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Evil and Suffering Have No Internal Logic

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We have been going through a rough patch lately, and this morning I had news of the passing of a friend. My heart is aching and this morning one of my friends related a story I have heard several times about Corrie ten Boom and the “fleas in the barracks.” For those who have not heard the story, Corrie’s family helped Jews escape from Nazi occupied Holland. They were exposed and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, and she was the only member of her family to survive. After the war she wrote a book, The Hiding Place, about her experience in which she tells a story about how she hated the fleas in the barracks. Her sister Betsie told her to be thankful in the midst of the vermin, and later Corrie learned that the guards had allowed her to hold a Bible study through which many women came to faith, because they did not want to come into the vermin-ridden barracks to stop it. The fleas turned out to be one of those “blessings in disguise.”

I understand the point of the story. God can cause good to result from adverse circumstances. Many people have found comfort from Corrie’s story, and I don’t want to take that away from them. It is absolutely true that God can work good in the midst of evil. But we must be very careful here. We must never say that God causes evil in order to work good through that evil; otherwise we run smack into Ivan Karamazov’s indictment.

What do I mean by Ivan Karamazov’s indictment? Shortly after the Indonesian tsunami David Bentley Hart wrote his masterful essay Tsunami and Theodicy in which he disagreed with all of the Christians who were appearing in the media and trying to make “fleas in the barracks” sense out of the catastrophe. These misguided men were trying to “justify the ways of God to man, to affirm God’s benevolence, to see meaning in the seemingly monstrous randomness of nature’s violence, and to find solace in God’s guiding hand.” Hart rightfully worried that efforts to discern how God might “use” evil to accomplish a “greater good” are bound to backfire, and he used a passage from Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov to illustrate his point. In the book Alyosha Karamazov is a novice at a Russian Orthodox monastery. His brother Ivan is an intellectual atheist. Hart picks up the story in a passage where Ivan is explaining to Alyosha that he had rejected God because of all of the senseless suffering in the world:

Famously, Dostoevsky supplied Ivan with true accounts of children tortured and murdered: Turks tearing babies from their mothers’ wombs, impaling infants on bayonets, firing pistols into their mouths; parents savagely flogging their children; a five-year- old-girl tortured by her mother and father, her mouth filled with excrement, locked at night in an outhouse, weeping her supplications to ‘dear kind God’ in the darkness; an eight-year-old serf child torn to pieces by his master’s dogs for a small accidental transgression.

But what makes Ivan’s argument so disturbing is not that he accuses God of failing to save the innocent; rather, he rejects salvation itself, insofar as he understands it, and on moral grounds. He grants that one day there may be an eternal harmony established, one that we will discover somehow necessitated the suffering of children, and perhaps mothers will forgive the murderers of their babies, and all will praise God’s justice; but Ivan wants neither harmony—’for love of man I reject it,’ ‘it is not worth the tears of that one tortured child’—nor forgiveness; and so, not denying there is a God, he simply chooses to return his ticket of entrance to God’s Kingdom. After all, Ivan asks, if you could bring about a universal and final beatitude for all beings by torturing one small child to death, would you think the price acceptable?

Hart responds to Ivan’s indictment by explaining that he has God all wrong. God does not “use” evil to accomplish good. Evil is a privation of the good. It has no nature of its own and it plays no role in God’s determination of himself or the purpose for his creation (though Hart does allow that, as everyone who has ever read the story of Joseph knows, God can bring good from actions men intend for evil). Hart argues that Christians are simply not allowed to take comfort from a “grand cosmic scheme” in which God balances out all of the good and the evil in the end, because that comfort would be purchased at an enormous price: “it requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of—but entirely by way of—every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known . . .” We must not while trying to render the universe morally intelligible render God morally loathsome.

Hart concludes:

I do not believe we Christians are obliged—or even allowed—to look upon the devastation visited upon the coasts of the Indian Ocean and to console ourselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God’s goodness in this world, or to assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery. . . . while we know that the victory over evil and death has been won, we know also that it is a victory yet to come, and that creation therefore, as Paul says, groans in expectation of the glory that will one day be revealed. Until then, the world remains a place of struggle between light and darkness, truth and falsehood, life and death; and, in such a world, our portion is charity.

As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child [or the death of my friend Dave] I do not see the face of God, but the face of His enemy . . . God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; . . . He will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, He will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes—and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and He that sits upon the throne will say, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’

Amen. Evil never accomplishes some great cosmic purpose. God hates it, and in no sense does he intend it so that he can use it to accomplish his purposes.

Taking the “fleas in the barracks” story to its logical conclusion one might argue that God “used” the existence of Ravensbruck concentration camp to bring about the salvation of the women who came to faith in Corrie’s Bible study. And Ravensbruck concentration camp would not have existed except in the wider context of the holocaust, and taking the logic to its very extreme end point one could say that God “used” the holocaust to accomplish the good of salvation for those women. And that would, of course, be damnable nonsense.

God can bring good in the midst of evil, but he does not cause evil in order to accomplish that good. Holding these two truths in counterpoise allows us to stay sane. As Chesterton wrote:

The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them . . . Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also . . . It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.

