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Created the evil? The Tree of Knowledge was not evil. The apple wasn't evil. It was the human action, the act that was evil. Did he create or cause the human action? No, free will.Hagbard Celine said:So who created the garden and everything in it including the evil? Answer: God.
Look guys, if God had not created a way or an "allowance" or a "human evil" potential or whatever you want to call it, if God had not created the potential for man to be evil, evil would not exist.manu1959 said:Man chose to ignor the moral and ethical teachings of God. Man chose evil.
Man must now live with the consequense of his choices....Man could have chosen differently.
if you teach your son not to drink and drive and you have booze in your house and he chooses to drink it and drive is it your fault or his?
The tree's mere existence creates the potential for evil to occur. The potential for evil would not exist if God had not created the tree.Zhukov said:Created the evil? The Tree of Knowledge was not evil. The apple wasn't evil. It was the human action, the act that was evil. Did he create or cause the human action? No, free will.
That's the begining of 'human evil', human action.
Hagbard Celine said:Look guys, if God had not created a way or an "allowance" or a "human evil" potential or whatever you want to call it, if God had not created the potential for man to be evil, evil would not exist.
I'm not trying to lay blame for anything. I'm trying to establish that nothing can exist in God's creation independently. Everything in creation had to be created by God. That includes concepts.
Hagbard Celine said:Yeah, it makes perfect sense. So who created the garden and everything in it including the evil? Answer: God.
Yeah, I like that through choice part..In my mind if it didn't exist, there would be no choice. If it exists then it was created. Seems cut an dry to me.Said1 said:I was under the impression that the "Tree of Knowledge" analogy was based on that fact that in order for Adam and Eve to truely be free, they had to have choice. God allowed Satan (the snake) to tempt them ie: they had a choice to not sin, allowing them to be free from sin's consequences, and free from sin itself - through choice.
The Tree of Knowledge was not evil, the disobedience of eating from the tree when told not to that was sinful (evil).
But the fact remains that there would never have been evil if God had not created the potential for it by creating the tree and putting the serpent in the garden to tempt man.manu1959 said:evil did not exist until man made a choice.....until man made that choice there was only a possibility that there could be evil.....when man strayed from the moral and ethical boundries man created evil
Well, predestination is a fact if you believe that God is omnipotent. If God is all knowing and "timeless" or "infinite" as some of you have put it in other posts, God knows every fact about your life from its beginning to its end. He couldn't know these things unless your life is predetermined. The "free will" that we think we have is an illusion created by our inability to see our own futures.you are trying to establish that there is no free will and that all is predestined....i do not believe that God is that anal retentive.....
Mr. P said:I gotta go with the kid on this..
If God created everything, that includes Evil like it or not.
I have no proof to the contrary, but neither does anyone else.
Hagbard Celine said:He couldn't know these things unless your life is predetermined.
Of course it was created in the Tree of Life analogy, the serpent was allowed into the garden. Duh. However, this was done to illustrate the consequence of sin which would not otherwise be understood without knowledge of choice and consequences.Mr. P said:Yeah, I like that through choice part..In my mind if it didn't exist, there would be no choice. If it exists then it was created. Seems cut an dry to me.
Hagbard Celine said:But the fact remains that there would never have been evil if God had not created the potential for it by creating the tree and putting the serpent in the garden to tempt man.
Right, man made a "choice." But what I'm saying is that God created the potential for evil to exist by putting the tree there, placing the serpent in the garden to tempt man and giving man curiosity. If he had just left the tree out, there would have never been sin.The Tree of Knowledge was not evil, the disobedience of eating from the tree when told not to that was sinful (evil).
Hagbard Celine said:But the fact remains that there would never have been evil if God had not created the potential for it by creating the tree and putting the serpent in the garden to tempt man.
I've got another one for you. If we are made in God's image, wouldn't it stand to reason that God is both good and evil just like we are?
Well, predestination is a fact if you believe that God is omnipotent. If God is all knowing and "timeless" or "infinite" as some of you have put it in other posts, God knows every fact about your life from its beginning to its end. He couldn't know these things unless your life is predetermined. The "free will" that we think we have is an illusion created by our inability to see our own futures.
and this, with the problems listed:
Omnipotence. What does it mean? The common definition is "all-powerful," and it is a characteristic assigned to God by most religions, including the Judeo-Christian religions. But what does all-powerful mean? Does it mean God can defy logic and do the impossible? Or, as St. Thomas Aquinas argues, does it simply mean that God can only do whatever is logically possible? These questions bring up some very important ramifications for people of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In this essay, I will argue that in order for God to be truly omnipotent, He must be able to do that which is logically impossible, simply because of the words very definition.
