View Poll Results: Could God be the Creator of Evil?

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Thread: Did God create evil?

  1. #106
    Haribol Acharya blazeofglory's Avatar
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    I always feel that there is no God and Evil as separate beings, and both are integrally one and the same thing; and God or Devil both form part of one universal whole. The name is not the thing, and what is there and our human brains cannot comprehend that super reality. We on a lower plain of creation have a divisive spirit and up there no division exists between devilishness or Godliness, but oneness. Our fragmented mindsets conditioned by our religions, faiths are creating illusions

    “Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””

    “If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

  2. #107
    Skol'er of Thinkery The Comedian's Avatar
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    I'm always a little hesitant about these sorts of debates. If there is a g-d, a good g-d, then it probably did not create evil. But to even get this far we have to answer a ton of question like these: is g-d all powerful? is evil a separate entity or a perversion of good (as has been said)? And, would we even know good or evil if we saw them?

    My sense on the good/evil problem is this: we don't know a damn thing about good/evil and related questions. Theists and atheists alike are just guessing and then supporting the position that makes them feel good. I'm suspicions of both bibles and "reason" insofar as they are held up to be life's "teacher edition" or answer key.

    Did G-d create evil? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.
    “Oh crap”
    -- Hellboy

  3. #108
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    My religion thinks that good transcends God, and that God is bound by good and evil. He cannot do evil, or he would cease to be God.

  4. #109
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    I personally believe God the Father when He says He sent His son to die because of our sins.After all was not everthing made by and for and through Christ. I believe in God the Father when He say thwart evil.Push it back into the nothingness place it belongs.We have free will and evil comes through us. It is our job to destroy it, from our lives.

    /anyone who seeks to destroy the Holy God almighty will have a fight on there hands.
    Respect is what we need to learn. Respect for God. God is Love and God is Happiness and He is Holy. No bad exsists in Him at all. He can control evil and destroy it when it manifests itself in the physical world.

  5. #110
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    I did not wish to read through this entire thread so this may have been stated before...God created "Man" with a free will to choose to love Him or not, To love Him is "good", to not love Him is "evil". If He had created beings that were "programmed' to love him...with no choice...is this true love?

  6. #111
    Haribol Acharya blazeofglory's Avatar
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    I often wonder why God created evil and if He had not created who has created. Or to put it differently, evil was always there and god try to destroy him. If that is so Evil equates with God. Can anyone demystify this truth? I cannot believe any one can

    “Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””

    “If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

  7. #112
    Didaskalos Tou Genous Manalive's Avatar
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    I don't believe in a dualism of Good and Evil. I'm with St. Augustine in that: There is no 'Evil' to add balance to good. There is only Good. On one side of the scale, you have Supreme Good, and on the end side of the scale you have the lowest good that can come from an act(or whatever). If one is getting pleasure from killing someone then that pleasure is, in and of itself, a 'good' feeling. There is no such thing as a wholly evil feeling.

    Augustine realized that the solution [of the origin of evil] was tied to the question: What is evil? The argument above depends on the idea that evil is a thing (note the second premise). But what if evil is not a "thing" in that sense? Then evil did not need creating. If so, our search for the source of evil will take us in a another direction

    Augustine approached the problem from a different angle. He asked: Do we have any convincing evidence that a good God exists? If independent evidence leads us to conclude that God exists and is good, then He would be incapable of creating evil. Something else, then, must be its source.

    If Augustine's approach is fair, it prompts a pair of syllogisms that lead to a different conclusion. First: 1) All things that God created are good; 2) evil is not good; 3) therefore, evil was not created by God. Second: 1) God created every thing; 2) God did not create evil; 3) therefore, evil is not a thing.

    The key to success here, is the truthfulness of two premises. If Augustine can offer evidence through natural theology that God exists as Creator and also that God is good, making everything He created also good, then the conclusion--evil is not a thing--automatically follows.

