God created evil

[dtknowles]

He didn't create evil. He created free will. We choose to do evil. With good, how would we know what evil is??

Shiloh

You mean without good, how would we know what evil is.

Without evil everything would be good. We would have good, better, best and on that scale people might start thinking good was evil.

Tim

[Dieselhorses]

because Lucifer wanted to be greater that God And Lucifer was the General in God's chain of command. It is alluded that Lucifer was jealous of God creating Man with a special plan. Scripture does state that Man is more 'loved'/important than angels. Note the the Bible states angels can ONLY be in one place at a time - not a restriction for God.

Bingo. Lucifer wanted to be "equal" to God's stance/position/power. As being "General" or a "higher up" than the rest of the angels, I speculate God did instill a certain amount of decision making in Lucifer but it all went South (Literally). And yes God is "omnipresent" as so is His Son and the Holy Spirit. Satan knows he has been, is and always will be defeated but will never give up!

[Hickory]

If anyone believes for one second that God created evil, you would naturally assume that all guns were created to murder people!

[dtknowles]

Bingo. Lucifer wanted to be "equal" to God's stance/position/power. As being "General" or a "higher up" than the rest of the angels, I speculate God did instill a certain amount of decision making in Lucifer but it all went South (Literally). And yes God is "omnipresent" as so is His Son and the Holy Spirit. Satan knows he has been, is and always will be defeated but will never give up!

Is Lucifer defeated if he can still lure people to their doom?

Tim

[dverna]

If anyone believes for one second that God created evil, you would naturally assume that all guns were created to murder people!

Actually, most guns are created to kill people or other living things. I have a few strictly target guns but most of my weapons are weapons.

It seems counter intuitive to believe God created everything but not evil. Was evil "there" before creation? Did evil create itself? I think evil came out of heaven if I read the bible correctly.

I will give evil a lot of credit. For something that supposedly knows it will be defeated, it has remarkable tenacity and will not give up. But maybe evil didn't get that email?

[1hole]

Evil is not a "thing" that required an external creation. God didn't make angels or man to be puppets. Both have native intelligence and a free will to live and behave as we will.

Evil, anger, jealousy, greed, etc. are not "things" requiring a creation; they are base mindsets that rise from within each of us.
How we deal with them are life choices we each make for ourselves.

No one has to teach an infant to be screaming angry, massively selfish ... or bubbly happy; each of those qualities rise from within every infant. As we mature, we will either give free reign to our base natures or strive for the better ways to live.

Thankfully, as we grow up - IF we ever grow up! - most of us usually choose the better ways. But none of us can ever totally suppress our bad ways in this life. God can lead us away from our own evil ways because our own evil ways are something WE create, not Him.

[dverna]

Evil is not a "thing" that required an external creation. God didn't make angels or man to be puppets. Both have native intelligence and a free will to live and behave as we will.

Evil, anger, jealousy, greed, etc. are not "things" requiring a creation; they are base mindsets that rise from within each of us.
How we deal with them are life choices we each make for ourselves.

No one has to teach an infant to be screaming angry, massively selfish ... or bubbly happy; each of those qualities rise from within every infant. As we mature, we will either give free reign to our base natures or strive for the better ways to live.

Thankfully, as we grow up - IF we ever grow up! - most of us usually choose the better ways. But none of us can ever totally suppress our bad ways in this life. God can lead us away from our own evil ways because our own evil ways are something WE create, not Him.

Yet, evil is a thing....if we believe Satan exists. Satan is not a mindset...he is something. It would be akin to dismissing God as a being of Goodness. It may require accepting that creation involved more that creating things of a physical nature but also concepts. Love, honor, righteousness, greed, justice...etc etc.

[Dieselhorses]

Is Lucifer defeated if he can still lure people to their doom?

Tim

He has already won souls over just as Christ himself has won souls. Basically a war to see who gets the most. Here is a link explaining some of it.

[Thundarstick]

He has already won souls over just as Christ himself has won souls. Basically a war to see who gets the most. Here is a link explaining some of it.

If the "winner captures the most souls", it appears Satan has a very good lead heading into the 4th quarter.

[wv109323]

God created nothing evil. At the end of the days of creation God sums it up as "good". Evil or sin is when man behaves against God or his plan. Since the fall of Adam ,we are born with a sinful nature and must learn obedience(behavior) to God's will. No one has to teach a child to tell a lie or steal a cookie.
God created good and man behaves against his will. We need Jesus as a payment to redeem our sins to God.

[Blackwater]

I'm with Ick on this matter. Sometimes, if not regularly, we read the Bible with a very limited perspective. That can often lead us to conclude erroneously, and this, I believe, is one of those times.