As KF has several times pointed out lately, that was Friday, but Sunday was coming. Similarly, today I groan, and I am not alone; scripture says the whole creation groans. That is today, but tomorrow is coming. In the midst of our groaning we wait, in faith, not for the revelation of how it “all works together” but for the redemption of all creation that was accomplished (but not yet fulfilled) at Calvary.

Comments
Amplitudo continues,
Ignorance abounds.
Yes, especially in your posts. Save the condescension for someone else or somewhere else. It doesn't help your argument.
Herod’s heart was hardened actively and continually by God, Scripture clearly shows this.
Verse, plese. Interestingly, we note that the descendants of Edom (Esau), the Idumeans, as the Greeks called them, continued to be guilty of acts against Jehovah’s chosen people. The family of King Herod the Great were Idumeans or Edomites. To his shame, the Bible record discloses that this king who built the gorgeous temple at Jerusalem feared for his kingdom in his family and tried to murder the young child Jesus at Bethlehem-Judah. (Matthew 2:1-22) About thirty years later, at his birthday celebration, foxlike Herod Antipas the district ruler had Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist, beheaded. (Matthew 14:1-11; Luke 13:31, 32) In 33 C.E., when Jesus was on trial for his life and was sent by Governor Pilate to the then king of Galilee, Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, this ruler was disappointed in Jesus and discredited him as the Messiah and sent him back to Pilate and to his death. (Luke 23:6-12)
Esau was hated by God before he was born, Scripture also shows this.
Verse, please. There is a connection between Herod and Esau (Edom). The territory of the Edomites, which straddled the Arabah between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of ‘Aqaba, was called “the mountainous region of Esau.” (Obadiah 8, 9, 19, 21) Esau was the original name of the man called Edom. The nickname Edom, meaning “Red,” was given to Esau because he sold his Abrahamic birthright to his younger twin-brother Jacob (Israel) for a meal of reddish stew. (Genesis 25:29-34; Hebrews 12:16, 17) Because Jacob supplanted him in the precious birthright, Esau (or Edom) became filled with murderous hate toward his spiritually minded twin-brother. (Genesis 27:30-45) Because of Esau’s taking up residence in the mountainous region, he dwelt high up, as in heaven. Jehovah spoke of matters from that standpoint when, by the mouth of his prophet Obadiah, he said to the Esauites (Edomites): “‘The presumptuousness of your heart is what has deceived you, you who are residing in the retreats of the crag, the height where he dwells, saying in his heart, “Who will bring me down to the earth?” If you should make your position high like the eagle, or if among the stars there were a placing of your nest, down from there I would bring you,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.”—Obadiah 3, 4. It was not God who caused Esau to sell his birthright; it was Esau's own disrespect for spiritual things. It was not God who caused Herod to murder other people; it was his desire to curry political favor with the Jews and with the Roman emperors.
Judas was prophesied in the Old Testament, and the New Testament reveals that Jesus knew exactly who would betray Him even when He selected Judas as an apostle.
Interesting question. Was not the traitorous course of one of Jesus’ disciples clearly prophesied in advance? Yes, but the prophecies did not specify which disciple would be the betrayer. Indeed, what if Jesus had known that Judas would be the betrayer? Then Jesus’ appointing Judas as an apostle would have made Him a “sharer” in that betrayer’s sins. (Compare 1 Timothy 5:22.) God himself would also be an accomplice, since Jesus preceded his selection of Judas with fervent prayer to Jehovah.—Luke 6:12-16. Nevertheless, Jehovah was ‘not ignorant of Satan’s designs.’ (Compare 2 Corinthians 2:11.) He knew that Satan the Devil had previously used a man’s close friend as a betrayer, as he had done in the case of David’s friend Ahithophel. Therefore, it was Satan, not God, who “put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray” Jesus Christ. (John 13:2; 2 Samuel 15:31) Rather than resisting satanic influence, Judas allowed sin to gain the mastery over him. And at some point Jesus was able to read Judas’ heart and therefore foretell his betrayal. (John 13:10, 11) Thus Jesus knew of Judas’ betrayal “from the beginning”—not of his acquaintance with Judas, but from the “beginning” of that one’s acting treacherously.—John 6:64.
I have no interest or time in providing Scriptural support for obvious passages in Scripture that anyone who is diligent in study will be aware of.
Glad to hear this, considering that any and all scriptural points you have attempted to make have been critiqued. You have a very base understanding of the Bible.
Have you ever heard the saying, “The more a man speaks, the more he reveals what he does not know?”
Yes. Ever applied that to yourself?
I challenge you to go read the Old Testament and truly digest it. In more than one instance God commands the wholesale killing of men, woman, and children.
I have read the Old Testament. What I have also done is attempted to understand the context of what I've read. No one argues that genocide is a good thing. What we as students of the scriptures have to understand and reconcile is God's goodness and love with his sense of justice. I've posted on this site a list of reasons why the Canaanites were cleansed from the promised land. Search for that if you want. Were the Canaanites innocent victims of a vengeful God? Hardly. Consider, for example, his judgment of the people dwelling in the land of Canaan. One scholar offers this shocking description: “The worship of Baal, Ashtoreth, and other Canaanite gods consisted in the most extravagant orgies; their temples were centers of vice. . . . Canaanites worshiped, by immoral indulgence, . . . and then, by murdering their first-born children, as a sacrifice to these same gods.” Archaeologists have discovered jars containing the remains of the sacrificed children. Although God noted the error of the Canaanites in Abraham’s day, he showed patience toward them for 400 years, allowing them ample time to change.—Genesis 15:16. Were the Canaanites aware of the gravity of their error? Well, they possessed the human faculty of conscience, which jurists recognize as a universal basis for morality and justice. (Romans 2:12-15) Despite that, the Canaanites persisted in their detestable child sacrifices and debased sex practices. Jehovah in his balanced justice determined that the land needed to be cleansed. This was not genocide. Canaanites, both individuals such as Rahab and whole groups such as the Gibeonites, who voluntarily accepted God’s high moral standards were spared. (Joshua 6:25; 9:3-15) Rahab became a link in the royal genealogy leading to the Messiah, and descendants of the Gibeonites were privileged to minister at Jehovah’s temple.—Joshua 9:27; Ezra 8:20; Matthew 1:1, 5-16. Consequently, when one seeks the full and clear picture based on fact, it is easier to see Jehovah as an admirable and just God, jealous in a good way that benefits his faithful creatures. In arguing that God supports murder and dishonesty, you argue in favor of an incoherent God.
