On the main point of Christ and what he accomplished - no. On many other points - yes. We still argue today, both on this forum and in the world at large (i.e. Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, etc.), over who has the right doctrine and/or perspective. 
What is even worse than that is a group of thugs grabbed God’s perfect, sinless Son, beat Him, flogged Him, nailed Him to a cross and killed Him.
We are told God made them do it.
And you thought you had the worst case scenario! You see, you can’t embarrass God out of being in control of His universe.
If God is not in control, He is therefore out of control. If He is out of control, He is no longer God. Since He is in control and since He is working all together for GOOD, then God is justified in what He does.
Since God is everywhere, (Paul said "in Him we are moving and living and are) and “God gives to all, life and breath and all,” God could easily stop all the evil acts in an instant. Since He does not, He is responsible.
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This is just a fascinating discussion, but the logical next step to the free will, determined/providential road is the idea of prayer, the asking of God to change what may be another persons free will or possibly God’s own providential will. 
just a note to HFPZ, I appreciate the art. Keep it comin. 
Romans 8:26-27 easily answers that question…
So even our prayers are owned by the Sovereign God 
Thanks, Chad. This reminds me of an old Quora discussion:
If God is an all-knowing being, why does one need to pray?
Of course, you can substitute other language words. Instead of “If God is an all-knowing being” , substitute something like “If God determines everything”, etc. 
Of course, not everyone will understand things the same way, as this video will illustrate:
youtube.com/watch?v=diXTLc46X90
or
i think of the one calling as the academics, scholars, logicians, etc. They will win the degrees, prestige, etc.
The simple ones who mess things up (i.e. folks like Stan Laurel and Curly Howard), are most likely the ones God gives spiritual gifts to and gives them the capacity to perform miracles.
That is the paradox, folks. And the big joke.. “it’s turtles all the way down” 
Just for the sake of argument, suppose God did give all mankind free will. As much as I hate to join “free” with “will” I am only doing so for this argument. So suppose God gave all mankind free will. God obviously knew in advance what this would do. He knew mankind would murder, kill, cheat, lie, steal and on and on by doing so. So how does this get God off the hook for all the evil in the world that humans do? It doesn’t. If a man builds a machine and makes it so that machine can do whatever it wants and he lets the machine go in the neighborhood and it knocks down houses and kills and maims, the man is still responsible for what the machine did.
As to prayer which maintenanceman brings up, we actually should pray, not to twist God’s arm and get Him to force others to do what we consider the right thing, rather prayer is supposed to align our wills with God’s will. Even Jesus, in prayer said: “Not my will but Thine be done!” And that was concerning Him going to the cross. So it was God’s will that Christ get all bludgeoned and beat and whipped and nailed.
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I am in Revelation 16 and in verses 10 to 11 another bowl is poured out and the people blaspheme the God of heaven for their miseries and for their ulcers and they do not repent of their acts.
If humans have free will, a will which God gave them in the first place, why would God try to get them to change the very will He gave them?
On the other hand, if these people could not do otherwise than to do what they must do, why will God try to make them stop that which they are made to do?
Could it be God is trying to show them that they can’t change without Him changing them from the inside? And since God eventually will change them from the inside, why does He wait thousands of years for their change? Why all the evil for thousands of years? It is because man must learn from the knowledge of good and evil.
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So let’s go back to this poem and ask a pragmatic question. If everyone is eventually saved, then why argue to prove (from Sola Scriptura and a little bit of philosophy), that some blind person, has the right understanding of what an elephant is? Or that everyone else should buy into, that particular description or theory, regarding the elephant? If all paths lead to the same end (universalism), what does it matter if we follow:
A Christian Science path
A full Preterist path
A full Christian determinist path
A Christian Libertarian, free will path
etc.
Isn’t everyone just trying to prove they have a way to the elephant (i.e. universalism) and not some other animal - like a rhino (i.e. ECT, etc.)?
Of course, not everyone will understand things the same way, as this video will illustrate:
youtube.com/watch?v=diXTLc46X90
or
A couple other items came to mind:
I took a class in Christian history, from the College of Dupage. The professor was a Baptist minister, who got his doctorate in theology, from a Catholic university. I emailed him and asked him if there was a rational way, to tell who had the right Christian doctrine. The next day (without mentioning my name), he gave a talk about this email. His answer was that there is really no rational way. It’s a matter of belief.
Following a discussion (i.e. like this) is like joining some Hollywood names, who go to see a new movie. The movie might be “Plan Nine From Outer Space” , which is one of the worst movies ever made.