God is perfect. Therefore, He CANNOT have anything to do with evil, and certainly cannot have created it. Evil is the LACK of righteousness, which God DID create. Evil is simply turning away from the Good that He created. Yes, we give it a name, and call it evil, but is is most certainly NOT a creation of God. It's the lacking of what He DID create. That's my take on it, anyway.

[nikonuser]

it seems that some have forgotten a few bits of greek astronomical wisdom.

the star that is representative of Christ who brought the knowledge of god to humans is also the representative star of Lucifer, the bringer of light. Guess good old luci bringing fire, the emblem of knowledge, is part and parcel with Christ bringing god to us.

Or as some happy thinkers ask, tisnt the anti Christ also the Christ..

[JohnChrysostom]

God didn't "create evil" that's blaspheme. God creates creatures, spirits and peoples what they do after the fact is mostly up to them & the weight of those sins lies squarely on them, Imagine being so disconnected from reality that you blame your crappy actions on the fact of your birth & yet this is what people do to God to justify their evil deeds or evil created in the world by agents whom hate God.

[JohnChrysostom]

it seems that some have forgotten a few bits of greek astronomical wisdom.

the star that is representative of Christ who brought the knowledge of god to humans is also the representative star of Lucifer, the bringer of light. Guess good old luci bringing fire, the emblem of knowledge, is part and parcel with Christ bringing god to us.

Or as some happy thinkers ask, tisnt the anti Christ also the Christ..

It actually doesn't and as a new Christian long ago reading the NIV i struggled with this but alas the NIV was the first to try to call Satan by the name of Jesus "Morning star" other older bibles don't blaspheme like this & add this designation in , it was never their in history. it was literally added not just a "bad translation" not an accident. but 2 of the editors of the NIV were homosexuals who also removed the word Sodomite from the bible so it figures they would call Satan by Jesus' designation. What you are saying is wishful thinking and Blaspheme. Here's the run down in black and white https://www.jesus-is-lord.com/nivsatan.htm Lucifer means Venus a planet even the greeks knew the difference between a star and a planet. if anything it proves once again Satan pretending to be God/Jesus and Greek philosophy is a joke one verse of proverbs destroys ten books of Greek "philosophy" hardly wisdom.Furthermore to call Christ the Antichrist using older English isn't intellectual it's schizophrenic.... "tisn't" (really?!)

[nikonuser]

It actually doesn't and as a new Christian long ago reading the NIV i struggled with this but alas the NIV was the first to try to call Satan by the name of Jesus "Morning star" other older bibles don't blaspheme like this & add this designation in , it was never their in history. it was literally added not just a "bad translation" not an accident. but 2 of the editors of the NIV were homosexuals who also removed the word Sodomite from the bible so it figures they would call Satan by Jesus' designation. What you are saying is wishful thinking and Blaspheme. Here's the run down in black and white https://www.jesus-is-lord.com/nivsatan.htm Lucifer means Venus a planet even the greeks knew the difference between a star and a planet. if anything it proves once again Satan pretending to be God/Jesus and Greek philosophy is a joke one verse of proverbs destroys ten books of Greek "philosophy" hardly wisdom.Furthermore to call Christ the Antichrist using older English isn't intellectual it's schizophrenic.... "tisn't" (really?!)

Christ is supposed to have brought all knowledge to us, yet satan by doing the apple thing gave us the same knowledge. so pfft to you

[Blackwater]

You know, in reviewing this thread, it comes to me that this is one of those unanswerable questions because the question itself is flawed. It ASSUMES that God DID create evil, which I believe to be a denial of all that God truly is. God is light, He is goodness, He is satisfaction unlike any that exists elsewhere. Nothing about Him is evil, nor did He ever create evil. Perhaps Lucifer was the originator of all evil. He is called the "Father of all lies," isn't he? But God never created evil. That comes from the terrestrial nature of man combined with the temptations from the Great Temptor, Satan himself. When he rebelled and challenged God Himself, evil was borne into existence, and God never had a hand in it. Satan created it of his own free will, and man follows it of his own free will, or gives his life and soul to God. There are no other choices. Just these two.

And since it's a question that's flawed from the outset, answers will naturally also be flawed, and thus, not really useful in our search to find wisdom and truth. So it's probably best if we abandon questions like this, though it's very easy to create other flawed questions. The search for truth and wisdom is fraught with many pitfalls, snares and dangers. We have to be very vigilant to avoid the majority of those, but we all fall into some from time to time. The wise course is to abandon those, and turn to more fruitful and useful searches and questions, that CAN lead us to light and wisdom. Being a Christian, and growing as such, ain't never been easy, folks! But it's always, always, always worth every effort we can give to the pursuit. It's the only way we can ever be truly satisfied. If we live or if we die, we're satisfied, for death is only the transition point where we are given to judgment, and if found acceptable, we profit from admission into Heaven. What greater goal could we possibly have than that?

