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A Question for Calvinists...
- Thread starter jcjordan
- Start date
No. It is not possible. The Bible is against you (or your theory which you may not actually hold anyway).The Lord is thrice HOLY. There is no sin in Him. He doesn't temp people. He did not originate evil.
Now the Lord does use evil for His purposes. He raises up wicked people according to His sovereign designs. But He certainly is not the author of evil -- it is blasphemous to even think that.
Maybe the incongruity here is that everything in existence has to be "created."
What if evil, like other things, isn't so much a direct created thing but a simple byproduct of existence?
maybe that is a bit too metaphysical, i dunno
What if evil, like other things, isn't so much a direct created thing but a simple byproduct of existence?
maybe that is a bit too metaphysical, i dunno
Robert Snow
New Member
I agree completely!
That's wonderful news Robert.
Rippon, did God ordain evil and if so, does that make Him any less glorious or holy?
You seem like you have something you really want to say but you wont come out and say it. You direct this question to Calvinist specifically.
So just state your theory and lets move on. How do you support what you appear to belive? What evidence is there that God created evil? Then if you would be so kind...share with the group how it impacts Calvinism.
God is not a man but he did create man. He does not have to be sinful to create a sinner.
In relation to Adam whom God created - God did not create him a sinner, He created a man who had the choice to sin. That is not the same thing. One is to create man in a sinful state (create him with a sin nature) and the other is to create man with the ability to choose to sin and thus become a sinner.
Have you ever thought about what it means for Satan to be called the "Father of lies"?
Why is God not called the Father is all things proceed from Him?
For one it is because not all things 'proceed' from God but all things that are made are made by God. Good and evil are not made but states of being.
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It is easy in an attempt to thwart the real issue to refuse to deal with their origin. Young people today are not satisfied with the easy believeism and simple answers that are being peddled today and neither should their leaders be. Suppose that evil and good are states of being then explain the origin of them. Whether they are created or a state of being is just semantics they could not have just came into being without an origin. What you are suggesting is that the sinner be separated from his sin. God does not do that. A sinner is a person.
How did love come into being? How did hate come into being? Did they just show up some day having no origin? Even though they are beyond our comprehension just the same they are real. How can man have the capacity to hate and love? If man has that ability could not God have that ability too. If man can love and be evil where did that come from?
Since God created man did he create him without the capacity to do good and evil? Was man emotionless and just a body without a spirit?
God created man with the capacity to choose to not sin or to sin.
John 1:1-3, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."
Gen. 6:6, "The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart."
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menageriekeeper
Active Member
I'm going to throw this out here. I daresay many won't care much for my theory.
As far as good and evil are concerned, the Bible gives little information about what exisited before our beginning. The Bible says "in the beginning", but that only refers to the beginning of humanity and this earth. It says nothing about what existed before us, except God and just a few of the beings that existed with him. It certainly doesn't go into God's beginning, though from our earthly viewpoint He must have had one. But it isn't given to us to understand those things. We have a different purpose.
From what little we do know or can extrapolate, God created His crew of angels that included the one we know as Satan and we believe that Satan was the most beautiful and intelligent of the heavenly creatures. Yet Satan is evil. So did God create evil? Or did evil exist all the time and Satan chose evil?
My personal opinion is that it is the later. And yes, I realize that means that evil must have existed alongside with our most perfect God. I fail to see a problem with that.
As far as good and evil are concerned, the Bible gives little information about what exisited before our beginning. The Bible says "in the beginning", but that only refers to the beginning of humanity and this earth. It says nothing about what existed before us, except God and just a few of the beings that existed with him. It certainly doesn't go into God's beginning, though from our earthly viewpoint He must have had one. But it isn't given to us to understand those things. We have a different purpose.
From what little we do know or can extrapolate, God created His crew of angels that included the one we know as Satan and we believe that Satan was the most beautiful and intelligent of the heavenly creatures. Yet Satan is evil. So did God create evil? Or did evil exist all the time and Satan chose evil?
My personal opinion is that it is the later. And yes, I realize that means that evil must have existed alongside with our most perfect God. I fail to see a problem with that.
Why do you say "a few of the beings"? For all we know there could be mutiplied millions of angels & Co.
This fellow Rip belives that God had no beginning and has no end. He is the Alpha and the Omega. Any Christian must trash their "earthly viewpoint". His ways and thoughts are far above our own. We are going against the Word of God to speculate that the Lord must have had a beginning.Only His creatures have a beginning -- not the Creator Himself -- I AM That I AM.
Throw your speculations in the nearest trashcan. I find a lot of problems with your specs.
Evil most certainly did not coexist alongside the Thrice Holy God.
We don't know all about the origin of evil -- but we are to avoid vain speculations and accept what the Bible reveals about it.
John 1:1-3, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
Has evil and good come into being?
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menageriekeeper
Active Member
Yep, that's what I believe also. But the Bible only tells US about a select few.
And I believe that God is indeed the Alpha and Omega of our universe. However, the Bible speaks of a "time" before creation when our universe was nothingness, yet God existed. God hasn't bothered to tell us about that time, possibly because His purposes here don't require our knowledge or alternately because it it far beyond our understanding. What we do know of this time implies that evil already exisited because there are only 7 days between the 'before time' and our creation and evil must already be in existance or there would be no reason for God to tell Adam not to eat of that tree. In other words, no need for Adam to know there was even a choice to be made.
On the other hand, if you want to believe that God created evil then He did so at the exact same time that He gave Adam the command. For some, evil is defined simply as disobedience to God's commands and without the possibility of disobedience there is no evil.
Can God be holy without an understanding of evil?
how can you know this? The first chapter of Job directly contradicts you when it describes Satan presenting himself to the Lord! Do you think that Satan somehow left his nature behind during this little interview? Does God not directly challege Satan to use his evil ways to test Job? Who are you trying to convince?
Not only, but when Christ left heaven and came to earth He not only coexisted with evil, but was subjected to it as well.
As for the Holy Spirit, does He not directly confront the evil in our own lives every single day?
Toss your own theories in the trash bud, at least I'm not speaking in contradiction to scripture.
It would be nice if you could give some scripture to support your theology.
You're not familar with I AM THAT I AM?! It is rather prevalent in the Bible, Old Testament and the New, as is the Lord calling Himself the Alpha and Omega.
Where that quote comes from in the MT the verb is in the imperfect tense. The LXX is in the present tense. The GNT Is in the prsent tense. From that information I find it difficult to follow how you would come up with the idea that you perpetuate God did not create evil.
You have made many statements about evil which in my opinion is wrong. I fail to see where you cited scriptural suppport for your theology. It would help to know the source of your views.
I was specifically addressing the notion of some that the Lord had a beginning. The Lord always IS."I AM THAT I AM." He has no beginning and no end. Humans have a beginning, but no end.
No, you're very wrong. Check out Revelation 5:11 sometime. Here is the part of the verse in the ISV which deals with this very subject.
: "...They numbered ten thousands times ten thousand and thousands times thousands."
This is plainly talking about billions of angels -- not a mere few. And don't forget that there are other heavely beings too.
saturneptune
New Member
Well Mr Rippon, you taught me a good lesson a few days ago in humility. I may not like the tone of some of your posts, but I can do nothing but admire your theology. I will forever be leary of the KJV from this point on. It is almost impossible to imagine in our finite minds something with no beginning and no ending, outside of time at that. The best term I have heard is eternity past.
Part of the problem with the Mormons is this very question about Christ. They do not believe He is God in the same sense we do, that is has always been. I have been trying to think of a word to describe the origin of evil, and have not come up with one yet, but it certainly is not created by God.