God clearly states he will not have mercy on the widows and orphans of people that dishonor Him.
Verse, please.
God sends lying spirits to force men to lie.
Verse, please.
God gives Satan freedom to torment Job in any way he desires short of killing him.
And with what result? Job survived the tests of the devil and was blessed with more riches than he had before. Or didn't you read that part? Remember, Satan tested Job. Not God. Job had an opportunity to show who was the most important Person in his life. When Jehovah confronted Satan with Job’s record of integrity, Satan retorted: “Is it for nothing that Job has feared God?” (Read Job 1:7-10.) Satan did not deny that Job was obedient to God. Instead, he questioned Job’s motives. He slyly accused Job of serving Jehovah, not out of love, but out of selfish interest. Only Job could answer that charge, and he was given the opportunity to do so. Jehovah allowed Satan to bring a series of disasters upon Job, one after the other. (Job 1:12-19) How did Job react to this reversal of circumstances? We are told that he “did not sin or ascribe anything improper to God.” (Job 1:22) But Satan was still not silenced. He further complained: “Skin in behalf of skin, and everything that a man has he will give in behalf of his soul.” (Job 2:4) Satan alleged that if Job personally suffered, he would decide that Jehovah was not the most important Person in his life. Job was disfigured by a disgusting disease and then pressured by his wife to curse God and die. Later, three false comforters accused him of misconduct. (Job 2:11-13; 8:2-6; 22:2, 3) However, through all this suffering, Job refused to give up his integrity. (Read Job 2:9, 10.) He showed by his faithful endurance that Jehovah was the most important Person in his life. Job also demonstrated that it is possible for an imperfect human to answer, although in a limited way, the false accusations of the Devil.—Compare Proverbs 27:11.
God compels David to commit sin.
Verse, please. David sinned because he abused his gift of free will, not because God commanded him to do so. If God compelled him, then why was the prophet Nathan sent to counsel him for his wrongdoing?
God commands on of His prophets to marry a prostitute.
Oh, you're thinking of Hosea. You seem to have forgotten to ask the most basic question, "Why did God command Hosea to do this?" His wife, Gomer, became “a wife of fornication” and then ‘chased after her passionate lovers.’ Later she was forsaken, becoming impoverished and enslaved. Hosea took Gomer back at a cost, and he was urged to love her. Why? To depict graphically what was taking place between Jehovah and Israel. Jehovah was a “husbandly owner,” and his people were joined to him as a wife.—Hosea 1:2-9; 2:5-7; 3:1-5; Jeremiah 3:14; Isaiah 62:4, 5. 9 From early times, the Israelites hurt Jehovah’s feelings by following after other gods. (Exodus 32:7-10; Judges 8:33; 10:6; Psalm 78:40, 41; Isaiah 63:10) The northern ten-tribe kingdom was especially reprehensible for calf worship. (1 Kings 12:28-30) In addition, the Israelites did not rely on their Husbandly Owner, Jehovah, but, rather, looked to political lovers. At one time, like an obstinate zebra in heat, they went after Assyria. (Hosea 8:9) How would you feel if your mate acted that way? 10 By Hosea’s time, over 700 years had passed since the Israelites had come into a covenant relationship with Jehovah. Nevertheless, God was willing to forgive them, provided that they returned to him. Hosea is thought to have started prophesying before 803 B.C.E., so Jehovah’s forbearance continued for some 60 more years for Israel and almost 200 years for Judah! Using Hosea’s family situation as an illustration, Jehovah was still inviting his covenant people to repent. He had legitimate reasons to terminate his marriage with Israel, yet he kept sending prophets to help his figurative wife come back, even at a cost to himself.—Hosea 14:1, 2; Amos 2:11. There is yet another aspect of this historical account. Was God willing to restore his relationship with his people while they kept committing fornication? God told Hosea about the adulterous nation: “She should put away her fornication from before herself and her acts of adultery from between her breasts.” (Hosea 2:2) The people needed to repent and “produce fruit that befits repentance.” (Matthew 3:8) Their marriage was basically an analogy of the relationship between God and the nation of Israel.
God commands one of His prophets to run around prophesying naked.
This does not mean that prophets frequently went naked, for the Biblical record shows the contrary. In the two other cases recorded, the prophet went naked for a purpose, to represent some facet of his prophecy. (Isa 20:2-4; Mic 1:8-11)
Beyond that, I find it highly amusing that men who pontificate much about logic and reason so readily embrace paradox and contradiction.
Look at all the big words you used! I also find it amusing when trolls infiltrate this forum and pontificate about subjects they know little to nothing about.
This is not intellectual honesty or adherence to the principles of logic. This is mysticism at best.
I don't think you would know the principles of logic if they bit you.
“The harmony of the different parts of the doctrine of the church, is an evidence of its truth. That doctrine which contradicts itself can neither be true, nor from God, since truth is in perfect harmony with itself, and God cannot contradict himself (7).” -Zacharias Ursinus in his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism
