Those of us who are Christians believe that God created everything.
If that is so did He create evil?
If so, to what purpose?
Or was it something that just happened?
I have to admit I am not sure
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Those of us who are Christians believe that God created everything.
If that is so did He create evil?
If so, to what purpose?
Or was it something that just happened?
I have to admit I am not sure
What is evil? Is it a quantitative thing? Or is it a lack (of holiness or righteousness or goodness)?
If you want to use anything more certain than your own opinion (El Viejo, I assume, is comfortable with making El Viejo the supreme arbiter of truth, but I recall RG57 acknowledging Scripture as authoritative--that is the position I hold), Scripture clearly says God did all the "creating" that ever happened. It also says that God is holy and the source of all goodness and only goodness and that the universe was unblemished when he completed it.
It therefore seems clear that evil isn't a substance but rather a lack. The Fall didn't create evil, but destroyed perfection.
Now, insofar as God remains Almighty, he permitted evil to occur, but not in a causative manner. In a similar way God is "responsible" for a murder, because he sustains the laws of nature that cause gun powder to explode and blood loss and trauma to stop the heart and mind, yet in such a case God is not morally responsible but rather the one who pulled the trigger is. The whole interplay between foreknowledge, omnipotence and free will is not solved by simply blaming God. If you want proof of God being holy and good, look at the cross where he willing suffered to repair what He did not damage and save those whom he created without need for saving.
I think God created man and man created evil.
Hardly. I do question authorities, however, and I do keep my own counsel. I'm a slow learner, but after willingly subjecting myself to twelve years of Catholic schooling, and another decade under various evangelical pastors, both formal and self-styled, I eventually got to that point.
If I remember right, I asked RG57 an honest question. I don't recall making any sort of pronouncement.
Yeah, I believe that God has created both goodness and evil...
Im Muslim, and in Isalmic point of view..i think as most other reliogions.
God has created evil for a purpose..so God can differentiate between a good person and a bad one..
which one can resist tempetations and follow God's orders
The logic here appears very circular. If there was no evil, there would be no bad people, so God wouldn't need a way of being able to identify them. Also, why would God need people to resist temptation and follow orders if there was no evil that could result from failure to do these things?
One way to understand evil in a religious context is to see it as deviation from the divine mechanism of reality. Imagine God set the world and the universe going like a gigantic, complex clock works. Its complexity is such that we are free to the extent that many actions are in accordance with the overall workings of the mechanism. However, certain actions are not and these are evil.
Still some problems with that one. Are we expected to know which actions are right and wrong from the get go? The complexities of theological questions such as this are enough in themselves to render the idea absurd.
Another way to look at it is to say, God has to allow us to be free, to do wrong as well as right, in order that we can come to know him. Love and knowledge of the divine has to be arrived at through the freedom to choose or it means nothing. This idea largely works for me, though I'm not a believer.
If God has not created Evil..there will be no challenge to win his Love, Careness...though God loves us all whatever we do.
Still, the existence of evil is the very bottom line that creates a meaning of this life.
If there was no evil..and we all behave as we like cause we are all good..then what challenge we can do? what goal we are seek??
As in a family..parents love all their children but the child who obey his parent's order and instructions weather he like it or not will gain their love more.
I believe this is the same ..God loves us all
But he creates evil to put a goal to us to seek..to seek his love more..to be near him..so to avoid this evil we can achieve this
This is what I believe
Assuming there is a God, and assuming He's the one depicted in the Bible, His creating evil is certainly within the bounds of belief.
There's a legal concept called the 'attractive nuisance.' If you have, say, a trampoline in your yard, or a swimming pool, and someone finds their way into your yard and is injured or killed using the pool/trampoline, you can be held responsible.
Using this peculiar logic, God could be said to have invented evil by putting Adam and Eve in a garden with the tree of knowledge, although technically it was Adam and Eve who did so by transgressing.
On the other hand, since the knowledge the tree held was the knowledge of good and evil, we can suppose that evil was already in existence. Assuming that everything that had been created was created in that eventful week, then God must have made it.
Answering 'why?' takes us into the uncomfortable area where we may see God as possibly malicious.
