Featured Does The Lord Create Evil?

Theory.....

 

Not really, for if there was no sin, there was to be no spiritua/physical death!

 

It still remains, if there are degrees of reward in heaven, which BTW there are, then we have the rewards of Christ's infinite righteousness waiting for us that would be impossible with our's or Adam's finite righteousness.

 

There would have been no need for jesus to die if Adam had not chosen to fall!

 

But Jesus was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. This makes Adam's sin inevitable.

 

Yes, was just answering what would ahve happened if Adam did not Fall!

 

When God said."Let there be light," was evil already present on the earth or was evil yet future, at that moment?

 

There then, would have been no need for redemption, which by the way, had already been foreordained in the blood of the to come Christ in the image of Adam, for righteousness would have taken place in the obedience of one, Adam.

IMHO.

 

"Let there be Light,"

Did the works of the devil, the evil one, already need to be destroyed by the manifestation of the Son of God or were his works yet to come?

 

And?

Still, the Clark quote is quite problematic:

God does not cause man to sin. Clark's "solution" ignores that the law of God is a reflection of His own character. Therefore, God cannot go against His own law--as Clark theorizes--because to do so would be to deny Himself, which He cannot do.

The Archangel

 

God certainly allows bad things to happen to good people (think Job for example)

In King Saul's case, however, if I remember correctly, Saul was behaving inappropriately and God was bringing punishment upon him.

 

Gordon Clark's book God and Evil: the Problem Solved is, in my opinion, the best succinct presentation available on the problem of "God and Evil."

 

Agreed. Yes, I said it, I agree with Archangel on this one! Actually, this is what I appreciate about a Calvinist who is a consistent Compatibilist compared to a Hard Determinist. They realize concerning the Problem of Evil that the TRUTH must be upheld that evil cannot be assigned to God or you are staring Theological Fatalism in the face.

By aseity God is Only Good and no evil, not even in some contrived round-about way such as Clark "theorizes", can come from Him. This is a vitally important and absolute necessary TRUTH for any theologian to maintain no matter what their soteriological leaning.

We may come at the argument from some different angles but I believe we are pretty close on this coming to the same conclusion when dealing with the P.O.E.

 

Well... this place is apparently a lot colder now...

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

I'm not defending Clark's position. But I believe it's the best I've heard on the problem of God and evil. Many of the standard theologies say that without sin we cannot know of God's love, mercy, justice, wrath, goodness and so on. So sin appears to be necessary in order to reveal his glory. Which is why he created in the first place.

 

Like light and darkness are contrasted, evil here is contrasted with peace. God is saying I bring times of peace, and I bring times of war. He will make brothers of enemies, and estrange mothers and daughters. There will be times of relative ease, and times of suffering. God brings them all.

In the bigger picture, as far as the problem of evil is concerned, where a heart is corrupted, where darkness is loved and God is hated, God cannot be charged, and yet it didn't happen outside of His will. We're told what the corrupting influence was with Adam. We're not told how Satan was corrupted, but we are told that lies began with him. Christ calls him the Father of Lies.

 

Only thing can say with certainity is that God cannot cause one to sin, as that violates His very nature!

 

Why would we ask God not to lead us into temptation if he is beyond doing this?

 

Per james, God cannot tempt/entice one to sin!