[size=150]That’s an easy one![/size]
Well… I wouldn’t define myself as “a Greek scholar.” However, I have formally studied Koine Greek for several years, and privately for decades thereafter.
I’m still having trouble getting my head around the statement that ‘God does not allow evil’.
Yeah that’s kind of my thinking but:
-for ‘hard sovereignty’ believers aka Calvinists - God causes it to show forth his wonderfulness. And while I most wholeheartedly believe in His Wonderfulness, I will not believe that He needs evil to make Him shine brighter. He does not need any help in that respect.
-if He allows evil, then either
–He will bring good out of it or
–He is unable to prevent evil - either by choice, to give us free reign, or by a lack of power.
Like all things to do with evil, it’s problematic.
Okay, but I think you would agree that God doesn’t allow evil in the sense of giving His permission for people to do evil acts.
However, Murray’s thinking goes beyond that. Here’s his understanding of the matter:
- God cannot lie. (Titus 1:2). So why can’t He lie if He is omnipotent? Murray says that He can’t lie because lying is contrary to His nature.
- Similarly, God cannot prevent evil. Why? Because to do so, He would have to use force with people. But it is contrary to God’s nature to force people to do things or to refrain from doing things. Evil exists, because God cannot prevent it. However, He doesn’t allow evil in any sense.
- Similarly, God cannot prevent evil. Why? Because to do so, He would have to use force with people. But it is contrary to God’s nature to force people to do things or to refrain from doing things. Evil exists, because God cannot prevent it. However, He doesn’t allow evil in any sense.
Paidion
God can not prevent it? But once it exists is he unable to stop it or change it? What about Psalm 91 or other prayers, are we praying to a God who is often powerless to protect us from evil?
I think whole conversation gets confused because we perceive ‘evil’ to be some tangible entity, essence or force of its own existence, as though IT were something to be conquered. On the human scale malevolence per se is manifest in behaviour, but has no source of its own as there is no source other than the darkened heart that produces said evil or more properly put… calamity.
Yes the darkened heart
How do we press beyond the Darkened heart?
So: here are a couple of clips that I presume most of us would NOT agree with?
Quote:
-
First, it means that from all eternity, God decided what would happen in His
creation. Without consulting anybody else and without being limited by anything
outside of himself, God has decided what will happen–from the big things down
to the smallest details. This plan that God has made is, taken as a whole, exactly
the way that He wants it. The second thing that is mean by the phrase “ordain” is
that God acts to bring about His plan. He does not just sit back and watch his
plan be fulfilled by chance. God takes action to bring about what He has planned.
In sum, the truth that God has ordained whatever comes to pass means that He
(1) decides what will happen and then (2) makes it happen. -
God is behind good and evil in different ways. From the verses we saw
above, it is clear that God is the cause of all things. However, we must
understand that God is behind evil in a different way than He is behind good. He
is behind good in a way that renders Him fully deserving of all of the credit for it,
but He is behind evil in such a way that He deserves none of the blame for it. -
The correct view seems to be that God is the ultimate cause of sin, but He is not
the positive cause of sin. Therefore, He cannot be blamed for sin. In other words,
God causes sin by withholding goodness, rather than by injecting evil. God does
not produce the sin in people’s hearts. Rather, it proceeds from their own hearts.
God simply withholds the grace that would change the hearts, and thus is the
ultimate cause but not the positive, or morally guilty, cause. -
In other words, negative causation shows that sinfulness is not in a person’s
heart because God produced it, but because He withheld the grace that would
have eliminated the sin. But God does direct the degree of sinfulness in the heart
and arrange the form in which the sin of the heart manifests itself by means of
negative causation (withdrawing His restraining grace even more and thus
hardening the heart), and/or by orchestrating circumstances so that the sin that
He has ordained will be carried out.
end of quote
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________–
Ok - that’s the case, partially, of some Reformed theologians (thirdmill.org/articles/mat_perma … n.sov2.pdf) Personally I think they get tongue-tied trying to make a nonsensical case.