Why did God create the tree of the knowledge of good and evil/why did he forbid eating from it?
First, the eating was a transgression, only because it was forbidden. It's not like the fruit contained Vitamin C, fiber and, oh yes--evil! No evil was not a substance of the fruit that passed to Adam and Eve. Therefore the tree is not evil and God cannot said to have created evil solely because he created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Still, the question: Why did God forbid eating from it?
I have heard that Martin Luther (okay, this isn't as certain as the Bible, but bears consideration) suggest that it was an altar upon which Adam and Eve could worship the Lord. Think about it. The earth was perfect. They were perfect and holy. Everything that God desired them to do was good and natural and exactly what they would do if they had no command. [This is based on the biblical concept that what God declares as good is actually good. For example he gives wine/alcohol but instructs us how to use that gift (in moderation). If we ignore that advice/command we find out that too much wine=splitting headache or poor judgments. I can expand this point if it is desired.] With doing everything that God desired so naturally, God gave a semi-arbitrary command--he asked them not to do something (eat fruit from a tree) that wasn't inherently wrong or off limits. Therefore every time Adam and Eve did not eat from the tree they did so from only one reason--their love for God. This would have been a fitting act of worship.
El Viejo--forgive me. Based on a sketchy recollection of your posts on other topics I recalled that you seemed to pick and chose from various schools of thought or religions but followed none. If this is inaccurate I owe you a double apology. If it is accurate, the gist of my statements stands, and yet the manner of my saying it was neither kind or respectful. Again, please forgive me. The thing we all can agree on is that sin/evil has entered the world. Evil/sin dwells in me. I am forgiven by God through Jesus(though I do not deserve it) yet my struggle to live in a way pleasing to him does not proceed with unmingled results.
I believe that God did indeed create all things spritual, physical and and any other form existance, be it thought or action. If God did not create the actions and concepts of evil, somewhere along the line He must have had an indirect hand in it via another of His creations.
In Genesis we are told that Eve was tempted by the serpant who was supposed to be Satan, and I think that you will agree that God must have least created Satan and therefore indirectly evil/sin and in the long term made a rod for his own back. I believe the story goes that Satan was a fallen angel, which means he gave His angels free will and then come back to the thought that either directly or indrectly God created evil.
perhaps He thought free choice was a good idea, after all He created man in His own image and may have thought that being man was His creation and in His image they behave exactly as He did?
My mind is still partially open on the question but I think that after reading the above posts I'm heading for the idea that God had a hand in creating evil.
The god I serve did not create evil.
He created people (including invisible people).
Some people chose to rise against him.
This god is believed to be good. So, if someone rises against good, this person becomes ... evil. The first one who did that became so. This is the part of the story I don't know. (Nor is it for me to.)
First, I must state that I am not a religious person: that is I do not follow a set of arbitrary rules set down by some organized church. I am not an atheist; I am an agnostic. That means I am a person who claims that I cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but I do not deny that God might exist).
If we stand on the biblical interpretation of 'evil' as 'that which goes against God's laws,' we must ask ourselves some very serious questions. The first of these is; Is my belief in God, MY belief or one that was implanted in me by parents, ministers or churches? The next questions are based on the first; If I believe in God, then what do I believe about him? And, finally, are the rules I follow God's laws or man's laws? What is 'Faith' and where can I get it? These questions confound most people who try to define their 'faith'.
Most religious people use the phrase, "Faith is what the bible says..." (Faith is in general the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true (Phil. 1:27; 2 Thess. 2:13)). The word 'persuasion' implies that there are empirical proofs to support the statement. (i.e., Inducement by argument or reasoning or entreaty.)
Well that, I am sorry to say, is not faith. That is relying on an artifact to 'prove' that there is a God. Faith can be defined as 'A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny.' The operative word here is belief. But, how does this relate to the question; Did God Create Evil? Well, let me take you through the logic; God created all things (thing is defined as 'A separate and self-contained entity'). No where in any of the religious writings that I have read does it say that God limited man's ability to think, and only a thinking being can create evil. Hmmm. That seems to allow that God, a thinking being, could have created evil. But here we are faced with a dichotomy of Religion: The bible says 'God is Absolute Good' but, God allows 'Satan' to roam the world and tempt man into sin (from the book of Job), and that man is free to choose sin if he wishes. But therein lays the lie; if God is all Good, then he cannot tolerate Bad/Evil in any form. So either God is part bad or the bible is in error. This is where faith must override religion; faith says 'God is good. Period, end of report.' Religion says "God is good but allows evil/Satan to test man.'