You are correct, for once, in the aspect that God cannot contradict himself. However, poor reading comprehension (such as yours) leads many to believe that the Bible is full of contradictions.
The concept of free will is a Romish invention designed to undermine what the Bible teaches about the Sovereignty of God. It is, at it’s core, a contradiction of terms. I wash my hands of this nonsense and leave you to your navel gazing.
Your concept of free will is at odds with what the Bible teaches, as noted above. It is not a contradiction. Your concept, however, is pseudo-intellectualism at its finest.Barb
November 7, 2013
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Amplitudo Consider Genesis 50:20 New International Version "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." New Living Translation "You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people". English Standard Version "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." New American Standard Bible "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive". King James Bible "But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." Multiple intentions (Joseph's brothers and God's) indicates more than one will. If humans have no free will, then there really is only one will in the universe, and that would be God's will. Thus, the passage itself would be a contradiction. Ursinus is completely wrong on this. There are much better exegetes elsewhere. The Hebrew and Christian scriptures are replete with such examples of paradox. God cannot rightfully judge us if all we are doing is what He intended. But pay close attention to the passage. Men intend evil in their actions, while God intends good to come from the evil actions freely done by men. There's no contradiction here. It's only that we are not privy to every detail of God's actions.CannuckianYankee
November 7, 2013
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Ignorance abounds. Herod's heart was hardened actively and continually by God, Scripture clearly shows this. Esau was hated by God before he was born, Scripture also shows this. Judas was prophesied in the Old Testament, and the New Testament reveals that Jesus knew exactly who would betray Him even when He selected Judas as an apostle. I have no interest or time in providing Scriptural support for obvious passages in Scripture that anyone who is diligent in study will be aware of. Have you ever heard the saying, "The more a man speaks, the more he reveals what he does not know?" I challenge you to go read the Old Testament and truly digest it. In more than one instance God commands the wholesale killing of men, woman, and children. God clearly states he will not have mercy on the widows and orphans of people that dishonor Him. God sends lying spirits to force men to lie. God gives Satan freedom to torment Job in any way he desires short of killing him. God compels David to commit sin. God commands on of His prophets to marry a prostitute. God commands one of His prophets to run around prophesying naked. Beyond that, I find it highly amusing that men who pontificate much about logic and reason so readily embrace paradox and contradiction. This is not intellectual honesty or adherence to the principles of logic. This is mysticism at best. "The harmony of the different parts of the doctrine of the church, is an evidence of its truth. That doctrine which contradicts itself can neither be true, nor from God, since truth is in perfect harmony with itself, and God cannot contradict himself (7)." -Zacharias Ursinus in his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism The concept of free will is a Romish invention designed to undermine what the Bible teaches about the Sovereignty of God. It is, at it's core, a contradiction of terms. I wash my hands of this nonsense and leave you to your navel gazing.Amplitudo
November 7, 2013
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"I would expect someone who has studied the Bible would have no problem with this claim, as there are numerous accounts of God willing and controlling such things." Exactly, Barb. Someone who has studied the Bible and is familiar with Jewish theology prior to Christ; rather than merely some limited form of Christiaqn theology out of the late reformation period, would understand that there is no dichotomy between free will and God's sovereignty. It is a paradox; and the scriptures are filled with such paradox. It is partly how we know that they are scripture. God can cause a heart to be hardened while at the same time the person whose heart is hard has chosen such. God may have indirectly or directly caused the event which caused the person to harden his heart. Scripture simply doesn't go into that much detail; and as such, we are not in any position to doubt what Scripture clearly says: that we have free will to choose, and that God is sovereign, and that both of these can be true. They do not contradict.CannuckianYankee
November 6, 2013
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Barb @36. Interesting and timely comments. Thank you for defending a rational interpretation of Scripture and providing a realistic account of free will.StephenB
November 6, 2013
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Aplitudo
Free will cannot exist under an omnipotent God. Free will cannot even exist in an environment without God, as it is constrained by causality.
You are confusing moral free, which everyone has, will with absolute free will, which no one has.
You are imposing on your reality a concept of free will that is not logical. Rather than reasoning outward from a foundation of consistent principles, you are forcing your principles to conform to your own desires, which is causing them to be inconsistent at a fundamental level.
What is illogical about my concept of free will? As far as I can tell, you reject all forms of free will.
As for the verses in Timothy, so glibly do you quote one verse without considering that God did not desire to save Herod, Esau, or Judas. Would you also maintain that He desired to save Hitler or Stalin?
Of course God desired to save Herod, Esau, Judas, Hitler, and Stalin. We have a record of God's ongoing attempt to save Judas, which continued up till the last minute. I gather that your position is that God wanted to damn all those people.
What’s more, if God desires to save someone, but cannot save anyone, how is anyone saved?
God has the power to make salvation available to everyone, but man has the power to not avail it. Man cannot be the cause of his own salvation, but he can certainly be the cause of his own damnation.