The only ways I have found, around this line of thinking, is to say of God:
-
He cannot prevent evil but promises in the end that 'All manner of things shall be well"
-
But this means…what? That God is powerless to stop evil? At all? If He could stop one evil then surely He could prevent all, so I have to conclude that He cannot. I don’t want to conclude that. That conclusion would leave us with:
-
Either God ordains all that happens, including evil or
2, There is no real plan - the world is free to commit the most heinous atrocities (which it apparently is, witness the entire 20th century) but with the promise that all will be well.
Is the choice really between sovereignty or powerlessness?
2.
1
Cool. I thank you much for the invitation! Please know that within the constraint of time allowed me for my responsibilities, I will gladly provide an answer from my heart to any query from anyone.
Before I comment on the first link, I wish to make it understood that every truly Calvinistic explanation has, at its core, the assumption that God knew, as a fact, that the first human beings were going to turn before He created them. The Awdam’s turning was as foreknown by God as we foreknow the sun will rise tomorrow in the east.
Therefore, everything is exactly as God intended it to be, regardless of whether His intention came by fiat or by default; for the simple act of His proceeding to create, for knowing this fact, means He approved it. And that makes His grief at how horrible human beings had become (Gen 6:6) as deceptive and feigned a display of emotion as an adulterous spouse might make who had been caught.
So, how long were The Awdam in the garden before, “The Fall?” Augustine of Hippo said about thirty minutes. Humph. As Monty Python would say:
Obviously, then, I hold the opposite understanding that Jehovah did not know, as a fact, that the first human beings were going to turn before He created them, even when, “they,” showed me proof from scripture that this must be the truth. My disbelief came because contradiction logically followed from everything else I was taught to believe, even though, at the time, I could not refute their logic.
The Awdam were either truly free to choose, which means God did not know, as a fact, that the first human beings were going to turn before He created them, or they were not truly free to choose, because God knew, as a fact, that the first human beings were going to turn before He created them.
A door cannot simultaneously be open and closed, anymore than a photon can simultaneously be a particle and a wave.
Sorry, but I just cannot embrace contradiction.
So, when I read something like this from this web site:
I gotta chuckle because a Calvinist claiming that The Awdam were free to choose in Eden is a specious argument, deployed to avert our attention from the ugliness that comes from knowing that, simply by creating us, God predestined most of humanity to everlasting punishment for their sins. As this website put it in their statement of belief:
Nevertheless, the first quote above does reflect something of what I’ve come to acknowledge as truth.
The Awdam were not so much created, “free,” as they were created innocent: sentient but innocent. That kind of innocence is inconceivable to us because we grow into our own self-awareness, even as we come to loose our innocence.
Then, for them, in Eden, there was that fantastic Tree called The Tree of the Knowledge of the Difference Between Good and Evil. Now this kind of knowledge is what we call our conscience. So, The Awdam’s innocence was maintained in self-awareness because, if this Tree could impart to them this knowledge, which seems to be what happened when they ate its fruit, then it means that they did not initially have a conscience!
Weird, right?
But, innocence is useless. Only sentience with this knowledge can be useful, if there is to be the ability to interact beneficially with more human beings.
Hence, the command not to eat of this Tree becomes a test that is not tempting them to fail, rather it is giving them a chance to succeed. For it cannot be that God intended them to live forever as the only two human beings. Rather, for being the first two, a chance was given for them to establish virtue by trust in Jehovah and thus pass on virtue, along with a conscience, to all that would follow.
Therefore they must have had a very real ability to say, “No thanks!” when The Nacash attempted to turn them.
And the outcome of this, for them being given a genuine choice, in innocence, means that Jehovah could not have known, as a fact, what they would do when they were brought to the point of decision.
So, what if they did say, no thanks? I believe that afterward, Jehovah would have given them permission to eat from that tree.
And the world would be a better place.
