You will find no evil in God, just as you will find no ice cream in a rock.

A member here posted the title as part of response. I am sure to him it is self-evident.

The question is often asked, if God is all powerful and all good, why is there so much evil in the world?

Funny about the ice cream and a rock part. Locally we have an ice cream place called "Stone Cold Creamery"

Back to the subject.

There are a couple lines of thinking on why God does not eliminate evil. Which ones do you think are the correct thinking on the subject?

I know that God is not evil and does no evil but that still does not answer the question about why God allows evil. How is it not evil to allow evil when you have to power to eliminate all evil?

Please try to understand, I am not attacking anyone's beliefs, if you don't find this an interesting subject move on to something else.

Tim

People make errors in their theology by thinking of what they'd do if they were God. Their idea about the existence of evil is that if God is all powerful, all knowing and essentially good, he should eliminate evil. As we observe, this is not the way things are.

The first question is: What evil should God eliminate? Should he just annihilate murderers and thieves? Or should he get rid of the impure thinkers too? The ultimate Christian ethic is to "take every thought captive to the Lord Jesus." It is important to keep in mind that God does not destroy that which has failed if he can save it.

God created man and gave him free will and the charge of governing himself. This allows for all kinds of actions that are contrary to the divine intention for man (i.e., love God and love your fellow man). Why?

God is building a people that have seen the disastrous consequences of sin and have chosen the path of becoming like God. In the afterlife, whatever that is like ("to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ"), these people will live their lives as God lives his. They will not only be satisfied in their existence, but will never fall as the angels and first man did. This is my speculation, of course.

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The question is often asked, if God is all powerful and all good, why is there so much evil in the world?

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Because we as humans are not perfect.
I'd imgaine it can relate to our upbringing, especially if there was no God spoke of in the house.
When we let greed, emotions, etc. overide our "good side", then the end result can be sinful/evil actions.
We do have "Free Will" to do evil things, but we will have to account for them in the end.

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How is it not evil to allow evil when you have to power to eliminate all evil?

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Well, with regard to God, apparantly He got so fed up with evil going on that He did act upon it. i.e. Sodom and Gomorah, the Great Flood with Noah, etc.

If you are standing by while someone is being attacked, robbed, raped, whatever, and you have the means to stop it (gun, physical means) you are morally, and perhaps legally required to do so.
With God, we do not know what His bigger picture is on the situation.
It could be a Karma thing where the person that is being mugged, beat up, etc. was a mugger himself in this life or another.
"You reap what you sow."

Evil is going on everywhere, everyday.
God would be very busy circumventing all the evil going on.

With our Free Will, I think God is just letting it all play out and allowing these things to happen.
When our bodies die and we are in the Spiritual Rhealms, we can look back at our earthly experiences as a learning experience, despite the evil we may have done.
Then the accountability comes into play and God deals with our good and evil issues and from there................

God requires evil. He created it either directly or indirectly. There was nothing in the beginning and God created everything.

We can speculate on why, but that can be upsetting to some.

I’m not sure if God created evil or if evil is an absence of God. It’s much like cold isn’t really a thing, it’s an absence of energy.

Just a thought.

Tim, do you believe that you are on a journey towards a relationship with God and are you asking these questions to aid you on that journey? If not, why ask?

Evil can not be exterminated.
Evil lives in the heart and minds of everyone where little or no good exists!
Some, with high moral fiber can control it, up to a point, others don't care or want to control the evil within them at all.

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Originally Posted by Ickisrulz

People make errors in their theology by thinking of what they'd do if they were God. Their idea about the existence of evil is that if God is all powerful, all knowing and ...
The first question is: What evil should God eliminate? Should he .

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Relax and stand by guys, we know God has a plan to deal with evil. In fact, He's had the outline written out for us in scripture so we can know his plan and rejoice when we see it being fulfilled without losing heart.

No matter how important we think we are and how important we think our "right now" is, we can plainly see that His plan is still unrolling so He obviously isn't done with evil just yet. I don't believe anyone is going to be disappointed at the end. Well ... there will be no disappointed Christians anyway. :)

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Originally Posted by JimB..

I’m not sure if God created evil or if evil is an absence of God. It’s much like cold isn’t really a thing, it’s an absence of energy.