St. Thomas Aquinas begins his argument by saying, All confess that God is omnipotent; but it seems difficult to explain in what His omnipotence precisely consists. In other words, all Christians say that God is omnipotent rather easily and without much thought; but describing just what His omnipotence is, is much more difficult. For if one claims that God can do absolutely anything, one must concede that God can sin. However, this idea is contradictory to the idea of omnipotence, because to sin is to fall short of a perfect action, which is impossible for any being that is omnipotent. Nelson Pike does not necessarily agree, though. He argues that omnipotence does include the ability to sin. It is entirely logically possible for God to do evil, but He would never do it, because that would violate a firm and stable feature of his nature. However, I think this avoids the issue. The issue is not whether or not God would want to sin, it is whether or not God has the ability to sin. This goes back to the age-old argument about God creating a stone so heavy that He could not lift it. As formulated by Wade Savage:
1. Either x can create a stone that x cannot lift, or x cannot create a stone that x cannot lift.
2. If x can create a stone that x cannot lift, then, necessarily, there is at least one task that x cannot perform (namely, lift the stone in question).
3. If x cannot create a stone that x cannot lift, then, necessarily, there is at least one act that x cannot perform (namely, create the stone in question).
4. Hence, there is at least one task that x cannot perform.
5. If x is an omnipotent being, then x can perform any task.
6. Therefore, x is not omnipotent.
Aquinas says that the obvious solution to this paradox is that Gods omnipotence simply covers that which is possible absolutely. For example, God can create a universe, because there is no logical impossibility. However, God cannot make a square circle, because it is not logically possible. There is no way for a circle, which consists of no sides, to be a square, which consists of four sides, at the same time. According to Aquinas, there is no contradiction in saying that God cannot create a square circle and then saying that God is omnipotent. George Mavrodes also agrees with Aquinas, saying that such tasks, not falling within the realm of possibility, are not objects of power at all. Hence the fact that they cannot be performed implies no limit on the power of God, and hence no defect in the doctrine of omnipotence. I disagree with this line of reasoning due to the very definition of omnipotence. Omnipotence is defined as having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful. To say that God possesses omnipotence is to say that Gods power is unlimited. To say that God cannot perform certain tasks is to place a limit on Gods power. Therefore, God is not omnipotent. To claim that Gods power is only the ability to do that which is logically possible and nothing more does not fulfill the requirement of claiming the title of omnipotence. Being limited by the laws of logic is a limit, pure and simple. As much as I hate to admit agreeing with Descartes, I agree with his contention that being omnipotent means having power that is not limited. Perhaps a more appropriate word for the type of power Aquinas is describing would be semipotence, as Gods power is not unlimited.
Now, if one claims that God can do absolutely anything, whether it is logically possible or not, then there appears to be a contradiction as outlined previously in Wade Savages argument. However, Harry Frankfurt argues that the paradox Savage presents does not show that the notion of omnipotence is incoherent. Frankfurt has a wonderfully clever response to the critics of omnipotence. He says, with regards to the stone paradox, to suppose that Gods omnipotence allows Him to create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it. In doing so, God does a logical impossibility. The critic of omnipotence will then point out that God is not, in fact, omnipotent, because He now cannot lift the rock. Frankfurt would reply, quite simply, Why not? For if God can do one impossible thing, namely creating a rock so heavy that an omnipotent being cannot lift it, why can He not then lift the rock? Is it any greater a trick to do one impossibility than to do two? In Frankfurts words:
If an omnipotent being can do what is logically impossible, then he can not only create situations which he cannot handle but also, since he is not bound by the limits of consistency, he can handle situations which he cannot handle.
Frankfurt makes a valid argument, and many Christians would agree with his logic. If one asks the average Christian on the street about Gods power, he or she would most likely say that God can do anything, logically possible or not. We would have to concede that this is not incoherent due to Frankfurts argument. However, if a Christian agrees with this argument, he or she comes across many problems with Christian philosophy, such as the free will defense for the existence of evil. The existence of free will seems to necessitate that God allow evil to exist. For in order to have free will, we must have the opportunity to choose good or evil. If there were no evil to choose, then we could not truly have free will. The problem arises when one considers that, if God can do the impossible, God can make it so that we have no choice yet we still have free will. It is a logical impossibility, but if God can do the logically impossible, it is possible for Him. The Christian must then concede that God is not omnibenevolent, because He allows evil when He does not have to. There is no obvious way out of this problem, as far as I can tell.