To say that we have the power to save ourselves when God does not is again, to make God impotent, not omnipotent.
I didn't say that we have the power to save ourselves, which we clearly do not. We do, however, have the power to accept God's gift of salvation and to appropriate it into our lives, both of which are necessary. Our refusal to do so has nothing to do with God's omnipotence.
If your study of the Bible has not caused you to dig a bit deeper into what is being said in Timothy 2, I challenge you to delve a bit deeper.
Let us dig deeper, using your example:
Romans 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth.
St Paul is talking about the blessings and curses of ordinary life, such as the blessings inherent in the number of talents, or the curses inherent of a family environment that can harden hearts. He is not saying that God gives man no choice about his eternal destiny or that a hardened heart can never soften. We can know this by reading the full text of the letter.
Furthermore, God indeed does will murder, adultery, and dishonesty. I would expect someone who has studied the Bible would have no problem with this claim, as there are numerous accounts of God willing and controlling such things.
Remarkable.StephenB
November 6, 2013
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Amplitudo writes,
Free will cannot exist under an omnipotent God. Free will cannot even exist in an environment without God, as it is constrained by causality.
You are wrong on both counts.
You are imposing on your reality a concept of free will that is not logical. Rather than reasoning outward from a foundation of consistent principles, you are forcing your principles to conform to your own desires, which is causing them to be inconsistent at a fundamental level.
What is inconsistent about free will? God, we are told, is all powerful and loving. If He chooses to create intelligent creatures and endow them with free will, who is anyone--you included--to say unequivocally that He cannot do this?
As for the verses in Timothy, so glibly do you quote one verse without considering that God did not desire to save Herod, Esau, or Judas. Would you also maintain that He desired to save Hitler or Stalin?
How do you know that God did not desire to save Herod, Esau, or Judas? Some believe that God predestines everyone. The Bible shows that this is not the case. Look at Gen. 25:23: “Jehovah proceeded to say to her [Rebekah]: ‘Two nations are in your belly, and two national groups will be separated from your inward parts; and the one national group will be stronger than the other national group, and the older [Esau] will serve the younger [Jacob].’” From this, we understand that Jehovah was able to read the genetic pattern of the unborn twins. He may have considered this when foreseeing the qualities that each of the boys would develop and foretelling the outcome. [Ps. 139:16] But there is no indication here that he fixed their eternal destinies or that he predetermined how each event in their lives would turn out. On the subject of Judas Iscariot: Ps. 41:9: “The man at peace with me, in whom I trusted, who was eating my bread, has magnified his heel against me.” Notice that the prophecy does not specify which close associate of Jesus it would be. Jehovah knew that the Devil had used David’s counselor Ahithophel to betray him, and He had that recorded because it demonstrated how the Devil operated and what he would do in the future. It was not God but “the Devil . . . [who] put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray him [Jesus].” [John 13:2] Instead of resisting, Judas yielded to that satanic influence. Judas utilized free will in betraying Jesus. Herod utilized free will in ordering all babies to be killed, causing Jesus's parents to flee to safety. Esau utilized his free will in exchanging a birthright for a bowl of stew.
What’s more, if God desires to save someone, but cannot save anyone, how is anyone saved? To say that we have the power to save ourselves when God does not is again, to make God impotent, not omnipotent.
God can save all whom He chooses. We are counseled to "draw close to God". Salvation depends on God's loving kindness in providing the ransom of his son and on our accepting that free gift.
If your study of the Bible has not caused you to dig a bit deeper into what is being said in Timothy 2, I challenge you to delve a bit deeper.
I'm going to challenge you to delve a bit deeper as well, as you seem to have a rudimentary understanding of the concept of free will.
Romans 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth.
Among the many ways in which Jehovah God proves himself to be all such is by his molding his creatures as a potter molds clay in his hands. His role as the Great Potter magnifies his omnipotence, his omniscience and his sovereignty. None of his creatures can successfully resist his will. Whatever Jehovah purposes he accomplishes. Finding the context of the scripture you quoted is helpful. “It depends, not upon the one wishing nor upon the one running, but upon God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘For this very cause I have let you remain, that in connection with you I may show my power, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.’ So, then, upon whom he wishes he has mercy, but whom he wishes he lets become obstinate. You will therefore say to me: ‘Why does he yet find fault? For who has withstood his express will?’ O man, who, then, really are you to be answering back to God? Shall the thing molded say to him that molded it, ‘Why did you make me this way?’ What? Does not the potter have authority over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for an honorable use, another for a dishonorable use?”