Why Does God Allow Evil?

www.khouse.org ^ | Dr. Mark Eastman

[P-Marlowe]

I Googled it.

There wasn't enough information to google. You had to know something. Did you just google "alive, alive"? Or did you figure out the "Real Don Steele" from the "Actual Godfather of a Carbon and Iron Alloy" clue?

[AnalogReigns]

Evil has to be understood in a way more profound than human choices....since Satan was evil, tempting humans, before Adam chose to heed his wife's bad choice and plunge his dominion, this world, into sin, with its resultant death. As to the unknown (and unknowable?) ancient choice of Lucifer to rebel against God, that's a mystery too profound to ponder...even St. Augustine says we can't (and shouldn't) try to figure it out.

That said, as the Apostle Paul taught in Romans, the whole of creation is under a curse, groaning as it were, (with Christians) to be released from evil and its effects. Whether this has anything to do with the theory in physics of chaos, I really don't know--we just need to understand that besides human nature being fallen, so is our world--and its also affected by fallen angels. These 3 fallen things, do logically make for the chaotic nature of evil.

Thanks be to Christ who defeated death itself, and will redeem not just our souls, or even our bodies, but all of fallen creation itself. Thanks also that all things--even if now seemingly purposeless--do work together for the good....for those who know God and are called by His plan.....

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Google "Alive Alive" on KHJ and it shows up. :)

BigMack

[P-Marlowe]

"KHJ" -- one too many clues. Darn. I should have used AM 930 instead. Oh well. I owe you 40 points.

I'd rather owe it to you than cheat you out of it.

[Jean Chauvin]

"Let us consider the nature of love and its consequences. I cannot experience love from you unless you have the capacity to do otherwise. If you have the capacity to not love me, and you choose instead to love me, then that choice has validity. It has meaning. You cannot have a love relationship with a computer. It is pre-programmed to serve you. Love requires choice: unencumbered choice. And that's where the problem lies."

I do not love my children because I "choose" to do so.

I love my children because they are my children. In reality, I don't have a "choice" but to do so.

I guess, according to your author, I don't ~really~ love them.

Jean

[Jean Chauvin]

"...one of God's attributes is love. "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (I John 4:8"

" But where there is choice and the capability of love, there is also the capability to choose wrong and to do great evil."

Does God have this "capability to choose wrong and to do great evil"?

If he does not have the "capability to choose wrong and to do great evil", then, according to your author's argument, he is not ~really~ capable of true love.

If he does have the "capability to choose wrong and to do great evil", then he must not be truly sovereign, because he must ~co-exist~ with the 'evil'. 'Evil' is a ~reality~ that God must ~always~ deal with and that he has no ~choice~ but to deal with.

Jean

[Jean Chauvin]

"But as we have seen, there are compelling arguments that a world possessing both evil and love is superior to a world where neither is possible. For God to eliminate evil, He would have to eliminate our capacity of choice and thus our capacity to do both evil and good."

Well, there goes the idea of "heaven"!

Since we will not have the ~capability~ to "do evil" in the "New Creation" (1 Corinthians 15:51,52), we will not have the "capacity of choice". Therefore, according to the author's argument, this current sin filled earth "is superior to" the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Jean

[drstevej]

Ever notice how the Arminians never complain that there will be no "free will," as they construct it, in heaven?

Do they conclude God is therefore cruel to so constrain people for eternity? No.

Why not?

[RobbyS]

Bertrand got into a famous debate with Father Coppleston about half a century ago. When I read it several years ago, I thought that Russell probably came out ahead when they were arguing metaphysics. When they turned to morality, however, Russell simply could not propose a principle that required him to oppose the Holocaust. His only recourse was that Victorian morality that he spent such much of his life helping overturn. .

[RobbyS]

The "free will debate" has to be conducted within the confines of that existence you and I know. "Heaven" and "hell" are. apart from what little we know about them from Revelation, logical constructs. But blame it on the Jews. Until their Prophets and sages began posing their questions about justice to their God, did the matter even come up?