[dtknowles]

God didn't "create evil" that's blaspheme. God creates creatures, spirits and peoples what they do after the fact is mostly up to them & the weight of those sins lies squarely on them, Imagine being so disconnected from reality that you blame your crappy actions on the fact of your birth & yet this is what people do to God to justify their evil deeds or evil created in the world by agents whom hate God.

So a person gets born into a tribe of cannibals' and you think it their fault if they kill other humans. The person does not get to pick the time, culture or place of their birth but it is the most powerful influence on a persons life. God picks and chooses who gets born where and when.

Tim

[dverna]

You know, in reviewing this thread, it comes to me that this is one of those unanswerable questions because the question itself is flawed. It ASSUMES that God DID create evil, which I believe to be a denial of all that God truly is. God is light, He is goodness, He is satisfaction unlike any that exists elsewhere. Nothing about Him is evil, nor did He ever create evil. Perhaps Lucifer was the originator of all evil. He is called the "Father of all lies," isn't he? But God never created evil. That comes from the terrestrial nature of man combined with the temptations from the Great Temptor, Satan himself. When he rebelled and challenged God Himself, evil was borne into existence, and God never had a hand in it. Satan created it of his own free will, and man follows it of his own free will, or gives his life and soul to God. There are no other choices. Just these two.

And since it's a question that's flawed from the outset, answers will naturally also be flawed, and thus, not really useful in our search to find wisdom and truth. So it's probably best if we abandon questions like this, though it's very easy to create other flawed questions. The search for truth and wisdom is fraught with many pitfalls, snares and dangers. We have to be very vigilant to avoid the majority of those, but we all fall into some from time to time. The wise course is to abandon those, and turn to more fruitful and useful searches and questions, that CAN lead us to light and wisdom. Being a Christian, and growing as such, ain't never been easy, folks! But it's always, always, always worth every effort we can give to the pursuit. It's the only way we can ever be truly satisfied. If we live or if we die, we're satisfied, for death is only the transition point where we are given to judgment, and if found acceptable, we profit from admission into Heaven. What greater goal could we possibly have than that?

But God created Lucifer. And, if you believe God knows the future, He knew Lucifer would rebel, and fall, and become Evil. Unless you want to go one step further and accept that "free will" affects the course of events. Which would mean Lucifer had free will and choose a path God had not expected. If you accept that free affects the course of events, then God does not know every detail of the future.

It is one of the reasons I lean to the concept of Open Theism. God know everything that has happened, everything that is happening, but not everything that will happen. Free will creates uncertainty in what will happen. God does not control free will and reacts to it.

[Blackwater]

Again, this is a question that really has no answer. We can believe what we will, but no real answer is available that will stand up to real scrutiny. But then again, this belief may well be a stepping stone to a higher understanding, not only of God, but of our own weaknesses and shortcomings as well. I have no problem with folks having such beliefs, but cannot accept it for myself. That's all.

Sometimes, I think we try to put more into our "thinking" than is good for us, or that will lead to real, useful wisdom and light. But then again, if we don't take questions as they come, we'll likely fall off and our study will dwindle and fail. This is why I have determined to keep my own considerations to a more limited and finite realm, where I can understand (hopefully) more fully. And I also avoid terrible dissensiions with other believers in the process pretty well, as well. Dissension never edifies any of us. God gave us the Bible to LEARN from, not to argue over and stir up hatred between us. Mark Twain said some 140 or so years ago, "Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large numbers." When I get embroiled in an argument, I try to always remember that comment. I err just like the rest of us, and as St. Peter said, I'm "chief among sinners. But I don't have to STAY that way. We're all, inevitably, like a student pilot, who flies to a suitable altitude, and then intentionally stalls, in order to learn how to handle the crisis. Learning is a curious process, and I'm not sure any of us really learn HOW to learn. I keep trying, though. It's all I can do. I know I'll never be able to really understand God. My mortal mind simply isn't big enough. But I CAN understand the essentials, and some of the finer points, and that is sufficient unto the day when we'll be judged as to whether we're fit for Heaven, or not. It's like having a length limit for catching fish, and I just want to be judged big enough to keep. Ego and pride are to things that probably limit our growth more than most of the other factors put together, so I try to stay humble as well, so I CAN receive the light and truth when God deems me fit to do so.

Ain't bein' a Christian fun!