That’s the impression I was wondering about… just my opinion, but that doesn’t make it “a Hebraic perspective” per sé — again just sayin’, thanks though for clarifying.
@davo yea I do see your point. I guess it just relates to the religion that most subscribes with whats being said. Ie. Jews vastly use the OT as scripture, therefore it is a Jewish belief.
Technically it doesn’t need to be classified as a Jewish belief though. I would agree.
It is often said that original sin is “down to free will.” To me this dose not explain the root of how the thought of sin was conceived in the first place. It is believed that God being perfect created a perfect angelic host. How did the concept of rebellion come to be with in a perfect environment/creation and within a perfect mind. It’s also often said by many ahhhh !!!Free will !!!. But one still needs to give birth to wrongful thoughts to apply that free will wrongly. Surely free will can only act on what it knows/ understands,so we’re did the birth of that evil concept come from with in a perfectly created
mind /environment.It seems like one big mystery, and I don’t think I could argue other wise. But the biggest question for me is, If Satan was able to developed sin within himself without being tempted, because he had free will, then surely this means Adam and Eve could have develop sin with in the confines of free will, without the added burden of Satan tempting them. Even if we were to all agree, that God is not the author of sin, this doesn’t explain why he allowed Satan to make the possibility of sinning a more attractive proposal to Adam and Eve.
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I have had two stumbling blocks in my faith. One was when the veil was taken away from me concerning Matthew 24:34 and “this generation”. So after some mental suffering, I became Preterist. The other stumbling block was the problem of evil. Things that disturbed me greatly a creator had designed such as the ways of the tarantula hawk or the incredible painful birth process of the hyena . Great atrocities in history such as the incredibly sadistic execution of Francois Damiens. Accepting evolution as a means, a process God had kicked off helped me some explaining shortcomings in the designed. Angelic agency helped me with old testament atrocities. Universal salvation helped me some but above all it was trusting God. God must know better. Logically there are many things we dont understand but we can trust God knows better. He must have a reason for not saving that drowning baby. There is certainly an “Islam” (submission) element in Christianity, though it is not works based, it is submitting to the sovereignity of God.
The only answer that makes sense to me much as it may offend folks is that God knew Adam would sin and allow mortality to come to every man, but also allow sin and evil into the world, that there must be lessons to be learned from experiencing evil that are necessary for mankind to grow up into maturity.
“God allowed Satan to make sinning attractive”… (because) “lessons learned from experiencing evil are necessary for mankind to grow.”
I agree, if God had power to make us without sin, but chose not to do that, it seems it must be because God saw sin and evil as essential to developing the character God values.
The only logical explanation I can run with
A t m [not that any explanation will truly suffice] Is found by looking at the mess mankind has made in trying to run/Govern this earth without Gods rulership.When Christ has put all power/rule and authority Under his feet to the point he hands back the kingdom to God, so that God may be all in all, perhaps it is then that the mess we [ALL] contributed to will always serve as a reminder to us [ALL] what messy affairs and effects rebellion against Gods rulership causes. Although all former things will have passed away, and there will be a new heaven and earth with no more tears/death/pain/ etc…looking back on all the terrible suffering that had been will no longer cause anguish,because [All] has been rectified through Christ back to God. It could be said that looking back at a past life without Gods rulership will serve a good purpose when [ALL] has been made right.
I suppose at the end of the day, trusting God knows better in [ALL] things is probably the best we can do.
I wonder if the opening question could be parsed a bit. Are we asking:
- Does God commit evil?
- Does God directly cause people to commit evil?
- Does God allow evil, and if he does, how is he NOT culpable?
I think there are answers to 3. I can’t go as far as 1,2 personally.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5 ESV)
No one is claiming God is evil but rather is evil caused only because of mans sin or is it connected to God’s purposes. I know you reject that but that is the issue.
Some would argue that Romans 9-11 presents God as one who purposely hardens those with an already perverse sinful nature so that they are bound to proceed to commit evil (such as Pharoah), or that 11:32’s: “God consigned,” “imprisoned” or “confined” all people to disobedience represents confirming them in what Paul calls inevitable slavery to sin and evil, such that God deserves credit for us being people who will commit evil (though some seek to reconcile this term and such texts with chapter 1’s picture of simply “turning us over to” that perverse nature we inherit, rather than causing it).
In other words, “God allows evil in order that good may come.”
The apostle Paul considered it slander to claim that Christians say, “Let us do evil that good may come.”
(Romans 3:8) And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.
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I never said that God directly causes evil. He permits it for morally sufficient and justifiable reasons. He doesn’t do evil but allows it for morally sufficient and justifiable reasons. His holiness therefore remains in tact. Just as when He allowed Satan to take jobs family and make him sick. Yet Job responds by saying “the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away” and “shall we receive good from God and shall we not receive evil?” To which the writer responds, “in all this job did not sin with His lips”. Your God is not the God of Jesus. The scripture you quote is referring to Christians committing evil acts. God doesn’t do this. We go by His revealed will. He is in a privilaged position. He is in the light.
Condemn not or you will be condemned.
Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.
The Voice of Job in Unspoken Sermons by George MacDonald
The maker of Job was so much greater than Job, that his ways with him might well be beyond his comprehension! God’s thoughts were higher than his thoughts, as the heavens were higher than the earth!
The true child, the righteous man, will trust absolutely, against all appearances, the God who has created in him the love of righteousness.
God does not, I say, tell Job why He had afflicted him: He rouses his child-heart to trust.
pp 163-164
For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie, in order that judgment will come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness ~~ 2 Thes. 2:11
For if God directly caused evil this would make Him the author of evil. Says Edwards:
Edwards says God is:
See: Edwards, “Concerning the Divine Decrees,” 534. and Edwards, “Freedom of the Will” 399.
First of all as you know there is a context to this which is Paul was addressing people claiming doing sin or evil was fine because it enhanced God’s goodness by contrast. Secondly God is not necessarily bound to the same rules we are like God destroyed Sodom and Gemorrah , but we can’t do that even if we had the power to.