From the time that man first started codifying his religious beliefs, he instilled his own outlook on those tenets. And, of course, had to find a way to blame someone else for his failings. The minute that man began to put his own interpretation on these tenets they no longer reflected faith. They were now a religion. It must be noted that the very word 'religion' has its roots in the Latin word 'regulus' which means 'rules.' No religion relies on faith; they all rely on rules. These rules are written and edited by men. I can hear many people saying, 'The bible was written by the finger of God!' My answer? 'Show me his fingerprints.' That would be empirical proof that would stand the test of trial.
No, God did not create evil, man did. Man decided that he was the sole interpreter of God's words and then he set about creating specific laws that must be obeyed under punishment of hellfire and damnation. Poppycock! If the really faithful would look into the one place that the religions demand that they do not look, their own hearts, they would find that they knew the difference between good and evil from the time they first began to talk and reason.
We have all heard that man is 'born in sin and lives in sin' and we also hear that the only way for him to get into a state of grace is to attend this church or that church. Again, Poppycock. If you think about it, you will find that even when you do something wrong (sinful)... you know that it is wrong. You make a concious decision to do it. The only thing that the organized religions give you is a way to disclaim responsibility for your actions by saying, "The devil made me do it." Or better yet, "The Devil made me do it, but I have been washed inthe blood of the lamb of God, and now I am not responsible for that action." God did not make evil, the devil did not force evil onto man. And the Devil DID NOT make them do it. Man decided to do evil things and then spent the remainder of his time blaming everyone one else for his own weakness.
I will state here and now, I have done things in my life that I wish that I had not done, but I blame no one but myself for my behavior -- NO ONE MADE ME DO THEM, I DID THEM MYSELF.
Even the question 'Did God Create Evil?' is a form of looking for someone to blame for our own behavior. WE, mankind, brought evil into the world. Not some superntural being like a God or a Devil. Mankind did it. And now we seek to blame others for our behavior. If you really believe in the collected works that people call the bible, try reading Genesis very carefully. You will find a categoric list of all the things that 'God created' and there is no mention of Man's thoughts. Good or Evil. Nor is there a suggestion that God controls all of our actions; according to the bible he gave mankind freewill. (The relating of the tale of the Tree of Knowledge drives home the point that man chose to 'eat of the forbidden fruit.' Of course Adam immediately blamed Eve for that.) That freewill means that WE and we alone are responsible for our actions; good or evil. So, in the last analysis we find that, like boy who shot cockrobin, we are responsible for where our arrows go. It might be a good idea for all of us to look into our hearts and see if maybe, just maybe, the devil didn't make us do it.
I expect that there are many readers of this that will feel that I have cast aspersions on their religious beliefs; that was the farthest thing from my mind. I stated very clearly that I am not a religious person. But, I was raised in a very religious household. For generations my primogenitors followed the rules of the Roman Catholic Church. I was baptised, made my first communion, and my confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church. I even studied for the priesthood. Then I began to read, and really study what I was being fed and I found that there were thousands of Rules, but little faith involved in organized religions. So, I began to question even the existance of God. I found that while I could discover no way to empirically prove that there is a God, neither could I find anyway to empirically prove that there was not one. So, I sat down and really looked deep into myself and found that with out empirical proof; I believed there was a God. I had nothing to base this decision on -- no facts or artifacts -- just my faith. So, if you wish to accuse me of being anti-religious, first you must prove to me that your religion is the ONLY religion that could possibly be faithful. No theologian has EVER been able to do that. They all revert in the end to the simple statement, "It's a matter of Faith."