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Then this website said this:
Hoohah! Where is there room in this odd aphorism for knowing of the difference between good and evil?
Let me ask, do human beings possess the knowledge of the difference between good and evil? Which is to ask, “Do you have a conscience?”
I do. And so does God. We both know of the difference between good and evil.
The difference, as far as this is concerned, is that God is virtuous because He has this knowledge and always chooses to do good. Me, I have this knowledge and have chosen all too often to go with the flow and choose evil. That makes me a sinner, responsible for my own sin because I have a conscience.
But, *what if I could consistently choose good over evil? *Would I, too, be virtuous?
Yes.
However, let me not be as a fool and declare myself righteous and good, for Jesus, in challenging the Rich Young Ruler to come to grips with Jesus’ divinity, asked him:
This means me, too. That is why I perceive that humility must be my principal, as I learn to let love lead me into righteousness, while still acknowledging that I have been given the power of choice over my actions because I have a conscience.
So, what is one of the things a Believer receives when infused with holy spirit?
A cleansed conscience.
And so, whose responsibility is it to keep that conscience clean?
Did you know the word conscience appears thirty-two times in the NT?
Seems that the NT had a lot to say about the role this knowledge of the difference between good and evil has in our ability to live lives of virtue, lives of righteousness, before God. Additionally, I perceive from scriptural examples that simply resisting evil is commendable enough.
So, the way I see it, good and evil are not metaphysical concepts where either needs something from the other to exist, or not exist (?!?), as was suggested, rather they are brought into existence when a choice is made to be either good or evil. Knowledge is not a palpable thing, and neither is good or evil. However, applying knowledge through industry creates tangibility, and so it is that the choice to be good or evil brings tangibility to either.
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For the second link I already provided my understanding here.
To sum it up, God does allow evil, that is God does allow Pain and Suffering which is evil, if evil is, indeed, made tangible when we make a choice. The why of this can only be found in each individuals heart because we have all been both the victims of evil and been the ones inflicting Pain and Suffering.
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The third link well stated that Jehovah allows any and every human ruler, regardless of how they came to power - either through His election, which is a rare occurrence, or in the, “normal,” course of governmental selection, including, unfortunately, despots. Ugh. I don’t like the thought of that, of course, because despots are of evil intent, always. However, scripture acknowledges that this is so and to gainsay it is not wise; after all it is Jehovah who puts hooks in the jaws of kings and leads them where He will. That’s pretty much all I need to know.
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Lest this post get too long…
I will continue my reply to this invitation tomorrow.
Dennis!
https://cdn.andertoons.com/img/toons/cartoon0902.png
Dennis (AKA Eleutheros) said:
Does that mean you agree with Open Theism? If not, then how do you differ, in the context of your quoted statement 
I assume you know what open theism is. Otherwise, I would be happy to supply a couple links. 
Hey, I’ll supply some anyway - for folks who might not know
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism
gotquestions.org/open-theism.html
iep.utm.edu/o-theism/
carm.org/what-is-open-theism
theopedia.com/open-theism
Also, here is another link, by Calvinist theologian Matt Slick - to add to your collection:
Why does God allow evil and suffering in the world?
I usually find that the Calvinist site CARM (AKA Matt Slick), is usually better throught out, than the Calvinist site Got Questions. But Got Questions provides far more answers. Let me just highlight the CARM answers. See the essay, for a complete expository:
The condemned answer, should be placed in context, of our belief system (i.e. ECT, Exile, Annihilation, Universalism. etc.). I do find that Matt’s ideas are sensible possibilities.
http://www.truthdig.com/images/cartoonuploads/fish_GoodEvil_500.jpg
I think these answers are more in depth, without the Calvinist lens. So I would be particularly interested, in you feedback here (in addition, to the CARM answer):
I really like the** The Problem of Evil** essay, as it puts everything nicely into perspective. I learn towards the External Selves essay (by William Ferraiolo, Ph.D,) approach, along with this from Suffering and the Problem of Evil (AKA Call to Action):
And the Eternal Selves essay, says this in essence:
Or as the essay itself says:
And here is how The Problem of Evil essay (by Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at Boston College), addresses the Rabbi book (I’m in accord, with these answers):
Well, that’s my take on things. And my answer to Hermano and Eleutheros. Now let’s see what Dennis (AKA Eleutheros) and others - have to say
Yes. The statement “God causes sin by withholding goodness”, no matter how that is ‘spun’, is a stunner.