    This is Augustine's strategy. If evil is not a thing, then the case against Christianity stated in the original syllogism is unsound because one of its premises is false. The critical question is: What is evil?

    Central to Augustine's idea of goodness (and, consequently, evil) was the notion of being. To Augustine, anything that had being was good. God as the ground of being was perfectly good, along with everything he brought into being. This goodness was a property that came in varying degrees.

    With this foundation Augustine was now prepared to answer the key issue: 'Where is evil then, and whence, and how crept it in hither? What is its root, and what its seed? Or hath it no being?' To this Augustine answered: 'Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'

    Augustine observed that evil always injures, and such injury is a deprivation of good. If there were no deprivation, there would be no injury. Since all things were made with goodness, evil must be the privation of goodness: 'All which is corrupted is deprived of good.'

    The diminution of the property of goodness is what's called evil. Good has substantial being; evil does not. It is like a moral hole, a nothingness that results when goodness is removed. Just as a shadow is no more than a 'hole' in light, evil is a hole in goodness.

    To say that something is evil, then, is a shorthand way of saying it either lacks goodness, or is a lower order of goodness than what ought to have been. But the question remains: 'Whence and how crept it in hither?'

    Augustine observed that evil could not be chosen because there is no evil thing to choose. One can only turn away from the good, that is from a greater good to a lesser good (in Augustine's hierarchy) since all things are good. 'For when the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil--not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked.'

    Evil, then, is the act itself of choosing the lesser good. To Augustine the source of evil is in the free will of persons: 'And I strained to perceive what I now heard, that free-will was the cause of our doing ill.' Evil was a "perversion of the will, turned aside from...God" to lesser things."

    "Evil exists because we have free will. God enables humans to freely choose their actions and deeds, and evil inevitably results from these choices."
    "Do I dare disturb the universe? Do I dare to eat a peach?"-- T.S. Eliot

  8. #113
    Registered User Dekarto's Avatar
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    God did not create evil. Everything he created was good (Genesis 1).

    And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good [...] - (Genesis 1:31)

    Evil exists only as an absence of good, much like cold exists as an absence of warmth and darkness only exists as an absence of light. It is true that God allows for evil to exist, but this is to give mankind free will. Free will can only exist when there are options, and because God created everything good, he had to allow for the absence of good, evil, to exist for the purpose of this.

    Therefore, God did not create evil, he allowed for it to give mankind the free will that allows them to either obey him or disobey him. If God had not allowed for evil to exist, we would worship him out of obligation rather than a choice of our own will.

    (Angels were also given free will and Satan is a fallen angel that chose to disobey God. Satan then appeared to Adam and Eve in the form of a serpent in the Garden of Eden and lured them to disobey God. By disobeying God, mankind was seperated from Him by the evil that entered them by this act of unfaithfulness and disobedience and this has passed down through generations, known today as sin. Obviously, this sinful nature that exists in every one of us today, was not created by God, mankind, nor Satan. It is the absence of good in us that became so great at the fall that we became separated from God, the Almighty Creator who created all things good.)

  9. #114
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dekarto View Post
    God did not create evil. Everything he created was good (Genesis 1).

    And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good [...] - (Genesis 1:31)

    Evil exists only as an absence of good, much like cold exists as an absence of warmth and darkness only exists as an absence of light. It is true that God allows for evil to exist, but this is to give mankind free will. Free will can only exist when there are options, and because God created everything good, he had to allow for the absence of good, evil, to exist for the purpose of this.

    Therefore, God did not create evil, he allowed for it to give mankind the free will that allows them to either obey him or disobey him. If God had not allowed for evil to exist, we would worship him out of obligation rather than a choice of our own will.