Just a thought.

Tim, do you believe that you are on a journey towards a relationship with God and are you asking these questions to aid you on that journey? If not, why ask?

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I believe that I have a relationship with God. In my journey sometimes I learn new things. The reason I ask these questions here it to get people here to think about the things I question. Mostly I am not looking for answers I am looking to make people think about God and ask themselves questions.

Certainly it matters if God created evil vs. evil is an absence of God. I think the answer is both, God created evil by not preventing it. The absence of God's action to eliminate evil is what has allowed evil to exist. The Bibles tell us that in the past God did work to eliminate evil, maybe God still does prevent the worst evil things from coming to pass.

The more important question is why does God not eliminate evil. Some have already speculated some reasons and I suspect they are right. Life is a test and without evil the test would not be much of a challenge. For good to exist then some bad is needed just like there would be no light if there was no dark. I don't think God is looking to create a perfect world, God is sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Not all that is bad is created by people. Bad, even deadly weather, plagues, earthquakes, they all if not evil are bad and make challenges for us that define who we are.

Tim

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Originally Posted by dtknowles

I believe that I have a relationship with God. In my journey sometimes I learn new things. The reason I ask these questions here it to get people here to think about the things I question. Mostly I am not looking for answers I am looking to make people think about God and ask themselves questions.

Certainly it matters if God created evil vs. evil is an absence of God. I think the answer is both, God created evil by not preventing it. The absence of God's action to eliminate evil is what has allowed evil to exist. The Bibles tell us that in the past God did work to eliminate evil, maybe God still does prevent the worst evil things from coming to pass.

The more important question is why does God not eliminate evil. Some have already speculated some reasons and I suspect they are right. Life is a test and without evil the test would not be much of a challenge. For good to exist then some bad is needed just like there would be no light if there was no dark. I don't think God is looking to create a perfect world, God is sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Not all that is bad is created by people. Bad, even deadly weather, plagues, earthquakes, they all if not evil are bad and make challenges for us that define who we are.

Tim

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I don’t see weather or earthquakes or house fires or even mauling by various animals as “evil” since these things lack the ability to form intent.

Just a thought.

spot on

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Originally Posted by dtknowles

A member here posted the title as part of response. I am sure to him it is self-evident.

The question is often asked, if God is all powerful and all good, why is there so much evil in the world?

Funny about the ice cream and a rock part. Locally we have an ice cream place called "Stone Cold Creamery"

Back to the subject.

There are a couple lines of thinking on why God does not eliminate evil. Which ones do you think are the correct thinking on the subject?

I know that God is not evil and does no evil but that still does not answer the question about why God allows evil. How is it not evil to allow evil when you have to power to eliminate all evil?

Please try to understand, I am not attacking anyone's beliefs, if you don't find this an interesting subject move on to something else.

Tim

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When I meet the good Lord, maybe I will ask him. Hopefully still a long time away!

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Originally Posted by JimB..

I don’t see weather or earthquakes or house fires or even mauling by various animals as “evil” since these things lack the ability to form intent.

Just a thought.

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Agreed that is why I used the word bad instead of evil, they are bad for us, I am not completely sure that evil requires intent, can there be unintended evil.

Tim

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Originally Posted by dtknowles

Agreed that is why I used the word bad instead of evil, they are bad for us, I am not completely sure that evil requires intent, can there be unintended evil.

Tim

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Bad seems relative, evil seems absolute, but that’s just off the top of my head.

An earthquake and tsunami kills thousands, and that seems “bad” but it’s certainly not evil.
A man beats his girlfriend to death, that’s evil. He may not have intended to kill her, but he intended to beat her, so not unintended evil.

I put “bad” in quotes because I’m not sure what is bad. Are natural disasters “bad for us” from God’s perspective? Is how we experience physical death important at all in terms of spiritual life and death?

The quote from Epicurus has always intrigued me.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

My biggest problem has always been that I can't accept the "he works in mysterious ways" and "part of a bigger plan" thing. I have not yet received the gift of blind faith, if that's what you can call it. I have too many questions, and so my journey continues...

The Bible says that Jesus groans to hold the universe together. Perhaps a better question is why He sustains us all for all this time. If He were to destroy evil it would be goodbye, universe.