One last comment: I will not force my faith on you, and I hope that you will not force your religion on me. Believe as you wish, and so will I. Freewill.
theodicy again... lol... I think this has come up quite a few times in this section..
you should read St Augustine's "Confessions".. he has an interesting solution to the problem of evil.. and I really don't feel like typing it out here.. but it suggests evil is just the absence of good, or something that has less good in it then something else.. there is no separate entity or thing called evil... Augustine goes a lot deeper than this, it is quite interesting.. but just look up the theodicy question, you will find an infinite number of solutions to the problem and numerous people tearing each solution down after.. lol..
A wonderful, intelligent post! I agree with you on many points, although we don't view it all exactly the same. You said for many it comes down to saying "it's a matter of faith." It's similar with me, but I can understand a vast amount of the world around me, or my own place in it. There are unknowable things, but there's many things I can be sure about. I know that I am a limited being with limited knowledge and experience. I know that beyond my walls, what I call myself, is the other, the world; the vast world, and all it contains. I am fairly sure, although I also can't give you a proof of it, that all is interconnected. I have knowledge about myself, my experiences, memories, my place in the material world or what not; and yet since I am nothing more than a form; more or less complex, there is no need for me to actually exist. And since I am a form, I am actually eternal; occurring here and in countless other instances; infinite.
Buddhists also say that all are interconnected. The idea in Buddhism is that if you are afflicted mentally, then you will create worlds of affliction out of attachment. If you come to true or correct vision, the fabricated worlds and bonds will dissipate of themselves. There is no question of atheism, the only question is if it's an impersonal or a personal universe- which idea can be set aside, while we work about curing our afflictions.
I also agree that we should not personalize Evil. It only breeds paranoia.
No .. God didn't creat Evil.. its impossible.
Evil is just the absence of Good.
God created everything that is good .. everything that benefits the human
and we chose the evilness.. just because some people chose it.
If anyone claims that God created evil that means that God wants it ; which is not true.
Bism Allah the Merciant the Merciful
I believe in Allah the One and Only, He has no partners, He is the Owner and Possessor of the Whole whole cosmos.
Allah created Life and death to test which of us is the best of doers. This sentence is a verse from the Muslim Holy Scripture The Quran.
Life and death are the most two extremes in the Universe and hence any other opposites are also the creation of Allah.
One other Muslim belief and a saying of Allah but not in the Quran, but in the reported speech carried by his messenger sin and evil are not the same. Someone good can commmit a sin due the imperfection of human beings and Allah said, if mankind did not sin, he would have took them away and created others that would sin, to come back to him, when they recognize him.
Evil, is represented through satan, and Allah created Satan. It is true that he was not evil from the beginning but he commited a sin that led to evil, which is pride. It was when he refused to submit to his creator, that he became evil.
Lots of actions of sin not followed by repenting lead to evil.
Goodness is the rule, and is mentioned around 214 times in the Quran while while evil is mentioned 30 times only. Allah Himself is gooness and who does an atom weight of good finds it, while who does an atom weight of evil finds it. Repenting turns evil to good again.
I want to add somehting THe presence of Allah is evident all around
Wherever you look, there you will He find
Use your heart’s eye and don’t be blind
Know Him to love Him and not to suspect Him with your mind
With choice he honoured you and called you man-kind
If you don’t find him in everything, know you are a way behind
I really wish this is of benefit. Allah deserves to be loved, because he loves us so much.
hi guys ..
well.. i was rethinking about what i said ..
and i would like to correct my answer..
YES .. GGod created Evil.. just like how He created everything in this earth..
He created Evil, hell, Devil.. but there is one line i have to add which is :
that " There is a wise reason behind all this.. "
and that is to test us to see what we chose and how we react to it..
I am sure am right :-)
What God creates, reflects His character. God's character - as the Bible describes it - is good; He is described as perfect justice, mercy, love, compassion, judgment, etc. God desires to give and receive love - but love can only exist where the choice between two plausible alternatives exist. If I have no choice but to love, then we cannot correctly call that "love." Love must the result of a choice. As such, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is a testament to God's love for us: He desired that we love Him, but for that to be so, we had to have a viable alternative to choose to not love Him back - and that required that God provide the choice (here in the form of the tree).
