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Evil and God cannot COEXIST. The God you describe does not exist. This description of God is from barbaric primitive men that lived thousands of years ago.
Says who?
I would prefer men who showed by their actions that God exists than listen to people who have nothing to show by their actions, that God does not exist. Such are truly primitive as they think their reasoning is the be all and end all of an argument
If God is infinite goodness. If God is infinite love. If God's benevolence is infinite. If God is Holy? If God has infinite compassion. If God is sinless. Etc
Then, GOD cannot create evil.
Evil is imperfection and imperfection cannot be associated with God. Man is evil because man is imperfect. However, God is infinite perfection and therefore, God cannot create evil. In fact, if God creates evil then God is no different than Satan.
Flawed definition and logic. But being a human you (and I) can't help it.
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." Isaiah 45:7 (KJV)
Thank you
You are quoting from the OT. We all know the God of the OT is fiercely violent, insecure, vindictive and even jealous. This my friend is the view of God from primitive men that do not know how to explain evil.
God is pure love. And since God is pure love-----God cannot be associated withy evil.
Lastly, who wants to believe in a God that is evil?
Flawed definition and logic. But being a human you (and I) can't help it.
If you call the logic flawed I invite you to explain why the logic is flawed. Here is the post and feel free to provided a word by word analysis.
Thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian658 View Post
If God is infinite goodness. If God is infinite love. If God's benevolence is infinite. If God is Holy? If God has infinite compassion. If God is sinless. Etc
Then, GOD cannot create evil.
Evil is imperfection and imperfection cannot be associated with God. Man is evil because man is imperfect. However, God is infinite perfection and therefore, God cannot create evil. In fact, if God creates evil then God is no different than Satan.
I would prefer men who showed by their actions that God exists than listen to people who have nothing to show by their actions, that God does not exist. Such are truly primitive as they think their reasoning is the be all and end all of an argument
I am certain that the God I worship is good.
I do not believe in a God that creates evil.
Evil has nothing to do with God. This is simple theology.
I will take God at His word over your human reasoning!
Being Christian does not mean one checks the brain out at the entrance of the church. God gave us a brain to see the world and we are free to use our reason.
The word you take was written by barbaric primitive men that did not understand God.
If you call the logic flawed I invite you to explain why the logic is flawed. Here is the post and feel free to provided a word by word analysis.
Thanks
It is easy.
Look first to what God said in full. It is called Context.
KJV Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
We know that Light did not exist until He created it, Ditto darkness and peace. WHEN did he create evil?
When he had to punish Adam and Eve for their sin. From that point forward man has experienced evil due to his own works. It is evil for mankind and did not exist until Adam sinned.
Flawed logic is that built up on faulty information and reasoning.
Croref, under what conditions today would God remove His presence or providence? Do you see a time in modern history this has been confirmed? What kind of future event would render that? This isn't some test or anything, just two people discussing a subject of interest to me, and I trust for you as well. A little about myself, I like to apply the past to the present that I may avoid an unpleasant future. I see the Bible not as a book of words telling stories, but as God's living Word for all times. I could go on, but the funny farm people with straight jackets might descend upon me. Your thoughts on any and all would be appreciated.
I didn't say God ever removed His presence from anyone. I did say He has and still does remove His "conscious"presence; the feeling of security of knowing you are on the right track to see what we will do. Will we listen to the voice that would cause us to doubt God's word/command, like Eve did or would be found faithful by keeping His commands? If you read the various accounts like that of Abraham where He gave a command and removed His conscious presence for years to watch for obedience that He might advance him further in His plan. As we know how it all ended when He was given the last command to offer up Isaac. What did God say to him at that time?? Look it up.
But lets begin with Adam. He gave Adam the command. He then then gave him the problem of the choosing to either keep the command or choose to do his own thing by the tempting of the devil to reveal his heart in the matter for God to see. Had Adam obeyed God God would have given him provisional strength from Himself to advance Adam through tougher test/trials that in the end an incarnation would have occurred. He failed and mankind had to wait for the second Adam to show mankind how it can only be accomplished in the flesh __ absent the conscious presence of His Father.
You have to know that the while in bondage, the Israelites had the promise of God concerning the promised land. Why did God not lead them directly into it after He delivered them from bondage? When we read the account we see that it wasn't three days after they past through the red sea, they began to murmur and complain about their conditions.
Here is scripture about God's dealings with the Israelites in this same manner:
"For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
The promise:
"7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills,
8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey,
9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
The test
11 “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today,
12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them,
13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied,
14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,
15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock,
16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.
17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’
18 You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
19 And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish." Deuteronomy 8:7-19 (ESV)
28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.
32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee. Exodus 23:28-33 (KJV)
And of course we know the outcome until we read this in Isaiah: "O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea" Isaiah 48:18 (KJV)
Evil has nothing to do with God. This is simple theology.
Correct he does not "create(s) evil" again and again. He punished Adam and evil was the result for man, as man tried to rule himself without God.Just read the newspaper and see the evil that has resulted.
Croref, under what conditions today would God remove His presence or providence? Do you see a time in modern history this has been confirmed? What kind of future event would render that? This isn't some test or anything, just two people discussing a subject of interest to me, and I trust for you as well. A little about myself, I like to apply the past to the present that I may avoid an unpleasant future. I see the Bible not as a book of words telling stories, but as God's living Word for all times. I could go on, but the funny farm people with straight jackets might descend upon me. Your thoughts on any and all would be appreciated.
I didn't say God ever removed His presence from anyone. I did say He has and still does remove His "conscious"presence; the feeling of security of knowing you are on the right track to see what we will do. If you read the various accounts like that of Abraham where He gave a command and removed His conscious presence for years to watch for obedience that He might advance him further His plan. As we know it all ended when He given the command to offer up Isaac. What did God say to him at that time?? Look it up.
But lets begin with Adam. He gave Adam the command. He then then gave him the problem of the choosing to either keep the command or choose to do his own thing by the tempting of the devil to reveal his heart in the matter for God to see. Had Adam obeyed God God would given provisional strength of Himself to advance him through tougher test/trials that in the end an incarnation would have occurred. He failed and mankind had to wait for the second Adam to show mankind how it can only be accomplished in the flesh __ absent the conscious presence of His Father.
You have to know that the while in bondage, the Israelites had the promise of God concerning the promised land. Why did God not lead them directly into it after He delivered them from bondage? When we read the account we see that it wasn't three days after they past through the red sea, they began to murmur and complain about their conditions.
"For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
"7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills,
8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey,
9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
11 “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today,
12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them,
13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied,
14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,
15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock,
16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.
17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’
18 You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
19 And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish." Deuteronomy 8:7-19 (ESV)
28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.
32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee. Exodus 23:28-33 (KJV)
And of course we know the outcome when we read this in Isaiah: "O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea" Isaiah 48:18 (KJV)
In this nothing has changed for the Christian because of Jesus Christ and the New birth by Him. The tests remain the same.
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