[lockeliberty]

Thanks for the ping.

This is one of those ~very tough~ subject matters.

I think I'll use the better part of discretion.

Dropping the thread and backing away slowly.

[P-Marlowe]

In a debate against Dr. Ray Bradley, William Lane Craig was asked why God didn't just create heaven as the world and forego the rest.

Craig responded:
"No,Heaven may not be a possible world when you take it in isolation by itself. It may be that the only way in which God could actualize a heaven of free creatures all worshiping Him and not falling into sin would be by having, so to speak, this run-up to it, this advance life during which there is a veil of decision-making in which some people choose for God and some people against God. Otherwise you don't know that heaven is an actualizable world. You have no way of knowing that possibility."

Dr. Bradley:
"You're saying, in effect, that when I characterize heaven as a possible world in which everybody freely receives Christ, I'm wrong insofar as that had to be preceded by this actual world, this world of vale of tears and woe in which people are sinful and the like."

Dr. Craig:
"I'm saying that it may not be feasible for God to actualize heaven in isolation from such an antecedent world."

[Ex-Wretch]

Great to see you back in action.

[P-Marlowe]

I think I'll use the better part of discretion. Dropping the thread and backing away slowly.

[lockeliberty]

LOL

I've found that the very tough questions are not welcome here at times.

If you truly want to explore this issue, which is a very important issue to explore, then I would suggest you first come up with a definition of 'evil'.

[White Mountain]

Post #28: Ever notice how the Arminians never complain that there will be no "free will," as they construct it, in heaven? Do they conclude God is therefore cruel to so constrain people for eternity? No. Why not?

Take a look at this post, and others of mine, on the Mixed Swimming thread.

Again and again I see Calvinists presuming, in various ways, that with the unregenerate, then the regenerate, then with the righteous in heaven, there cannot be any real free will.

But true free will, properly understood, is of the essence of our being. It is God-given, and God does not take it away. That is why the righteous are righteous, because they choose to be faithful and obedient to the commandments of God. Apart from that, they are not righteous.

That is why Lucifer rebelled, and became Satan, because he chose to devote his energies to try to destroy the work of God, destroy the Truth, put his falsehoods in its place. That is why God allows evil to occur here in mortality, because people have God-given free will, and God does not prevent them from choosing evil, nor does He prevent the just consequences of their evil from coming upon the unrepentant.

Neither will He allow the evil ones to spoil heaven for the righteous. The wicked will have to be elsewhere, to enjoy what they are willing to receive, since they rejected what they might have received.

There will be no attacking or accusing, no condemnation or cutting off, among those who inherit the kingdom of heaven. Those who love to do that here (and thus they freely choose to do it) will be elsewhere, unless they repent.

Those who are in heaven are those who freely choose to forsake all evil, and become firmer and firmer in righteous ways by consistent, righteous choices, until they become stedfast, unshakeable, and immovable in keeping the commandments of God, and thus make their calling and election sure, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, for no unclean thing can enter heaven.

They become more and more righteous by consistent application of their God-given free will in righteous ways. And vice versa for the wicked.

Helaman 3:35
35 Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.

D&C 93:30
30 All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.

[Gamecock]

Those who are in heaven are those who freely choose to forsake all evil, and become firmer and firmer in righteous ways by consistent, righteous choices, until they become stedfast, unshakeable, and immovable in keeping the commandments of God, and thus make their calling and election sure, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, for no unclean thing can enter heaven.

Sounds like works based theology to me. But then I thought sanctification comes from God, not from ourselves....

[RnMomof7]

Ever notice how the Arminians never complain that there will be no "free will," as they construct it, in heaven?
Do they conclude God is therefore cruel to so constrain people for eternity? No.
Why not?

Also interesting that they attribute to man what they deny to God..

[ThomasMore]

Ever notice how the Arminians never complain that there will be no "free will," as they construct it, in heaven?

Did Satan have free will?

[ThomasMore]

PS: I am not consigning my self to your (Calvinist) label of "Arminian" by questioning your position.