ninja007
Gold Member
man made doctrine not the Word of God.In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, our answer to the "Problem of Evil" is first answered by the the following latter day verse:
Doctrine and Covenants 93:29
29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.
This verse tells us two things. First it tells us that God is not all powerful in that He can do anything imaginable. This verse tells us something that not even God can do. He cannot create intelligence. We believe that God is capable of doing all that is possible. However, there are eternal impossibilities and this revelation tells us so. Mere mortals are not even capable of imagining all that is possible in this vast universe. However, God knows all things and has all power in that he can do all things that are possible. Second, we learn from this verse we learn that the intelligence of all things can never be created. In other words, we believe that our intelligence is self-existing. Yes, we believe that a part of all living things that have intelligence have always existed as intelligence.
Now if God could not create our intelligence, it goes without saying that he could not create our intelligence to be perfect. Thus we are as we have always existed. However, we are subject to progression and gaining more knowledge and intelligence. So God, knowing that he could not create us to be perfect as He is, came up with another way for us to become more like Himself through learning to progress through the process of experiencing a temporary mortal life of good and evil using our own free will and choice. Free will is critical to becoming a good being. If we did not learn to choose good over evil of our own free will would we really become good beings in and of ourselves? No! Lucifer's plan in the premortal world of spirits was to force mankind to do good and in this way he supposed to save all mankind. God rejected this plan because if mankind does not choose good over evil of his own free will, then mankind is not really becoming a good being in and of himself. Free will is critical for mankind to become a truly good being. By choosing good over evil and loving goodness more than evil we become more like God and become good beings in and of ourselves. So basically, we are sent to this temporary mortal world of good and evil to learn to choose good over evil of our own free will and choice. By going through this experience of mortal life we can become more perfect like our Father in Heaven is perfect. Thus the purpose of having evil in the world is learn that it is bad and that goodness is good and that we should love good over evil. Since free will is critical, God knows that not all mankind will choose good over evil but that some will choose evil over good.
Not being made perfect and being in an imperfect state, God knew that we would make mistakes and thus created a way for us to repent and find forgiveness of sin and we struggle to become good beings. He thus provided us with his atoning sacrifice so that we could have many chances to overcome evil and choose good over evil and become good beings. The drawback is that not all of us take advantage of this wonderful gift of God and repent and seek forgiveness but go on committing evil and even loving it. This is the belief of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our answer to the problem of evil.