—Rom. 9:16-21. A contrasting case is that of the unresponsive Pharaoh of the Exodus. Jehovah foreknew that Pharaoh would refuse permission for the Israelites to leave “except by a strong hand” (Ex 3:19, 20), and he foreordained the plague resulting in the death of the firstborn. (Ex 4:22, 23) The apostle Paul’s discussion of God’s dealings with Pharaoh is often incorrectly understood to mean that God arbitrarily hardens the heart of individuals according to his foreordained purpose, without regard for the individual’s prior inclination, or heart attitude. (Ro 9:14-18) Likewise, according to many translations, God advised Moses that he would “harden [Pharaoh’s] heart.” (Ex 4:21; compare Ex 9:12; 10:1, 27.) However, some translations render the Hebrew account to read that Jehovah “let [Pharaoh’s] heart wax bold” (Ro); “let [Pharaoh’s] heart become obstinate.” (NW) In support of such rendering, the appendix to Rotherham’s translation shows that in Hebrew the occasion or permission of an event is often presented as if it were the cause of the event, and that “even positive commands are occasionally to be accepted as meaning no more than permission.” Thus at Exodus 1:17 the original Hebrew text literally says that the midwives “caused the male children to live,” whereas in reality they permitted them to live by refraining from putting them to death. After quoting Hebrew scholars M. M. Kalisch, H. F. W. Gesenius, and B. Davies in support, Rotherham states that the Hebrew sense of the texts involving Pharaoh is that “God permitted Pharaoh to harden his own heart—spared him—gave him the opportunity, the occasion, of working out the wickedness that was in him. That is all.”—The Emphasised Bible, appendix, p. 919; compare Isa 10:5-7. Corroborating this understanding is the fact that the record definitely shows that Pharaoh himself “hardened his heart.” (Ex 8:15, 32, KJ; “made his heart unresponsive,” NW) He thus exercised his own will and followed his own stubborn inclination, the results of which inclination Jehovah accurately foresaw and predicted. The repeated opportunities given him by Jehovah obliged Pharaoh to make decisions, and in doing so he became hardened in his attitude. (Compare Ec 8:11, 12.) As the apostle Paul shows by quoting Exodus 9:16, Jehovah allowed the matter to develop in this way to the full length of ten plagues in order to make manifest his own power and cause his name to be made known earth wide.—Ro 9:17, 18.
What is the obvious implication? God does not have mercy on everyone.
Why should He show mercy to those who reject the sacrifice of his son? God's mercy extends far greater than that of humans, but even He has a point at which He states, "Enough." You seem to forget that while God is loving, he also has a sense of justice.
Furthermore, God indeed does will murder, adultery, and dishonesty.
You know, at this point, I should just file your posts under "ignorant atheist troll." You do have scriptural proof of this, right? I would expect someone who has studied the Bible would have no problem with this claim, as there are numerous accounts of God willing and controlling such things.Barb
November 6, 2013
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Furthermore, God indeed does will murder, adultery, and dishonesty. I would expect someone who has studied the Bible would have no problem with this claim, as there are numerous accounts of God willing and controlling such things.Amplitudo
November 6, 2013
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Free will cannot exist under an omnipotent God. Free will cannot even exist in an environment without God, as it is constrained by causality. You are imposing on your reality a concept of free will that is not logical. Rather than reasoning outward from a foundation of consistent principles, you are forcing your principles to conform to your own desires, which is causing them to be inconsistent at a fundamental level. As for the verses in Timothy, so glibly do you quote one verse without considering that God did not desire to save Herod, Esau, or Judas. Would you also maintain that He desired to save Hitler or Stalin? What's more, if God desires to save someone, but cannot save anyone, how is anyone saved? To say that we have the power to save ourselves when God does not is again, to make God impotent, not omnipotent. If your study of the Bible has not caused you to dig a bit deeper into what is being said in Timothy 2, I challenge you to delve a bit deeper. Romans 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth. What is the obvious implication? God does not have mercy on everyone.Amplitudo
November 6, 2013
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Amplitudo:
It is not, in fact, God’s will that all will be saved.
It is, indeed, God's will that all men be saved. It is also God's will that abortionists should stop killing babies. It is also God's will that pornographers should stop corrupting youth. It is also God's will that lying politicians should stop misleading their constituents. And so on. God is, indeed, omnipotent, but his will is, nevertheless rejected every day--unless, of course, you would like to argue that God wills murder, perversion, and dishonesty. Get real.
Only faulty exegesis and a deficient understanding of Scripture leads anyone to that conclusion.
So you say, but the evidence is against you: Timothy 1: "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." It doesn't get any clearer than that.
I encourage actual study of the Bible rather than pontification about it.
Because I have studied the bible, I can provvide reasoned arguments and Scriptural passages to support my arguments. It would seem that you are the one who is pontificating.
If you wish to have faith in an omnipotent God, logic REQUIRES that you subordinate all things to His control, evil, salvation, Satan, etc.
Your argument is not logical. You are pitting God's omnipotence against man's free will, saying that both cannot exist at the same time. This is incorrect.
So either abandon the concept of an omnipotent God, or accept what logic demands.
It is not my logic or exegetical sensibilities that have failed.StephenB
November 6, 2013
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StephenB @ 31, It is not, in fact, God's will that all will be saved. Only faulty exegesis and a deficient understanding of Scripture leads anyone to that conclusion. I encourage actual study of the Bible rather than pontification about it. If you wish to have faith in an omnipotent God, logic REQUIRES that you subordinate all things to His control, evil, salvation, Satan, etc. So either abandon the concept of an omnipotent God, or accept what logic demands.Amplitudo
November 6, 2013
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Amplitudo
1. God’s will is supreme and cannot be thwarted. 2. God’s will can be thwarted. If we believe 1, then we cannot maintain that any event is contrary to God’s will. Evil, catastrophe, everything must be subordinate to God’s will. Nothing exists, nor can exist, that He did not intend and create. If we believe 2, then we have no grounds for faith or trust in the Bible, because if His will can be thwarted, the forces of evil might win, and redemption for the human race might be lost.
