Theodicy

You're done because you're whipped.

This thread is about theodicy. No where have I strayed from that OP.

Everyone can peruse this and see it for themselves.

So you're baloney about me being "off topic" is plainly false.

Your whole, and I mean ENTIRE, soteriological position rest FULLY upon your ability to back Calvinists up to the beginning of time and force them to explain the origin of evil without them indicting God as the direct cause for it.

I have explained it in CLASSICAL Christian terms- evil as privation.

And you are thoroughly stumped and too proud to admit it.

You want evil to come solely from the creature with no Remote Ultimate cause at all and you think this is necessary if God is to be holy. This is the only way you can justify this all important notion of yours called-libertarian free will. You thought that that position alone exonerates God from being the author of evil. That hope is the only reason this ridiculous notion of libertarian free will even exists.

Augustine's theodicy, which I have been employing, answers this silly notion and destroys your whole soteriological standpoint.

You are frustrated because you are beaten. That is where this threat to ignore me comes from.

And as for this absolute bull about you "trying to quote some [anonymous] Calvinistic posters" from some other mysterious board- this was a desperate attempt to get leverage.

It is PLAINLY desperate because NONE of them are authorities on any of these matters and you act as if they should have anything at all to add to this conversation.

That would be like me going to some Arminian board and pulling up some anonymous Arminians who argue that evil IS privation.

What POSSIBLE good could come of that.

It is silly at best.

You are whipped and you are frustrated and that's where this childish threat to ignore me comes from.

Calvinism represents the teachings of the Word of God.

You can no longer contend otherwise in this thread and against me- so you're done.

 

deleted............

 

Exactly.

Skan doesn't see it yet, but you cannot account for the the origin of evil without calling it a deficiency- a privation.

Evil is what God is NOT.

NOT is privation. If I am NOT healthy I have a deficiency of health. NOT is privation or as Skandelon rightly put it a "deficiency".

Evil is the privation of the goodness of God.

Augustine, the greatest theological mind in history, argued this very thing. Evil as privation.

Evil is the absence of good.

Any INTENT that arises in a scenario where good is "deficient", as Skandelon himself recognizes, will be evil.

Endued fully with the goodness of God we cannot sin.

Sin is only possible when there is, as Skan put it, a DEFICIENCY of good.

This word "deficiency" that Skandelon employs proves that he cannot argue against the idea of evil as privation.

Aristotle noticed this fact even before Augustine. This should be no problem, for all truth is God's truth. Facts are facts and what God allows and enables man to discover is perfectly discoverable. Bad philosophy ought to be condemned but good philosophy is useful.

Here is part of an article I found that deals rightly in this quote with the Augustinian theodicy:

This accurately represents Augustine's theodicy (though it is too breif to encapsulate it). Man was created with free will (not libertarian free will mind you) and because there was a deficiency [as Skandelon put it] of good in them they were able with that free will to sin. Sin is the act that evil which is a deficiency of good causes. Ever since man has been in bondage to sin.

Evil exists.

Either God is not all powerful and cannot do anything about it though he would if he could...

OR...

God is all powerful and evil himself because he could stop it but allows it...

OR...

God is all powerful and perfectly good but good is not defined by human suffering or the lack thereof but rather by that which ultimately brings God the most glory.

The last statement is the biblical teaching.
Suffering of sinners brings God glory (vindicates his holiness).
Salvation of sinners brings God glory (magnifies his love).

Arminians believe the first statement. They state it this way "God RESTRICTS his omnipotence and Sovereignty by man's free will." This is philosophical madness. God cannot be all powerful and restrict his power at the same time. Restricted power is LIMITED power. Omnipotence is by definition the dead level OPPOSITE. It is UNLIMITED power.
And God can be completely Sovereign over all things and events- the biggest and smallest of them and all of them in between- and restrict that sovereignty at the same time.

Neither can God do evil or tempt man to do evil.

So who authored evil?

Skandelon says man did and offers NO explanation as to how.

Some determinists argue that God did and if you don't like it- TOO BAD!

But the RIGHT answer is NOBODY.

Only things that are THINGS have authors.

Darkness does not have an author.

Nobody made it in a lab and God did not create it. Why? Because darkness is nothing but privation.

It is just a word we use to describe a void of light.

And so is evil.

EVIL HAS NO DIRECT AUTHOR BECAUSE EVIL IS NOTHING BUT PRIVATION OF GOOD.

We say of things that they are good or not good.

Evil is simply the latter.

 

The analogies are not my own but come from some of the greatest theological and philosophical minds that have ever lived and these analogies have been used for nearly two thousand years to express a Christian theodicy.

To say that my analogies which are actually the analogies of men of the caliber of Augustine muddy up anything in a discussion on theodicy is to be terribly mistaken.

Evil is privation.