Aquinas says that Gods omnipotence extends only as far as logical possibilities do. Descartes and I contend that God can do anything, logically possible or not, if He is, in fact, truly omnipotent. Aquinas may say that to hold such a belief is a contradiction due to the paradox that Savage formalized, but I contend that Frankfurt has accurately shown that it is not incoherent to say that God can both make a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it as well as lift the rock He cannot lift. However, for the Christian, this presents a few problems. For one, the free will defense for the existence of evil is no longer valid. It relied on the fact that free will cannot exist without choices. However, if God can do anything, logically possible or not, He could make it such that we have no choice, but we still have free will. This would mean that God is not omnibenevolent. Another omnibenevolence problem arises when one considers that Christianity says some people will go to hell. If God truly wanted nobody to go to hell and be tortured for all eternity, everybody would be in heaven. Either He could wave His hand and make it so, or He could make it such that the only choice we have is to choose Him and to choose good. That way, we all get to heaven. For these reasons, the Christian theist is left with some troublesome problems.
Hagbard Celine said:But the fact remains that there would never have been evil if God had not created the potential for it by creating the tree and putting the serpent in the garden to tempt man.
I've got another one for you. If we are made in God's image, wouldn't it stand to reason that God is both good and evil just like we are?
Well, predestination is a fact if you believe that God is omnipotent. If God is all knowing and "timeless" or "infinite" as some of you have put it in other posts, God knows every fact about your life from its beginning to its end. He couldn't know these things unless your life is predetermined. The "free will" that we think we have is an illusion created by our inability to see our own futures.
Yeah, I didn't put my dog into the house, I "allowed it to enter." C'mon, that's weak and you know it. Why would God even create the serpent if he didn't intend it to live in the garden with all the other animals?Said1 said:He didn't put the serpent there, he allowed it to enter, to provide the opportunity to chose.
The problem of evil is the most serious problem in the world. It is also the one serious objection to the existence of God.
When Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote his great Summa Theologica, he could find only two objections to the existence of God, even though he tried to list at least three objections to every one of the thousands of theses he tried to prove in that great work. One of the two objections is the apparent ability of natural science to explain everything in our experience without God; and the other is the problem of evil.
More people have abandoned their faith because of the problem of evil than for any other reason. It is certainly the greatest test of faith, the greatest temptation to unbelief. And it's not just an intellectual objection. We feel it. We live it. That's why the Book of Job is so arresting.
The problem can be stated very simply: If God is so good, why Is his world so bad? If an all-good, all-wise, all-loving, all-just, and all-powerful God is running the show, why does he seem to be doing such a miserable job of it? Why do bad things happen to good people?
The unbeliever who asks that question is usually feeling resentment toward and rebellion against God, not just lacking evidence for his existence. C. S. Lewis recalls that as an atheist he did not believe God existed. I was also very angry with him for not existing. I was also angry with him for having created the world.
When you talk to such a person, remember that it is more like talking to a divorce than to a skeptical scientist. The reason for unbelief is an unfaithful lover, not an inadequate hypothesis. The unbeliever's problem is not just a soft head but a hard heart. And the good apologist knows how to let the heart lead the head as well as vice versa.
There are four parts to the solution to the problem of evil . First, evil is not a thing, an entity, a being. All beings are either the Creator or creatures created by the Creator. But every thing God created is good, according to Genesis. We naturally tend to picture evil as a thinga black cloud, or a dangerous storm, or a grimacing face, or dirt. But these pictures mislead us. If God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil, and he is to blame for its existence. No, evil is not a thing but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice. Evil is no more a positive thing than blindness is. But it is just as real. It is not a thing, but it is not an illusion..
Second, the origin of evil is not the Creator but the creature's freely choosing sin and selfishness. Take away all sin and selfishness and you would have heaven on earth. Even the remaining physical evils would no longer rankle and embitter us. Saints endure and even embrace suffering and death as lovers embrace heroic challenges. But they do not embrace sin.
Furthermore, the cause of physical evil is spiritual evil. The cause of suffering is sin. After Genesis tells the story of the good God creating a good world, it next answers the obvious question Where did evil come from then? By the story of the fall of mankind. How are we to understand this? How can spiritual evil (sin) cause physical evil (suffering and death)?
God is the source of all life and joy. Therefore, when the human soul rebels against God, it loses its life and joy. Now a human being is body as well as soul. We are single creatures, not double: we are not even body and soul as much as we are embodied soul, or ensouled body. So the body must share in the soul's inevitable punishmenta punishment as natural and unavoidable as broken bones from jumping off a cliff or a sick stomach from eating rotten food rather than a punishment as artificial and external as a grade for a course or a slap on the hands for taking the cookies.
Whether this consequence of sin was a physical change in the world or only a spiritual change in human consciousnesswhether the thorns and thistles grew in the garden only after the fall or whether they were always there but were only felt as painful by the newly fallen consclousness-is another question. But in either case the connection between spiritual evil and physical evil has to be as close as the connection between the two things they affect, the human soul and the human body.