Paidion, I don’t believe that such natural occurrences are the result of man’s sin. In your example, since man and animals are eating all the plants, mosquitoes would most likely need to adapt and find another source of food in order to survive. To me, Adam was a mortal man just like all the rest of us, and whether we sin or not, we will all die someday. That’s just the way God made it. This is why every living thing has the seeds of reproduction. God has prepared man for spiritual “death” as well. For in each of us, there is a seed of God which never dies.
Isaiah 54 has always been a favorite of mine. The entire chapter reminds us that though there is brokenness, brokenness is never the end of the story. In fact God has designed brokenness so that he could demonstrate the greater victory in conquering through us.
Isaiah 54 concludes thus…
Thanks for that Jeff.
The very hard pill to swallow is the above quote, isn’t it? Isn’t the whole world broken - and not just heartache, I mean the entire 20th century was a holocaust and a bloodbath, every conceivable atrocity (so far) that man could imagine.
Do you think God designed that? I hope He did not.
It’s just as hard for me to think that He ‘allowed it’, as that signifies power to stop it, but power put aside. Is that to question His wisdom? NO, but a little insight would really help.
The other path, that of His powerlessness, is not very palatable either.
In so saying, I’ve done nothing but recap the Problem of Pain as it has existed for millennia. 
Well, Boy Howdy! Slap me silly and then call me a fool! I must be an Open Theist!!
I’ll happily accept that stamp if it’s helpful for those here to grasp what I’m blathering on about!
However, please know that I came to my point-of-view through a lot of research. That is to say, I did not come to be an, “Open Theist,” because I read something somewhere and thought, Cool! I like that!
My first contact with, “Open Theism,” was when I stumbled across Gregg Boyd and exchanged a few e-mails with him concerning the translation of katabole with, “disruption,” rather than, “foundation,” and the difference that made to understanding.
Soon after that he had to stop replying personally because of his growing, “popularity.”
Ever hear of Arthur Custance?
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A long time ago, in a Baptist High School far, far away…
I debated Free will vs Predestination during lunch period and with my Bible teachers and, by the time High School was over, I decided that, despite all those heart-felt 3x5 cards I signed pronouncing me saved, if this was the God of the Universe, you can have Him. Besides, if I am among these, “elect,” then I can sin with impunity because I can’t loose my salvation, no matter what I do! If I’m not, then, to hell with it all! Might as well enjoy my life while I can! That was 1978, long, long before the Internet.
Of course that was not a soul-satisfying response, and sin has serious consequences.
Fast-forward to a point where I stumbled on I John 3:9 in the Amplified Bible and had the WTF? kicked out of me.
It was kinda like Martin Luther reading: “The just shall live by faith.” All kinds of crazy, (personal) history-making stuff followed.
So, I thought to myself, if I am, “born-again,” then I have the Spirit of Jesus in me and The Words say that is all I need to be led into all understanding. So, since Genesis is the book of beginnings, then, it makes sense that if I get Genesis right, everything else will fall into place! Okay! Let’s get to it!
I deliberately avoided the theological writings of others (while still enjoying the fanciful writing of certain authors), and concentrated on learning to use the tools of study. My first copy of Strong’s and Vine’s and my Amplified Bible were literally falling apart as I came to understand that there was no way God could have foreknown, as a fact, that the first human beings were going to, “fall.” That brings me up to about 2002, when I got my first computer and an Internet connection and MS Word (Yeah!). Then, about 2008, while posting on another forum, I was unceremoniously introduced to Universalisim - that heresy I was studiously warned to avoid if I valued my immortal soul - and the rest is history.