Unfortunately, the free will required for love also carries inside it the risk of not choosing God - which is disasterous; if God is Life (He is), then choosing to refuse His love is choosing Death. Evil came from the choice to disobey. Many theologians point out that God left creation unfinished and invited humanity (via their creative and procreative abilities) to continue the job. We, unfortunately, created something terrible.
for that to be right requires a huge amount of faith in something that there is not one shred of evidence for..
why, if god is omniscient, omnipotent, and all good would he create a world that is not all good? because, even if we are created ex nihilo, we are still made by god, and through god, so if god does not have evil as a inherent part of it, well than how did evil come to be? god created it, so the idea of evil was there inside this infinitely good god?? that doesn't make sense...
the only answers are: that evil doesn't actually exist as a separate entity (therefore evil is just an absence of good to varying degrees), or that god is not all good, or that we just can't understand god (which admits that god is part evil in human defined terms, but that this is irrelevant as we don't know what is good, because we can't know the mind of god)... but neither of these will satisfy organized religion lol... so herein lies the problem..
also there is the problem that if any theodicy actually works.. well this is pulled off wikipedia as I don't feel like using energy to explain this...
this illustrates the problem with the below argument, which is part of the free will argument for evil by Augustine and others... so if this true than all evil acts are justified in my opinion and work towards the greater good, which was allowing man free will..Quote:
An argument that has been raised against theodicies is that, if a theodicy were true, it would completely nullify morality. If a theodicy were true, then all evil events, including human actions, can be somehow rationalized as permitted or affected by God, and therefore there can no longer be such a thing as "evil" values, even for a murderer (indeed, this is the basis of the moral argument from evil, by Dean Stretton).
Volker Dittman argues that "the crucial point is, that when we accept the perfect solution for the POE, than there will be no evil, because every suffering could be justified. Worse: It would be impossible to act evil. I could torture and murder a young child, but this would be justified for a higher good (whatever the perfect solution is, it could be something else than free will). This would be the end of all moral, which clearly is absurd. The theist could not point to the ten commandments and claim that they are necessary, because one goal of morals – to prevent evil – would be granted no matter how I behave, if he is right with his perfect solution to the POE
for as is suggestedQuote:
Evil, we can say exits only in good things. The reality of evil is not that of what is; it is that of what is not (negation), or rather more exactly, of what is not when it ought to be (privation). Evil is not a being; it is a hole in being, a lack
the idea that a perfect and infinitely good and omniscient and omnipotent god punishes for evil acts that this god choses to allow to happen, chose to create creatures that this god knew would chose to perform these acts, as god is omniscient (so arguing otherwise is absurd lol), well that suggests god is evil in another way, creating humans so that they can be damned and punished for actions that this god knew would occur... if god is testing us, well that suggests this infinite god is quite insecure, which should not be possible.. why does god who is perfect in every way need praise bestowed, need to test what he/she/it created? why does god damn people to hell for following a nature that god created them with? this gets into the free will argument as well, for god necessarily knows our actions before we do, or maybe at the same time as we do.. see if god is omniscient which every monotheistic religion suggests, well he knows everything and can forsee our choices and actions, but this eliminates free will, or does it? one argument for free will with an omniscient god, is that just because god knows what we will chose to do, we still chose it... god didn't force us.. another suggests that because god is outside of time, everything for god is one singular moment, with no spatial and temporal definitions, therefore god being Omniscient doesn't mean anything with regard to free will in a finite and temporal world... but regardless, for evil to exist even as just a lack of good, it requires god to permit it for the greater good, and therefore it invalidates all morals in my opinion... and if any action contributes to some greater plan, to the greater good, why is it punished?Quote:
Permitting evil, as He does, within a design (creation) that is essentially good, exerting his causality only in what is positive in this design, God applies himself, when evil occurs, to preserve and enhance the value of the good that still remains.
