Thanks for the info on The Ninth Configuration; I had never heard of this.
IMO, the “problem of evil” is a circular argument. It just keeps going around aimlessly…, eternally fueled by more and more negative observations. It finds discord in life and is critical of any causes which might be responsible. It is a failure to accept reality, or to accept it as intrinsically evil. There is a problem with this type of thinking: our inability to accept reality is a form of psychosis:
**Psychotic Behaviour **(medical symptom): Inability or opposition to recognize and accept reality and to relate this to others.
rightdiagnosis.com/symptom/psychosis.htm
This is a psychological issue as much as it is a spiritual issue. Trying to understand everything from a moral perspective misses the point of nature itself: the universe consists of both positive and negative forces. Our spiritual journey is intended to introduce us into a world outside of our physical universe: the kingdom of heaven. This world of heaven does not have the dichotomy of good and evil, positive and negative. It is not based on atoms and elements we understand on the atomic scale. Our world (reality) is based on this. God is trying to equip us to be worthy of receiving the kingdom. That is the basis of Christianity. For those who reject God, and reject His advances; they point to the aberrant nature of the physical universe as being inconsistent of a God of love. This is fallacious reasoning. It is looking at life from inside a very small bubble. It makes assumptions on the purpose and meaning of life based on what it does not know or encounter.
Looking at the ‘good in people’ is a start, but it also has limitations as a means of serving as evidence of God. God is not made more or less evident by the study of aberrations. It can help you understand something about God, but it will not help to prove God’s existence. This is an abstract form of logic. We know that God exists because we are all made in God’s Image. There are no true atheists. Everyone is born knowing instinctively; it is just that the abstractions of life entangle us into a harmful disposition, and we abandon God as a protest. This is everyone’s prerogative. God is not answerable to the loose logic of our dysfunction thinking. We are all tested by life, and through death we have all paid the penalty of sin. In death we know of sin with more realism: we shudder and gnash our teeth (figuratively). In Christ we are given even more; “For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13). This is what our lives are for; to find God. Some people never turn to Christ, even with a developed knowledge of the bible. God knows who will receive Him and who will not:
John 17:2
John 18:9
God’s first priority is the restore those repentant ones who wish to be part of the Kingdom. The others “go their way” (John 18:8). They (the unrepentant) will be resurrected and corrected by the very king whom they rejected. That is what our christian life consists of now. Hopefully we can restore any who have fallen and been poisoned by this world. Satan’s darts may corrupt our thinking and prayer life. The process for all is the same: repent and be saved. “I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as well!” (Luke 13:3). Repentance is difficult, and the lack of is the reason why many have not truly been set free. The process has not changed, though, since Jesus said these words. It is still true today.
Steve