The correct response is 2. God's will is thwarted every day. According to the Bible, it is God's will that all men be saved. At the same time, it is obvious that many are not. That is why we find these words in the prayer to God the Father: "Thy will be done." That fact is no impeachment on the Divine. Not even God can save those who will not be saved. That is what free will is all about, saying yes or no to God.StephenB
November 6, 2013
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Well said, Eric. God is sovereign. We often get that wrong. Harold Kushner wrote a book in the 80s entitled "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," suggesting that God isn't able to overcome all evil. Ever since then, many Churches have wimped out on teaching about God's true nature. He's supreme, and in His time, all evil will be dealt the severest blow. I prefer Dembsky's theodicy in "The End of Christianity" to the inept and helpless godhead in Kushner's.CannuckianYankee
November 6, 2013
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God both creates and controls evil. The Bible teaches this, and logic dictates it. How this impacts you emotionally is irrelevant, you can either accept the logic of it, or deny it. But it does not change the truth. In short: There are two possibilities when it comes to God's will. 1. God's will is supreme and cannot be thwarted. 2. God's will can be thwarted. If we believe 1, then we cannot maintain that any event is contrary to God's will. Evil, catastrophe, everything must be subordinate to God's will. Nothing exists, nor can exist, that He did not intend and create. If we believe 2, then we have no grounds for faith or trust in the Bible, because if His will can be thwarted, the forces of evil might win, and redemption for the human race might be lost. Anyone who insists that God does not create or control evil is forced to accept option 2 because they have either reduced the sovereignty of God, or promoted the power of "evil" to the point that God is no longer omnipotent; and in refusing to admit the logical conclusion of their position accepts the cognitive dissonance inherent in founding their worldview on a contradiction of logic.Amplitudo
November 6, 2013
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WJM @15:
Unfortunately, I’m the author of the books Anarchic Harmony and Unconditional Freedom. I don’t recommend them.
LOL! :)
IOW, under Christianity, God cannot be employing evil to accomplish good, or else that renders the Christian God loathesome under the Christian paradigm.
Based on what interpretation? Yes, scripture teaches that God is not the source of evil; but it most certainly doesn't say that God can't employ the evil that already exists to accomplish good. Indeed, quite the contrary. Part of His genius is that He is ten steps ahead of the adversary (as well as our own personal "evil") and can turn all things to our good if we will but follow. Indeed, the very fact that He allows some evil to exist (even if He didn't cause it), means that He has a reason to allow it to exist. Think of it this way: Christianity doesn't teach that God and the adversary are locked in a head-to-head battle -- a might struggle of near-equal power -- with God just barely pulling out the victory with a last-second Hail Mary pass. Quite the contrary. In God we are dealing with a being of such supreme power and eminence that He can (and eventually will at the appropriate time) banish the adversary with a word and create conditions where every tear will be wiped away. It isn't even a close battle. (The only close call in all of this will be where we individually choose to stand.) So God allows -- yes, because it suits his purposes and because he is using it to accomplish something greater -- evil to exist for a time. That is, at least a part of, the Christian message.Eric Anderson
November 6, 2013
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My point is that the so called "evil" events have a function that is necessary for a meaningful life. And that God does not cause any real evil. He certainly allows these events to happen which most people designate as evil. But are they really evil. They certainly are emotionally abhorrent. I am saying that seemingly random events as well as planned events which cause extreme suffering/death either through the willful acts of intelligent agents or natural causes are necessary for a meaningful life. Therefore there is an internal logic behind these events. The acts may repulse us or cause extreme sadness but they apparently have a purpose. The question is what? The traditional theodicy argument against the Christian God is that if God is all good, all powerful and that evil exist then there is an inherent contradiction. So either God is not all good or not all powerful or that evil does not exists or what evil that does exist is not caused by God. The atheist will say there is no inherent contradiction because there is no God. The Theistic evolutionists have argued sort of fatuously that this means that evolution must happen independent of God or else He is responsible for whatever they deem as evil. But if God sets something in motion, how is He not responsible for the outcomes? However, if the acts they point to are not really evil, then God is not responsible for evil. Which is why I pushed for a definition of evil or just what is really evil. It is necessary to understand all the discussions. The word has many meanings and it then used indiscriminately. It is an emotional topic because most do not want to be seen as advocating or accepting extremely unpleasant outcomes for others. However the answer will be in finding the logic not in rhetoric or emotional responses.jerry
November 6, 2013
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Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things]. I'm afraid any other conclusion is the one that lacks logic.Amplitudo
November 5, 2013
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WJM:
Secondly, allowing suffering to happen and even causing suffering is not always evil. If my intent is good, and my action causes suffering, it’s not necessary that any evil whatsoever has occurred, even though suffering was generated by good intent.
Agreed. Other trivial examples might include surgery, administering a shot, removing a splinter, and many, many more.Phinehas
November 5, 2013
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Are there degrees of evilness?
IMO, yes.
What about a person or a group of people who fail to act when someone else is causing harm?
