0 voters
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/
This poll is build around the problem of evil.
The reason why God does not just fix everything is because he’s a good god and he goes is freedom. It’s our job as humans to choose good or evil. He’s wants us to bear his name and be his image on earth as corulers. It’s not a matter of what he can or can’t do but is a matter of what we choose.
Ive come to terms with not just blaming God but to blame us too.So i guess for me we both at fault here.Dont know if it makes sense.
We messed up but God did so as well. As for why he doesnt fix anything well… im just here to gather different point of views
As for the choise thing. Does it go hand to hand with the problem of evil though?
I think free will goes hand and hand with making choices which includes good and bad choices.
Since God does not force us to go anything, we all make our own choice. God tells us how to make good choices. We just don’t always obey. Some in worse ways than others.
We live on a planet that has all the resources we need. We could all have a house , clothes as food. We could all have stuff like internet and tv. We could all be fairly happy and safe and live a long life.
So I don’t blame god at all. Other humans , and ourselves, are what makes the world good or bad.
I can understand feeling that something is very “off” about a god who is omnipotent but doesn’t “fix” evil. My husband was talking recently about how, with all the “omnis” that some of us learn in Sunday School (all-knowing, all-powerful, etc.), we often leave out omnibenevolent – all good. An all-powerful, all-knowing god who is not also all good would be terrifying – following him would basically be what I’d call the “Saruman option.” (Lord of the Rings reference – i.e., we have to join with a powerful ruler simply because he has more power than we do so there’s no other way.) God is good, we are not. I believe that “fixing” evil would take away any free will we have, and God does not want robots – and probably we wouldn’t want to be robots either.
Since christians do follow God though,who wouldnt want to be a perfect christian for example?
Even if you were “robots” why would you care? You would be with your God living a life that you will live anyway when you get there .
Will heaven be any different you think? Wont you be a “robot” in there too only able to do good?
The more power you have the more important it becomes to set down fixed rules for a relationship. Too much power blurs the line between yourself and the other person. How do you pursue what you want without annihilating the other person – their life, their desires, their hopes and dreams? With too much power your desires easily runs right over those of other people like a freight train until they become no more than extensions of yourself.
It is one of the reasons why we say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don’t think this is a danger with God because He confronted the difficulty of creating others separate from Himself from the beginning. He has always known that this is impossible without rules limiting His interactions with them.
That may in fact be one of the contributing factors to scandals in the evangelical churches and communities. Not understanding how more power requires more rules and restrictions rather than less no matter how godly you may be.
what about natural evil? why does a loving God allow disease, hurricanes, earthquakes, extinction of species? Thanks
Why would a loving God not allow those things? Y’all act like everything happens needs god to sign off on a paper. Like will this wolf eat this deer?
There is no reason to believe that everything that happens happens solely because it’s what God wants. All the verses used to proof text that interpretation have better interpretations of them.
Know why a hurricane happens? Ask a meteorologist. Ask a ecologist the pros and cons of a hurricane. Know why I like hurricanes? A few years down the road I can pick thousands of mushrooms a season. They often Knock over bigger trees and create sun lathes for wildflowers and saplings to burst fourth.
Also these things are not evil. Evil is a choice. You choose to be evil. As fa en as I know only humans can choose that.
All of those things play roles in the circle of life. I’m not sure why anyone would think God was supposed to stop them.
Here is a good question.
Why would a loving god allow you, the reader, to exist? Surely whoever is reading this is not perfect and can think of all the jacked up things they have done in their life. Same reason wht to its here is the same reason why the wolf and the neighbor is.
Imagine if deer were suddenly given our level of intelligence. They would probably wonder why god made hunters, farmers and bears.
Covid was pretty bad for some humans. It’s affected is way more than it affected nature. For a fact nature seemed to have thrived during covid
Lockdowns.
Those are good questions. Having only ever experienced the material world, it’s hard to really envision what a non-material world will be like. But I believe that our propensity for sinning ties in with this material world somehow. Which of course makes me wonder why God would make a material world in the first place – is being human some kind of key experience that we need to have before we can make sense of an immaterial existence? I don’t know.