St. Augustine in dealing with the question of evil and free will pointed out that “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist” (St. Aug., Enchirid., xxvii). Evil contributes to the perfection of the universe, as shadows to the perfection of a picture, or harmony to that of music (De Civ. Dei,xi). As darkness is nothing but the absence of light, and is not produced by creation, so evil is merely the defect of goodness. (St. Aug., In Gen. as lit.) Further St. Augustine, holding evil to be permitted for the punishment of the wicked and the trial of the good, shows that it has, under this aspect, the nature of good, and is pleasing to God, not because of what it is, but because of where it is; i.e. as the penal and just consequence of sin (De Civ. Dei, XI, xii, De Vera Relig. xliv).
In other words as Augustine seems to imply the question of evil can clearly be seen as another sign of God’s omnipotence as it shows that He is capable of allowing evil while Himself remaining independent from it; and in His infinite wisdom foreseeing the greater good which is to result from it.
anyways, check out the wikipedia link Theodicy if you want to study the theodicy question it is a good place to start from, you can branch out to more reliable sources from there, although the wikipedia article is pretty good.. There are too many just personal opinions flying around here without any relevance to the actual issue... if you have an answer to the problem of evil, please explain how it works, lol... because no one has come with a universally satisfactory answer in the history of humanity, so if you can I would be very interested in reading it... and even if it isn't satisfactory I would be interested anyways as the question is quite fascinating to ponder... I studied the theodicy question in a few different classes in university, even ended up participating in a directed study on it for fun after I left school..
Is there really a DEVIL?
What did your CHILDHOOD look like?
Can you remember the earliest Days in your Surroundings
Did you play with your Schoolmates? Or maybe you was alone.
My Childhood Was a Big Fairy Tale-Rich of Play,Imagination,Full of Laughters
I Wasn't Born like a Child Bringing HATE in myself.
Unfortunately the Hate that Somebody was born with Finally define our FATE
The Secret Question and the Answer give us a HORRIBLE TRUTH-There is
NO HELP
Everybody Draws the SIGN belongs to.
One Question came out :Can we really to Recognize EVIL?
Maybe EVIL is present too much all around.
Maybe,since Relationship with DEVIL is Hidden, it make we feel Confused, and
again a terrible TRUTH EVIL possess ATTRACTION.
I think no SALVATION for Nobody-the little Particles ,emitted by our Bodies ,
works without our Control.
This is my Abstract written a couple months ago and reflect some my thoughts
about Evil.
If we look for answer in physics ,there are particles bear positive and negative energy.Spirit contain energy as well and since a Life organism radiate more powerful energy it is possible to create Evil.
Thank you
hello there zep
nice post. i notice you use some logic to make your point, and a good job of it i must admit. yet, your reasoning is based on a proposition that i find impossible to say whether its true or false, ie...god's character is good bc the bible tells me so. shouldn't profound issues such as good vs evil and god's character have their foundations based in the present day god/good/evil rather than 2000 year old references to said issues? i'm assuming its the same god today as it was back in bible times. so why not bring forth some syllogisms with logic rooted in the present day?
Allah (God as you call Him) created everything. He made it clear when he explained in the Holy Qur'an that everyone is responsible for what they do. So He gave us the clues to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong. Consequently, we are free to be good and to be evil. It's something we control.
Or maybe He just forgot to put the fence up. Or maybe the concept of 'attractive nuisance' is part of the evil that's been introduced to the world.
You know this, and I know this, but what we know ain't always so.
Agreed. The act, the transgression, was evil and it's reasonable to say that 'The tree of knowledge of good and evil' might not be literal in its meaning. But much has been made of the 'days' in Geneis, with different experts asserting that they were 'ages' or twenty-four hour days marked by evening and morning. We can't rule out that the writer was saying that evil was indeed a property of the fruit.
Wonderful story about the altar, but I've developed a problem with exegesis. There is no sure way to know when the 'drawing out' has gone too far. Parables and scripture have useful meaning within certain limits, outside of which the meaning is at the mercy of the interpreter.
Forgiveness is not required, I do pick and choose.
Schools of thought, like parables and scripture, have their limits. Some scripture is gold, and some is not. I think scripture should assume its rightful place, alongside the concept of four elements, as a milestone in our search to understand ourselves and the universe. We need to move on, but not via extension.
You speak of sin in you. I call it adaptability. Jesus went to the slaughter, but also cleared the temple.
Thank you, kind sir. I think you are the first person here to accuse me of using logic.