Now Ed Wood might say, if he were still alive, that God gave him the insight for the script. And he might give the Hollywood names logical reasons, why it is a good film. And he might present his “theory”, on what constitutes a “good or correct” script and movie. But they would still say, it’s a horrible movie. Now I have been to the nearby Christian Science Church, in the past - to hear talks. And to the national headquarters of the Theosophical Society in America, to hear talks on Esoteric Christianity and Gnosticism. But** even **Esoteric Christianity, Gnosticism, and Christian Science - no matter how outlandish (compared to the typical RC, EC and Protestant presentations, even if you remove the hell elements) - just appear to be better movies, than “Puppet on a String”. Sorry, Ed Wood. Nothing you have said, can redeem the actual movie (i.e.“big picture”) you made.
or
youtube.com/watch?v=u2ukRYsYPmo
P.S. Here’s the full movie (about 1 hour and 20 minutes - it’s the “big picture”), if you wish to watch it - and not just the trailer.
I believe that this is a soul-making enterprise, this Earth of ours. Christ has presented God’s way (according to HIm, right?) of ‘soul-making’; i.e., growing into the fullness of Christ. And one of the entailments of being involved in soul-making is, I believe, that our characters , going on into the life AFTER life after death, don’t get changed immediately. We do reap what we sow and though God will make it right in the end, the path getting there will be painful, depending on what we do ‘here below’ to grow into godly people.
AS to free will etc. - I don’t think our stance on that makes much difference. We all act as if we have choices, we all know (I hope) that the responsibility for ourselves and the world falls to us, it is a gift to be treasured and cultivated, not wasted. $.02
Holy-Fool-P-Zombie wrote:
That is a good question, and Tom Wright says in his book ‘Justification’ that what we are talking about is the very problem. The western mind is so concerned with itself and “MY” salvation that it has lost much of what Christ really came for and accomplished… Thus we continue to spin our wheels. God’s remedy through Christ, as I understand it, is to show that faith 'of ’ Christ needs to be understood. Most of Christianity wants to focus on faith ‘IN’ Christ. The difference may seem subtle but it is HUGE. 
Those who know of Toms work and can show where I might be mistaken, I welcome the correction, but in my reading, this is not only Tom’s position but a new paradigm as to looking at Paul’s writings and the Gospel in general. 
Quite simply… because sin wrought an interference to man’s ability to walk naturally according to His will; thus God’s corrective injunctions to do so. Sometimes along the way He in His mercy has needed to provide a deterministic nudge in the right direction. It’s not rocket science.
Amen
This is the view of classical universalism, and this is precisely why I don’t identify myself as “a universalist” but as a “reconciliationist.” This very view is the reason that most Christians reject universalism and condemn it as heresy. I, myself, reject this view for the same reason. I strongly reject the sentiment that all people will automatically be taken to heaven at death because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
Yes, I believe that God will ultimately reconcile all people to Himself, but many will come to God as a result of His severe mercy. I believe that rebels against Christ, and those who persist in wrong doing must be corrected. Their evil, rebellious natures must be burned away by the fires of God’s LOVE (which is exactly what hell is). That LOVE is heaven to God’s children, but hell to the evil and rebellious. But that hell is meant to be corrective. God will do the best He can for every individual, and will provide the least discomfort possible. But for those who need a very severe correction, He will not spare them, but deliver them from themselves and their evil natures using whatever it takes to change them. Through their repentance, God will grant to them total regeneration, so that they will possess new and loving natures totally devoid of hate, and filled with the LOVE of God!
Paidion… that’s fair enough to believe that, BUT what text/s of Scripture actually tells you this WITHOUT you first having read that assumption INTO the text to so draw that idea out again? IOW… what text/s actually say “hell = the fires of God’s LOVE”?
Origen, I appreciate your loving and respectful response to my charge of blasphemy in the following statement of mine:
However, I still hold that stating that God causes such atrocities is blasphemy. Did Jesus ever paint His Heavenly Father in this way? Did He ever suggest that God is the cause of man’s evil? Rather He said that God is kind to both ungrateful and evil people, and that if we do the same, loving our enemies, and doing good toward them and praying for them, we will show ourselves to be the sons of God indeed! He never said, “Rape and kill little girls, and you will show yourselves to be sons of God, for God also causes them to be raped and killed.”
That is a very interesting point, Eusebius. One that i had never thought of before.
It is not obvious at all that He knew in advance, and I know of no argument extant that is convincing.
God is not and never has been ‘on the hook’ - what kind of talk is that??
WE are the problem - the problem of evil is US.
Wow. That is another most excellent point, Eusebius. I can’t recall ever hearing this one before, in all my 6 decades.
NOW I think you are just pulling our legs. That is such a blatant non-sequitur that it belongs as an example in a logic textbook.
(a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.)
What does omnipresence have to do with ability to stop evil??? Nothing. Nothing at all.
Both the free-will and the determinist answers are too simplistic imo - there are nuances, inflections, contexts all to be considered.