    (Angels were also given free will and Satan is a fallen angel that chose to disobey God. Satan then appeared to Adam and Eve in the form of a serpent in the Garden of Eden and lured them to disobey God. By disobeying God, mankind was seperated from Him by the evil that entered them by this act of unfaithfulness and disobedience and this has passed down through generations, known today as sin. Obviously, this sinful nature that exists in every one of us today, was not created by God, mankind, nor Satan. It is the absence of good in us that became so great at the fall that we became separated from God, the Almighty Creator who created all things good.)

    If creating heat allows for the absence thereof (cold) to exist, then a creator has created the possibility of the absence existing. God created evil by creating good, in that He formed the possibility of an absence exisiting. Whether or not Man commits such follies out of free will is irrelevant, because A) we can discuss how God created free will which created the opportunity for Man to do wrong, or B) by creating one extreme you create the chance for the opposite to be committed.

  10. #115
    Didaskalos Tou Genous Manalive's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by IceM View Post
    If creating heat allows for the absence thereof (cold) to exist, then a creator has created the possibility of the absence existing. God created evil by creating good, in that He formed the possibility of an absence exisiting. Whether or not Man commits such follies out of free will is irrelevant, because A) we can discuss how God created free will which created the opportunity for Man to do wrong, or B) by creating one extreme you create the chance for the opposite to be committed.
    Can you give me an example of a purely evil feeling, my friend? That is-- a feeling totally void of good or any form of pleasure? Murder is quite the evil act, but the doesn't stop the murderer from feeling some measure of gratification or pleasure from committing it. Good vs. Evil (in duality) is a Eastern philosophy mate. There is no "Evil" to stand in defiance of God. Nothing can oppose God on an equal footing. He created everything good.
    "Do I dare disturb the universe? Do I dare to eat a peach?"-- T.S. Eliot

  11. #116
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    Quote Originally Posted by Manalive View Post
    Can you give me an example of a purely evil feeling, my friend? That is-- a feeling totally void of good or any form of pleasure? Murder is quite the evil act, but the doesn't stop the murderer from feeling some measure of gratification or pleasure from committing it. Good vs. Evil (in duality) is a Eastern philosophy mate. There is no "Evil" to stand in defiance of God. Nothing can oppose God on an equal footing. He created everything good.
    The example you just gave is much more Eastern philosophy than it is Christianity. Eastern philosophy is ALWAYS both, ying AND yang.

    Christians say God is Good and nothing else (some add Satan is Evil, yet others disagree, franky, I don't care about that).

    Taking a famous historical example, why would God create the Ichneumonidae? A family of wasps that has the habit to sting caterpillars, paralyze them and lay eggs into them (in many caterpillar segments). Then the larvae hatch out of the eggs and start eating the caterpillar - alive. Where's the 'good' in that?

    And don't tell me humans brought this into the world by original sin. I would assume that this species was present before humans, and if not, I'm sure many similarly 'cruel' things were. Humans came AFTER death, disease and suffering.

  12. #117
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    Quote Originally Posted by Manalive View Post
    Can you give me an example of a purely evil feeling, my friend? That is-- a feeling totally void of good or any form of pleasure? Murder is quite the evil act, but the doesn't stop the murderer from feeling some measure of gratification or pleasure from committing it. Good vs. Evil (in duality) is a Eastern philosophy mate. There is no "Evil" to stand in defiance of God. Nothing can oppose God on an equal footing. He created everything good.
    I agree with you that evil to some is pleasure to others, of course. But, in terms of the bold, you're wrong. I'm pretty sure either A) not believing in God or B) purposely violating his Ten Commandments (the ONLY ten laws we were advised to live by) would piss Him off. Why else would there be Hell if there was no "Evil" to oppose him? You don't expect me to believe that JUST Satan lives there, do you?

    And besides, to roughly quote the Bible, "everything God made was good." (You probably recognize the quote; it was mentioned earlier). If God made everything good and someone set out to destroy this "good," would that not be considered evil?

