The Problem of Evil

To Tel Rinsiel:Welcome to this forum! Hope you enjoy your stay.The questions you have posed do not reflect one who is as ignorant as you claimed yourself to be. But of course, humility and modesty are never crimes.You have stated the contradiction of omniscience vs. evil (why did God create Lucifer if He knew that he would rebel?).You have stated the contradiction of omnibenevolence vs. ignorance (how can God punish those who do not have the chance/knowledge to know or believe in Him?)You have also stated the contradiction of omnibenevolence vs. evil (how can a God who is pure good create evil, assuming that the said God is responsible for the existence of all things?).There are other such contradictions that have remained unanswered in this forum. Examples include free will vs. determinism, the notion of spiritual morality, consistency of God vs. OT/NT, etc.Due to the nature of your questions, I would be very interested in what half-baked responses you can garner out of fundamentalists. I'll retire from this thread until unsupported assertions and circular reasonings rear their ugly heads again.Have a nice day.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To Lama dama ding dong:Oh, can't I just visualise the waves upon waves of flames on your comment from people who can't grasp the notion of satire.By the way, cockroaches will rule the world after WW3, and aliens will rule the world after they wipe out the roaches. East Asians will rule the world for only a short period of time.Note: Have we unconsciously drifted off topic again? In order to make this post worthwhile, I'll ask a newbie question:What does "bump" mean in the context of this forum?Now to bring the post back to the topic, may I encourage any Christian literalists to resolve Tel Rinsiel's stated contradictions regarding Christian dogma?

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To Charles Knight:I'm sorry, I have just erased 500 words from this reply because I have given up trying to make something coherent out of the Christian notion of evil. It is futile.Consider:Evil is the creation of God.Evil came into being due to the disobediance of Lucifer. (Who later evolved into Satan)Evil is the absence of God. (e.g. no relationship with God)Evil is the opposite of God. (i.e. Opposing God's values? Opposing God's demands?)Evil is the disobediance of God, including both not doing what he likes and doing what he doesn't like. (e.g. Atheism, by the first Golden Rule, is evil)Evil is the doings/thoughts of man. (e.g. war, rape, murder)Evil has manifestations with powers. (e.g. Consider the evil spirits who were supposedly casted out by Jesus)The list goes on...How in the name of all that's jumping and green do you reconcile all these interpretations of evil (all from the Christian perspective) into one coherent concept? Sorry, but I give up.In answer to your question, evil is apparently not a state of matter (i.e. no evil rock, tree, or patio) but is more like a human quality (rather like moods).This message has been edited by Sleeping Dragon, 08-11-2004 09:29 AM