Now, the results of that research gave me the idea that I should begin a narrative on Genesis 1-3, which I later titled, “Creation Hymn.” That was a good decision. The writing helped make my thoughts more cogent because writing a narrative leads to asking questions that I then had to find the answers to, if the narrative were to continue.
I guess you could say, for my now accepting the label Open Theist, that it is a narrative (unintentionally) written from an Open Theist point-of-view!
Have you seen it floating around here?
Okay. So which one is it: a), b), or c)?
My answer: d) None of the above.
I could go point-by-point, but others are already doing that.
The way I see it, any consideration of the question: “If God is Good (and all those omni-thingys), then why is there so much Pain And Suffering (Evil) in the World?” must include a consideration of the contributions the contemplator has made to all the Evil (Pain and Suffering) in the world.
And that is pretty much what I’ve been effusing as I typed out all those other words.
If that contemplation is absent, then I perceive that all the ten-dollar words used to describe hundred-dollar concepts would only end up turning me into what Paul said about certain believers, that they are ever learning, but unable to arrive at a recognition of the truth.
I am sorry. I did not have any person in mind besides myself as I typed that out, but I know that comment might be perceived as an unkind thing to say. I do not wish to offend, and hope I haven’t, but I can offer, as my defense, that the Gospel of the reconciliation of men to God is highly-personalized, being all about me (and you), and so I perceive that my contemplation on such things as this should be just as personalized.
I am a sinner (and sometimes I’ve been a pernicious one), who has contributed way too much Evil to the world. I don’t wish to do so any longer. Therefore, I humbly accept Your reconciliation of myself to You, my LORD and Savior, and welcome the Spirit of Jesus inside me to re-sire me and create a new being that is learning how to let love lead him into righteousness; for I desire to hear You say to me, when I stand resurrected before your dais,“Well-done! Dennis, you have been a good and faithful servant. Enter into your allotment in my Kingdom!” A-men.
I gotta have faith.
For the first bolded part I do not concur that Evil is also a part of God’s creation because that would mean He created it! For being, now, an Open Theist, I can say - with a newly-labeled authority - what I’ve been saying for so long before I was thus appellated, Evil is not a thing to be created, rather it is an intangible that can only exist when the choices of beings who have a conscience choose to do evil, thus giving it tangibility.
For the second bolded part, I can’t say that, “we,” are necessarily called to end evil, as if it could be permanently eradicated by our actions against it because, “we,” are the reason there is evil in the world! So, that would mean we’d have to eradicate ourselves entirely to end all evil!
God did that once, almost. He saved only eight human souls. And evil still returned.
You sure are throwing a lot of stuff my way! And Mr. Blake, too! Well, a Baa, Baa and a Grrrowl to you. My thanks.
Concerning the dictionary-bending essay, External Selves and the Problem of Evil, as I read through it, Paul’s and Peter’s words seemed to me to sum this point of view best:
Now, will this theodicy that no physical suffering can harm an, “immaterial self,” work for the soulful mortal enduring his or her life on earth only vaguely aware that his or her spirit will endure after death - a human being who has not yet been re-sired by Jehovah to understand that what lies, “behind the veil,” is the true reality of his or her existence and that what is done in the here and now effects, if there is post-mortem reward and punishment, that existence?
I don’t think so.
But, it works for me! Forgiveness of others for inflicting Pain and Suffering on me is as much for the benefit of my spirit, as it would be for their soul.
I did note that Ferraiolo wrote this:
And this seems to resonate with what I’ve been typing about.
However, there was one more thing from this essay that struck me as particularly poignant.
Sometimes the evil human beings can inflict on each other is just too inexplicable… too diabolical. And any attempts, whatsoever, to justify it by saying that something good can, or could, or did, come from it, borders on being inhuman and criminally un-empathetic.