  13. #118
    Didaskalos Tou Genous Manalive's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dodo25 View Post
    The example you just gave is much more Eastern philosophy than it is Christianity. Eastern philosophy is ALWAYS both, ying AND yang.
    And I'm arguing that it's only "Yin". My example is from St. Augustine and St. Aquinas who heavily borrowed it from the Ethics of Aristotle. The Ying/yang duality is the very thing that I am arguing against. Where is that not clear at? I'm not sure I can explain it any more clearly than I already have.

    Taking a famous historical example, why would God create the Ichneumonidae? A family of wasps that has the habit to sting caterpillars, paralyze them and lay eggs into them (in many caterpillar segments). Then the larvae hatch out of the eggs and start eating the caterpillar - alive. Where's the 'good' in that?
    I can't completely answer that for you, my friend. I'm not a biologist nor God. And I was speaking completely about Man and his nature. But going along the lines of my argument-- the good is that the food chain stays in tact, I suppose mate? The wasp reproduces which in turn keeps the caterpillar population down. Is that textbook enough for you?

    And don't tell me humans brought this into the world by original sin. I would assume that this species was present before humans, and if not, I'm sure many similarly 'cruel' things were. Humans came AFTER death, disease and suffering.
    Very well, I won't tell you that. But don't assume I am ignorant of natural biological observances because I'm Catholic or religious.

    Meat eating Animals ate other animals. Adam and Eve at least ate plants which requires diegestion. Digestive Systems require decay or death to work. Adam and Eve didn't die physically the day they sinned. They were separated from God. Death is simply the separation of body and spirit. Losing grace meant that humankind lost the integration of body and soul so that there was a separation of the two.
    Last edited by Manalive; 07-15-2010 at 08:30 PM.
    "Do I dare disturb the universe? Do I dare to eat a peach?"-- T.S. Eliot

  14. #119
    Didaskalos Tou Genous Manalive's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by IceM View Post
    I agree with you that evil to some is pleasure to others, of course. But, in terms of the bold, you're wrong. I'm pretty sure either A) not believing in God or B) purposely violating his Ten Commandments (the ONLY ten laws we were advised to live by) would piss Him off. Why else would there be Hell if there was no "Evil" to oppose him? You don't expect me to believe that JUST Satan lives there, do you?

    And besides, to roughly quote the Bible, "everything God made was good." (You probably recognize the quote; it was mentioned earlier). If God made everything good and someone set out to destroy this "good," would that not be considered evil?
    Yes, it would be evil. But that evil is not on par with God. I am only arguing that Evil is not a "being" like Good is. I have a post a few lines up that gives a more detailed response to your question.
    "Do I dare disturb the universe? Do I dare to eat a peach?"-- T.S. Eliot

  15. #120
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    Quote Originally Posted by Manalive View Post
    And I'm arguing that it's only "Yin". My example is from St. Augustine and St. Aquinas who heavily borrowed it from the Ethics of Aristotle. The Ying/yang duality is the very thing that I am arguing against. Where is that not clear at? I'm not sure I can explain it any more clearly than I already have.
    You're arguing against the ying/yang duality by pointing out how even a murder has some good in it too. It appears to me as if you're arguing for it. That's what's unclear to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Manalive View Post
    I can't completely answer that for you, my friend. I'm not a biologist nor God. And I was speaking completely about Man and his nature. But going along the lines of my argument-- the good is that the food chain stays in tact, I suppose mate? The wasp reproduces which in turn keeps the caterpillar population down. Is that textbook enough for you?
    Technically, nothing in biology cares whether the caterpillar population goes down or not, it's all about the genes themselves, no romantic 'good of the species' or 'good of the ecosystem'. There are interesting examples to illustrate this, but since you don't consider non-human animals relevant, let's turn to humans.

    The Bible makes it very clear that homosexuality is a sin. Sin is evil. Genes determine to a great extent an individual's sexual orientation. Studies with identical twins raised separately have shown this, people are born gay. Do you see the problem?

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