"Not acting" is itself a deliberate act. In certain circumstances, we are morally obligated to act.
But God is able to stop the suffering and thus by His inaction, allows or causes it to happen. So how is this different? Is God evil or just commits some evil actions?
Where did I say God is able to stop the suffering? Please read what I said again, this time for comprehension. In the first place, I hold that suffering is necessary in a creation such as that which we have - one populated by entities with meaningful free will. Secondly, allowing suffering to happen and even causing suffering is not always evil. If my intent is good, and my action causes suffering, it's not necessary that any evil whatsoever has occurred, even though suffering was generated by good intent. A trivial example would be the suffering I might cause a child by not buying him/her what he/she wants. Even though they meet the definition of "suffering", no evil has been committed if I am acting in the best interests of the child.William J Murray
November 5, 2013
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"IMO, “evil” necessarily includes intent – a perpetrator."
Are there degrees of evilness? Intent and the subsequent results of an act can full a wide spectrum of specific outcomes. What about a person or a group of people who fail to act when someone else is causing harm?
Suffering can exist without any evil intent involved.
But God is able to stop the suffering and thus by His inaction, allows or causes it to happen. So how is this different? Is God evil or just commits some evil actions?jerry
November 5, 2013
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IMO, "evil" necessarily includes intent - a perpetrator. Suffering can exist without any evil intent involved.William J Murray
November 5, 2013
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CS,
But why would a totally and completely blissed out entity create anything? This entity has no wants and no needs. Maximal bliss. Or do you think he needs to create to satisfy some “itch” in the substrate of his ontology?
It is an interesting question that I don't remember ever thinking about specifically. It quickly occurs to me that a rational answer would be that God does it completely for the sake of those He created: Freely giving. I suppose it could be argued that part of the nature of God, being good, "necessitates" (tricky word, I know) Him sharing that goodness. But if it is the nature of God that compels God, that wouldn't be a problem, so . . .Brent
November 5, 2013
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The phrase "evil and suffering" have been used 10 times so far. Are the the two terms different? If so, what is the difference? Why use both terms?jerry
November 5, 2013
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CS 16, interesting question that many have thought deeply about. I recall Dr. Dembski speaking about in, I believe, his book "Finding a Good God In A Evil World". A quick Google search turned this up in another book: Philosophy for Understanding Theology http://books.google.com/books?id=Mc5wweqfm-gC&pg=PR22#v=onepage&q&f=falsebornagain77
November 5, 2013
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And what might that be?
I don't know.William J Murray
November 5, 2013
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WJM @15: propels us towards god’s ultimate purpose.
And what might that be?CentralScrutinizer
November 5, 2013
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Brent @12, There’s the problem. If God doesn’t want automatons He has no choice. Logical contradictions are not even possible for God, for whatever He does He does, and not its opposite.
But why would a totally and completely blissed out entity create anything? This entity has no wants and no needs. Maximal bliss. Or do you think he needs to create to satisfy some "itch" in the substrate of his ontology?CentralScrutinizer
November 5, 2013
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CS @ #9: No, I'm not that guy. Unfortunately, I'm the author of the books Anarchic Harmony and Unconditional Freedom. I don't recommend them. EA @ #11: I don't disagree that there are cogent explanations for the existence of evil and suffering in Christianity; I said, I agree with Mr. Arrington that there is no internal logic to evil under Christianity. IOW, under Christianity, God cannot be employing evil to accomplish good, or else that renders the Christian God loathesome under the Christian paradigm. I consider the Christian paradigm to be an excellent one, even if, IMO, it has some flaws. That is why I defend Christianity and Christians; it's so obviously better for the world than anything else on the marketplace of ideas. However, I don't see evil and suffering the same way that Christians do, because unlike Christians, I think God uses everything that exists - including evil and suffering - to make its ultimate purpose manifest, much in the same way that a designer uses negative space, or an artist uses the contrast between light and dark to create a masterpiece. So yes, when we see and react to a child suffering, it is because (IMO) we and the world are designed not only to experience suffering and evil, but to react to it in a way that propels us towards god's ultimate purpose. Having the capacity to recognize evil, recognize suffering, and reacting to it the way we do, IMO is evidence that God did indeed not only plan for the existence of evil and suffering, but obviously intended to use the existence of evil and suffering towards its purpose. IMO, God knew evil and suffering was the necessary consequence of the kind of creation that held in it free will, independent beings and good as a recognizable, actionable commodity, and in designing us and the world made it so that the evil and suffering that was necessarily existent, like negative space, serves God's ultimate purpose.William J Murray
November 5, 2013
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BA: God be with you and yours in your pain and struggle. KFkairosfocus
November 5, 2013
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WJM: On the dual problem of evil and good, the 101 here may be of some help to you in light of Plantinga's Free Will Defense as outlined. Especially note the point from Boethius, who was apparently unjustly, sentenced to death and wrote The Consolation of Philosophy under those circumstances. KFkairosfocus
November 5, 2013
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