But either way, what I want isn’t really the point because it doesn’t dictate what is. It would appear that God did not want to force anyone into a relationship with him, which does make some sense to me. I mean, if someone was going to be my friend, I’d rather they did it because they truly wanted to be with me rather than because their mom was forcing them to or because they were afraid I would do something bad to them if they didn’t – neither of those would be real relationships.
Well you see its kinda of a guilt trip kind of .Remember Israel?When they broke parts with God what happened ? Yeah that sort of thing .So its like me saying to you “Hey i wont force you to be my friend BUT if you dont well …”
Then you have Jesus who is kinda neutral on that part.He doesnt really threaten nor have that authorotative attitude like the Old Testament God has.
But again even though he doesnt force anyone here to have a relationship with him he should at least put some limitations to what evil can people cause on others ? Like at least protect his children.
Like at what point enough is enough i guess. Anyway that goes with free will as well but the thread is about the nature of God so i get off my own topic
And as i said above it doesnt really make any sense for God to do all these for us to end up in heaven just as before .All the suffering for nothing .Just to get back to a state where we didnt know what sin was
Yes, the Old Testament vision of God often presents very differently from Jesus in the New Testament. It’s not always easy to reconcile the different views, although I tend to see it as the Israelites having an incomplete view of who God was. But you’re right, we’re probably off topic and I can take some responsibility for that.
I can get you back on track but only by making a choice not on the ballot: God is not omnipotent but is good. Unable to prevent evil, God isn’t what He is imagined as being though perhaps we could prevent or at least not instigate as much evil ourselves if we could believe in such a God who balances the scales in the end. But apparently even those who try for such believe find it logically difficult and gut level repulsive to imagine an omnipotent and good God choosing to stand by to witness evil without opposing it. That kind of interferes with the culturally beneficial effect of belief. Back to the drawing board?
Been here, done that. Don’t want the T-shirt. Same old. When will you actually listen (read)?
It is not as simple as you are trying to claim.
If you want God to eliminate evil then you have to lose all your personal freedoms. You would not be able to choose to do anything that could harm you, or anyone else, or even anything else. so:
No meat to eat.
No adrenaline rides, contact sports, racing, (self or other person damage)
No fatty or sugary foods, smoking, alcahol, etc… (self damage)
No sunbathing (self damage)
No knives or sharp instruments (firearms of course, explosives etc)
Complete censorship of anything that is not purely good or innocuous
No internet or mobile phones.
Most forms of transport would be banned
IOW the world that we know would not exist
Richard
You should speak to people who have kidney and heart issues because of fatty foods and meat,people who nearly died from extreme sports,. Mike Tyson himself said he bled for nothing but plastic trophies . He is the best contact sport fighter,you should speak to people who have been injured by gun violence etc etc.
See where I’m getting? All of them would surely agree with me.
Sometimes these things are the natural outworking of a world that is given the freedom to unfold by God. God is not a tyrannical puppet-master. And some of the things are actually beneficial in the long run when we look at them from a broader perspective.
Several examples:
Our genomes are not stable. Cancer and birth defects are caused by mutations in the somatic cells, and thousands are stricken every year, but mutations in the germ cells give evolution the raw material to create new life forms. Without mutations we humans wouldn’t even be here.
Earthquakes and volcanoes cause death and devastation in many places, but these processes also bring minerals up from within the earth, replenishing exhausted soils. The Hawaiian islands were formed from volcanic activity.
.
God is omnipotent. He is able to fix evil and He eventually will.
Why not now you ask?
If He did, how likely is it that one of our children would do something completely idiotic? A very high possibility. Why? Bc in order to know good, we have to suffer through evil. How are our children suppose to learn to love God for all the good He has done if they haven’t experienced evil?
We could tell everyone what evil is, but experiencing evil is way different than telling someone what evil is. We become more thankful for good experiences bc we suffer through bad experiences.
Just know God’s Will is Just. He knows what He is doing and we have to trust that.
We might not mind being “robots” However, God will. That’s why He gave us free will and allowed us to be God-like. He wants us to love him freely and unconditionally.
You are missing the point.
Richard
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.