I have only one thought, weakly offered, and offered only to acknowledge that there is a reason the word, “diabolical,” exists.
This will be one-thousand years of human history that does not have to endure that diabolical influence.
I read that article yesterday and was going to begin my reply today with exactly this quote! Could there be some kinda squantum-entangled de-arrangedbrain wave-thingy here?
Nah. We’re just all possibilities waiting to happen. 
Be good!
Dennis!
Hum. I like that:
It sounds like something, TV evangelist Joel Osteen might say. 
I believe you missed responding to The Problem of Evil essay (by Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at Boston College) and my quoted portion. Or did you embed your reply, the the quoted text 
If so, it’s a new literary style - I haven’t encountered here before - or elsewhere, for that matter. I do find Peter’s and the Rabbi’s responses - the most inspiring.
Before your response, I did revise my ** Suffering and the Problem of Evil** (AKA Call to Action), to emphasize the second point (which you appear to side with).
I really like that
I really like that, also
Mystics or those having mystical experience, really see things - in the here and now.
As far as the** Eternal Selves** essay goes, the Christian and non-Christian mystics, do see things in a different light - after their mystical experience. So perhaps that author, is not too far removed. And having contemplated in the Red Road (AKA Native American Spirituality), Mindfulness, Quaker and Zen traditions, I do see things differently - from most people.
But bad things and situations - can be healed. That’s what I learned from the Native American medicine people and ceremonies, saints from the East, Christian prayer, the gifts of the spirit, watching TV evangelist Joel Osteen, reflecting in the Quaker way and contemplating the goodness of God (AKA reflecting in the traditions of authors Mary Baker Eddy, Goel Goldsmith and Emmet Fox - minus the theology). And here is the great mystery. Somethings what’s the most probably bad thing to happen, can be minimized or even eliminated. Via the spirit of God - acting within us.
And maybe wearing blessed objects. Like I do with a silver cross, that’s blessed by:
Priests from the Roman Catholic Church
Saints I know from the East
Being placed on the Native American, Sweat Lodge ceremonial altars, of ceremonies I took part in
Of course, this could all be some sort of cosmic placebo effect - on my part. 
And what I learned from the saints (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and other traditions), is we need to behave like Christ - to the best of our ability. And help people, as much as we can - to the best of our ability.
Here ares some good links, regarding the sweat lodge:
barefootsworld.net/sweatlodge.html
dancingtoeaglespiritsociety.org/swlodge.php
manygoodteachings.com/sweatlodge-understanding.html
In the end, everybody must find their own philosophical and theological answers, to the problem of pain and suffering. As a pragmatist, I suggest they find, what works for them.
Here is my theory, short but to the point. I have an extended version but… And maybe someone will either run with this or destroy it.
God can not create and allow free agency without allowing for crap to happen. He allows us to live.
The crap is sometimes horrible, in our estimation, and that is important to remember.
The horrible crap and the day to day little turds can and I believe *are used by God YHWH *to keep things within his scope of acceptance. This is hard for even us multi-taskers to understand. A three year old dying of leukemia or six million Jews being exterminated, or a flood of epic proportions, has in my estimation a real place in God’s onward moving plan for humanity.
We really don’t have a grasp at this point as to what is really evil and what God considers ‘bad behavior.’ Or in other words, each of us has a definition of evil that is different than others, and I would bet, different than God’s definition, if you take into account His ultimate end for humanity.
The elect (believers) are his servants, those He uses to make the changes he would like made. Saints, believers, Christians.
So we have, free will, election, hardships that are used for good, A God that is truly merciful and benevolent. And a God that is ultimately superior in HIS ability to know what He wants for us. He gave all of humanity very many chances before He dropped the hammer. When He did.
Because we can’t accept it, does not make what God does invalid.
I do say that I may change the theory at some point but…
Some how I see all these things and yet have faith. 
Chad, that sounds as good as any! Thanks for posting it.
Qaz I agree.