If the origin of evil is free will, and God is the origin of free will, isn't God then the origin of evil? Only as parents are the origin of the misdeeds their children commit by being the origin of their children. The all-powerful God gave us a share in his power to choose freely. Would we prefer he had not and had made us robots rather than human beings?
A third part of the solution to the problem of evil is the most important part: how to resolve the problem in practice, not just in theory; in life, not just in thought. Although evil is a serious problem for thought (for it seems to disprove the existence of God), it is even more of a problem in life (for it is the real exclusion of God). But even if you think the solution in thought is obscure and uncertain, the solution in practice is as strong and clear as the sun: it is the Son. God's solution to the problem of evil is his Son Jesus Christ. The Father `s love sent his Son to die for us to defeat the power of evil in human nature: that's the heart of the Christian story. We do not worship a deistic God, an absentee landlord who ignores his slum; we worship a garbageman God who came right down into our worst garbage to clean it up. How do we get God off the hook for allowing evil? God is not off the hook; God is the hook. That's the point of a crucifix.
The Cross is God's part of the practical solution to evil. Our part, according to the same Gospel, is to repent, to believe, and to work with God in fighting evil by the power of love. The King has invaded; we are finishing the mop-up operation.
Finally, what about the philosophical problem? It is not logically contradictory to say an all-powerful and all-loving God tolerates so much evil when he could eradicate it? Why do bad things happen to good people? The question makes three questionable assumptions.
First, who's to say we are good people? The question should be not Why do bad things happen to good people? but Why do good things happen to bad people? If the fairy godmother tells Cinderella that she can wear her magic gown until midnight, the question should be not Why not after midnight? but Why did I get to wear it at all? The question is not why the glass of water is half empty but why it is half full, for all goodness is gift. The best people are the ones who are most reluctant to call themselves good people. Sinners think they are saints, but saints know they are Sinners. The best man who ever lived once said, No one is good but God alone.
Second, who's to say suffering is all bad? Life without it would produce spoiled brats and tyrants, not joyful saints. Rabbi Abraham Heschel says simply, The man who has not suffered, what can he possibly know, anyway? Suffering can work for the greater good of wisdom. It is not true that all things are good, but it is true that all things work together for good to those who love God.
Third, who's to say we have to know all God's reasons? Who ever promised us all the answers? Animals can't understand much about us; why should we be able to understand everything about God? The obvious poiint of the Book of Job, the world's greatest exploration of the problem of evil, is that we just don't know what God is up to. What a hard lesson to learn: Lesson One, that we are ignorant, that we are infants! No wonder Socrates was declared by the Delphic oracle to be the wisest man in the world. He interpreted that declaration to mean that he alone knew that he did not have wisdom, and that was true wisdom for man.
A child on the tenth story of a burning building cannot see the firefighters with their safety net on the street. They call up, Jump! We'll catch you. Trust us. The child objects, But I can't see you. The firefighter replies, That's all right. I can see you.
We are like that child, evil is like the fire, our ignorance is like the smoke, God is like the firefighter, and Christ is like the safety net. If there are situations like this where we must trust even fallible human beings with our lives, where we must trust what we hear, not what we see, then it is reasonable that we must trust the infallible, all-seeing God when we hear from his word but do not see from our reason or experience. We cannot know all God's reasons, but we can know why we cannot know.
God has let us know a lot. He has lifted the curtain on the problem of evil with Christ. There, the greatest evil that ever happened, both the greatest spiritual evil and the greatest physical evil, both the greatest sin (deicide) and the greatest suffering (perfect love hated and crucified), is revealed as his wise and loving plan to bring about the greatest good, the salvation of the world from sin and suffering eternally. There, the greatest injustice of all time is integrated into the plan of salvation that Saint Paul calls the righteousness (Justice) of God. Love finds a way. Love is very tricky. But love needs to be trusted.
The worst aspect of the problem of evil is eternal evil, hell. Does hell not contradict a loving and omnipotent God? No, for hell is the consequence of free will. We freely choose hell for ourselves; God does not cast anyone into hell against his will. If a creature is really free to say yes or no to the Creator's offer of love and spiritual marriage, then it must be possible for the creature to say no. And that is what hell is, essentially. Free will, in turn, was created out of God's love. Therefore hell is a result of God's love. Everything is.
No sane person wants hell to exist. No sane person wants evil to exist. But hell is just evil eternalized. If there is evil and if there is eternity, there can be hell. If it is intellectually dishonest to disbelieve in evil just because it is shocking and uncomfortable, it is the same with hell. Reality has hard corners, surprises, and terrible dangers in it. We desperately need a true road map, not nice feelings, if we are to get home. It is true, as people often say, that hell just feels unreal, impossible. Yes. So does Auschwitz. So does Calvary.
