.” Nonsense! In a world of free choices, God’s will is rarely done! Doing our own will is much more common. Don’t blame God for this tragedy. Blame people who ignored what God has told us to do: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Spot On, Great Post!!

[the_doc]

Notice that in my #206 I used the standard theological language of man's "nature" rather than keying more directly on the idea of "person." If you prefer language which is more conspicuously protective of the monothellite position, I won't object.

[xzins]

Jesus has free will and Jesus never sins

Interesting point.

However, it would be a more accurate description if it said, "Jesus has free will, and Jesus never CHOSE to sin."

When one begins with "free will," in order to carry the argument forward both logically and consistently, then any act afterwards is subsumed to the preexisting free will; i.e., it is at some level a "choice."

That doesn't negate your point that the incarnation was God's plan.

[RightWhale]

Evil is possible simply because goodness exists. This doesn't mean that evil things need to be done. Terrorism is an act of men through the will of men, not the will of God. Terrorists justify their actions for themselves, but they have failed to justify their actions to the world at large. God's will is a fiction created to confuse the children. God speaks creation, and judges and destroys, but doesn't direct day-to-day operations.

[usconservative]

Also, Adam and Eve did not create sin. So who did? Had to have been God and it was created before the first sin by man was ever committed.

It's probably already been said on this thread, but just in case:

God did not create Sin. God gave Adam & Eve free will. God instructed Adam & Eve that they could eat from any tree in the garden, save one.

Because Adam & Eve exercized their free will and chose to eat from the one tree God instructed them not to, (after some urging and cajoling from Satan in the form of a snake) they (Adam & Eve) sinned. Therefore, Adam & Eve created Sin.

It's all about Free Will. God gave Free Will to all of us. What we choose to do with it, is our own, not God's decision.

Just as Adam & Eve chose to sin in the Garden of Eden by exercising their free will, so too did 19+ terrorists on 9/11 and since that day.

Regards,

[usconservative]

He is not with ALL of us..He is with those of us that have repented and responded to the gospel...and committed our lives into His care

No, he is with all of us, but there is a difference.

Those who have CHOSEN Christ's sacrifice, and the gift that was given to us have received forgiveness and God's grace. We live with the comfort and security of knowledge in knowing where we will be when our time here is done.

Those who have NOT CHOSEN Christ's sacrifice have not received the gift of forgiveness or God's grace. That however, does not mean that God doesn't WANT or WAIT for those who haven't chosen him yet.

Those who believe have made the CHOICE. To say that God is only with those who have CHOSEN him would most certainly mean that for some period of your own life, God was not with you. I assure you however, he was. Otherwise, how would you have found him?

God waits for us all, and wants us ALL.

[usconservative]

Free Will implies that my actions are unknown to God until I know them first. This is impossible. God knows every action BEFORE it occurs, since we're agreed God is all-knowing and all-powerful.

You're making two different arguments here. Free Will does *not* imply that our actions are unknown to God until we we know them first. If that were true, what would be the point of our being born? To suffer? To die? To choose Him? To NOT choose Him?

If it has been pre-determined that we will accept Christ before our birth, then why would we be born in the first place? Likewise, if it was pre-determined that we would NOT choose Him, what would be the point? Free Will is what it is. We are not pre-determined to choose God or to not choose God. If God wanted a guarantee that we'd all choose Him, he could've easily made it so. But God loves us enough to let us CHOOSE for ourselves.

Thus, if He knows what we're going to do tomorrow, we have no choice. It has been decided before we attempted it.

You're arguing fate/destiny here. Because we have free will, our lives are most certainly not pre-determined. We have the freedom that God gave us to CHOOSE his ways or not.

It's that simple. Free Will is what it is.

[usconservative]

However, it would be a more accurate description if it said, "Jesus has free will, and Jesus never CHOSE to sin."

Slight correction: it would be more accurate to say Jesus specifically chose to obey the Father and not to sin, when Satan offered him all that was in his heart, and more. Jesus rebuked Satan by choosing NOT to sin.

Regards,

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Au contraire.  If G-d did indeed force us all to return to heaven, then there would be no free-agency involved.  Salvation would be guaranteed.

[stuartcr]

I think it's because He's not really that interested in what we do here on earth.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

We have the freedom that God gave us to choose his ways or not.

Free Will is an illusion. If your suppositions were correct, we'd be able to deny God's own intentions by choosing to accept Grace or reject it. Thus, to believe in free will is to make the creation more powerful than the Creator.

Human beings are hard-wired to look from today to tomorrow and into the future. This is man's timeclock.

God has his own time reference, knowing all past, present and future. He knew from before creation what you will have for breakfast next Monday. It follows then that he knows if you will be with him in heaven or not. That's because HE planned it that way.

While all this may seem futile to modern man, it is really liberating and joyous. Christ tells us that those who live to glorify Him will be rewarded in heaven. And if we're supposed to be in heaven with Him, we will ultimately live a life that is worthy of God's Grace. The rest is known only to God.

The great lie, especially of the 20th century, when the State has presumed all power over our lives, is that free will exists. The State needs you to believe in free will so you can choose the government over the church; expediancy over deliberation; death (abortion) over life; the Bill of Rights over the Bible; group-think over individual conscience; knee-jerk liberalism over righteousness.

And this lie seems to be working quite well. More's the pity.

[the_doc]

You are being responsively non-responsive. You keep introducing the idea of "force" into the discussion rather than grappling honestly with anything that I have said.

This illustrates an important point of Reformed theology. Your dullness is something you have no native ability to correct. You can't even choose to be thoughtful in a spiritually meaningful way. Even when I warn you about this, my warnings are like water off a Jabberwock's back.

(I will no go galumphing back to a more profitable thread [grin].)

[RnMomof7]

God's will is a fiction created to confuse the children. God speaks creation, and judges and destroys, but doesn't direct day-to-day operations.

So you never pray huh? What is it like to have such an unengaged god ?

[stuartcr]

How can you know that babies, by their nature, reject God? How can you say we are all evil? These are absurd notions.