GreatestIam and DL said:"Yes. At least to those Christians who do not recognize the good in that evil and why it must stay here and why we must do some evil to survive.
Let me explain.
Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or its all mans fault.
That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."
But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.
If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin.
Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil is all human generated. Evil is our responsibility.
Much has been written to explain what I see as a natural part of evolution.
Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created.
Evil then is only human to human.
As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil at all times.
Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.
This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.
Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, we should all see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us.
There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.
Regards
DL
Dear GIA and DL:
1. First, the fact that God gave us free will before we had the ability to master this maturely is God's responsibility. The whole issue of why God sacrificed Jesus on the Cross is the way God provided correction for that. By introducing Jesus on our earthly realm, then this divine grace allows the cycle of suffering to be broken that otherwise would keep going on as part of the "natural learning curve." Just because evil exists does not mean such actions need to keep happening! the point is to prevent evil thoughts from escalating into evil actions.
2. If you read "Glimpses of the Devil" by Scott Peck, there are some forces of evil that have NOTHING to do with ANYTHING man created. These are purely on the spiritual level that Jesus governs and has sole authority. The part that IS for man to take responsibility is FORGIVENESS, so that these evil energies or spirits do not attach themselves to our minds or memories and make us sick. We can do the diagnostic and asking for forgiveness part of the process; but only God/Jesus can remove some of the evil forces that impose themselves.
That part is NOT within man's control. I urge you to read this book, and also HEALING by Francis MacNutt if you want to understand the difference in levels between prayers and changes that we CAN control and choose by free will, and levels beyond that we cannot.
Thank you and I hope this clarifies and makes a difference.
if you do not distinguish the two levels, then you are putting too much responsibility
on man, for things like cancer and mental/criminal illness that are not in someone's control.
The most we can do is identify memories/perceptions/conflicts that are not resolved or forgiven which are PREVENTING the mind/body from healing, but it is the power of higher grace that allows these unforgiveable ills and wrongs to be released, and not from us.
We don't have the ability on our own to forgive all things on the level required in order to be spiritually free from all disease and death caused by these problems in the world. At some point, we ask for higher help to forgive things that otherwise keep us stuck in suffering.
We cannot "will" all things away, and where we reach our limits as human beings, that is when it is our responsibility to ask for higher help to overcome or let go and let God.
It does not mean all things will be fixed, but neither does it mean evil should continue either.