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To jar: My opinion? I don't believe in evil.As for my understanding of Christianity, that would be no. Since evil actions/behaviours are physical manifestations of thoughts and attitudes, it follows therefore that thoughts can be evil (e.g. envy and greed => theft).Patiently awaiting your reply.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To jar:If we consider the duality of Christianity, where we have good vs. evil, and God vs. Satan, then it would be very difficult to not associate evil with sin.Consider: God is supposedly pure good. It follows that Satan then (God's opposite) must encompass all that is evil. Now Satan is also the symbol of sin (the disobediance of God - as demonstrated by his rebellion and subsequent fall), therefore I conclude that sin and evil are equivalent in a Christian sense.I'm not actually playing semantics here - I simply don't see any difference between sin and evil. Thus my conclusion that sinful thoughts generates evil acts, and vice versa.What are the Christian distinctions between evil and sin from a Christian perspective - perhaps you can enlighten me?Patiently awaiting your reply.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To mike_the_wiz:Thank you for your reply.Reply to your post: Assumptions:
1) God is a representation of pure good, and pure good constitutes God. (Omnibenevolence)
2) Satan is the opposite to everything God stands for.
3) Satan is the manifestation and root of disobedience of God (sin).Argument:
Since Satan is the opposite to God (Shatan meaning opposite or opponent) from assumption (2), a logical progression from assumption (1) is that Satan must encompass pure evil (and pure evil must constitute Satan). Bringing in assumption (3), we see that Satan represents both sin and evil.Note that all things sinful and evil can and must be attributed to Satan, and everything derived from Satan must be sinful and evil. You're right. The conclusion I have stated is not what I meant to say. What I mean is that all evil thoughts are sinful thoughts (and vice versa), and all evil actions are sinful actions (and vice versa). The conclusion I should have drawn was "From a Christian perspective, there is no difference between evil and sin, as demonstrated by the above reasoning".I don't mean to conclude that actions and thoughts are necessarily in a causational relationship, I apologise for any unintended implications and my badly worded conclusion.Patiently awaiting your reply.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To jar:Thank you for your reply.Reply to your post: Then you're obviously not referring to the Christian perspective of evil.Consider:1) Assume that there exists a sin that is not evil. Now sin means literally the disobedience of God, thus disobedience of God may not always be evil.2) Now God is the embodiment of all that is good, righteous and moral in the world, thus disobedience towards God is in fact a challenge upon goodness, righteousness and morality. How is this not a textbook definition of evil?Your assertion (1) contradicts the logical progression of God's omnibenevolence (2). ...and so we are all, to some degree, evil. What's the problem with that? Isn't that the implication of Original Sin? Settled in other thread. ...and I'm arguing that disobedience of God in any shape or form (as described by you) may be defined as evil. Hahahahahaha.......if you use this definition of evil, then surely God is the most evil entity ever to be portrayed!Which being in all the literatures and history of mankind has acted with less remorse (I don't recall God ever apologising after any of the numerous accounts of mass murder/genocide), has always acted how He felt like (take pleasure in His actions), and have absolutely no intentions whatsoever in behaving otherwise (God is consistent - unchanging)?Surely you can come up with a better definition than that?Patiently awaiting your reply.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To Tel Rinsiel: By the assumptions of omniscience (God knows everything, in the past, present and future) and consistency (God's attributes are unchanging), God must have known everything that will happen from the moment He was...well, from when He "came into being".Of course, this begs the question of whether God is ever in control, if at all.Consider:If you know every single minute detail of everything that has and will ever happen, you can't really behave in any other way but the one that you have foreseen.For example, if you foresee youself walking in a park tomorrow afternoon, and your predictions are always 100% correct, do you have the freedom to not go down to the park tomorrow?What do you think?

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To Tel Rinsiel:Actually, the story desn't end there. God is also often referred to as a timeless entity (existing outside the temporal bounds of this world). Thus He would be able to, at least in theory, "warp" from one time frame to another.This means that when time flows from past to present to future for us mere mortals, God can, apparently, go to any "time" He wants to. This suggests the existence of a "Divine Plan" where God manipulates everything in all time frames to exactly the way He wanted.An anology would be like God setting up a Rube Goldberg device, taking an indefinite amount of time to make sure that all the pieces go exactly where He wanted to go, and behave exactly how he wanted them to behave (omniscience really helps here) before triggering the domino.In short, this would mean that everything that ever and will happen to the world is directly attributable to God, including all the good and the bad - thus violating the omnibenevolence assumption.How's that for a contradiction?

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To Tel Rinsiel:Thank you for your reply.Reply to your post: Not only that, but it also eliminates the concept of free will that was supposedly granted, but logically impossible from the assumptions.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"

To Tel Rinsiel: Actually, I would prostulate that the "knowing" part occurred much much earlier. Way before God created anything (prior to creation), God already knew the fate of every single baby - what they will do, how they will do it, why they will choose to do it, what will happen to them after they die, etc.As a matter of fact, since human is one of God's many creations, it follows logically that God has specifically made every single person in a distinct way such that they will each face their own unique consequences/fate. There is no free will, so whatever we face is independent of any decisions that we make - our fates are predetermined. No idea, but it is logical that He must. Since soul is one of those things that is unique to the individual, and it may be assumed that souls aren't normally destroyed (not even through torment in hell), thus baby's souls are probably not recycled from the dead who have released their own souls.

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"Respect is like money, it can only be earned. When it is given, it becomes pittance"