The Bible is our only guide to the character of God - it is the only book that asserts to describe who God is by telling the history of His chosen people and the revelation of His character through Jesus Christ. If we are to make sense of good and evil, we must put those ideas through the filter of God's character - and without the Bible, God's character becomes victim to our impressions (or worse, our desires) of Him. That leads to chaos. There must be a foundational "ground" to the identity of God, something objective in nature - otherwise, discussions of the character of God becomes meaningless.
Prov.16
1. [4] The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
There seems to be some purpose that evil will be required to do before the end of all things...
God bless
Pen
Missed that one, nice quote.
God, evil or devil and man all are part of the cosmic system, and no can remain out of the system.
Man suffers limitations in point of fact, and he can not escape it.
What we call God is the creation of man's thought.
I do not mean there is no God, and there can be some God or no God we can not comprehend beyond the range of our thinking capacity, and we are circumscribed by a periphery of our mind and capacity.
But all of us want to know our origin and afterlives.
We are not satisfied with the scientific explanations we have and we want to know something unknowable, ordinarily unthinkable.
God, heaven, hell, the devil and the like fascinate us and we therefore are romanticized to know all these mysteries.
In fact both God and Devil birth from our existence. If we do exist the rest exist.
The Creator of a system cannot be a part of that system. The creator of a computer is not part of the computer; God created the cosmic system - He cannot logically be a part of it.
That is the cart before the horse. God provided us with the ability to think. Since we're capable of "arguing God out of existence," we tend to think that we are the sole arbiters of what is real and what is not. One must possess exhaustive knowledge of the universe and its contents in order to rule out the existence of God.
There is no reason for earthbound, terrestial creatures to dream up such entities. The fact that we can conceive of such entities suggests that they indeed exist - just as hunger suggests that I was created to eat food.
While I firmly believe in both God and the Devil and preach from the Bible, I would like to pose this question:
If everything is the creation of man, who then created man? An organisim as complex as humanity just didn't happen by chance, the odds are too great.
And if everything then is illusion, is it illusion that I live and am typing this note to you?
God bless
Pendragon
Very cleverly put, it took a few reads to get it right in my head, I think it is a question that has been asked since man has been able to reason. Those without God will always ask and those with God has no need.
As for illusion, well if everything is illusion then this is biggest mass illusion known to man (or the illusion of him):).
That's no argument, as you probably know: I can imagine a chimaera, but that doesn't mean one actually exists. I'm rather pleased that all the monsters I used to imagine aren't real! :D
I went to look up Freud since the last time I came onto the religion pages, and he seems to classifies the religious phenomenon as an illusion, something dreamt up by man in order to reconcile himself with the ideas of death, deprivation or danger. God the Father, in monotheistic religions, is a projection of our need to have protection and meaning. I don't always agree with Freud, but here he does seem to have a point...
Nice quote, but it could very well point to the need to understand - without really understanding, since God's ways are unpenetrable - the existence of evil which, if you're logical, seems to contradict the reality of a benevolent God. It's a little too easy to say that God created evil, and that we just don't understand why.Quote:
The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
There seems to be some purpose that evil will be required to do before the end of all things...
Now Red, you are a dear friend and brother, yet I am going to have to call you on this argument. Many might call the urge to eat "instinct", after all even microbes feed. The human body requires so much sustanence to survive, of various types. We could take it in supplments, but that would not savor the palete would it? This is a poor argument all the way around.
Man dreams up much that could never exist, much less those that do not exist. I believe God's existing is because of what the world is and contains, I cannot accept chance as a basis of creation of all this complexity.
God Bless
Pen
Some individually numbered thoughts.
1. If God created Man and Man created Evil then God must have imbued Man with the capacity for evil. Therefore God has the capacity for evil.
Question. Does the capacity for Evil make God less than perfect?
2. God created. Evil and Good are simply constructs of the human mind.
3. God either allows Evil, proving Himself inbenevolent or cannot contain Evil, proving Himself unomnipotent. [spellchecker says that 'inbenevolent' and 'unomnipotent' aren't words, but I like 'em.] Many years ago I read John Hick. This may have been an argument of his.