A question about Faith.

[Testament]

I've been looking recently, trying to answer the question of "How can a good, all-powerful God allow evil?"

I haven't really found a concrete answer and was wondering maybe someone here could give me a guiding light.

I understand the whole concept with sin, but what about suffering that doesn't involve sinners, or those who have turned their backs to God? Such as starving children in foreign countries, world disasters, and other things. Why do these things happen, or are they all just a big mystery?

 

[Coconut]

There is a problem with the question that we as Gods children do not seem to pause to consider. We do not want God to touch our free will, but we want Him to do something about everyone else`s free will.

All the evil in this world, is the result of humanity turning away from God. We have the boldness to turn our backs on Him, and when evil comes, we turn around and demand He now do something about it. What is wrong with that picture?

These are just my own simple thoughts, not an attempt to understand the ways of God, but my answer to "How can a good, all-powerful God allow evil?" is, How can a good all-powerful God love us, the most disobedient, and ungrateful, and wretched of His creation, so much?

In looking upon all the evil in the world, I think it helps to understand that God does not view death the same way we do. God so loved us, He robed Himself in flesh and came down to earth to defeat that mortal enemy for us. While we tend to view death as a tragic ending - God does not.

 

[Peace Seeker]

There are many great Christian philosophers and apologists that have tackled this question over the millenia, but anyway here's my feeble 2 cent's worth.

God has never turned His back on us, in fact if He had ever done that we wouldn't be here right now, because without His ongoing grace toward us we'd be consumed by His justice.

Regarding the God allowing evil question, we are evil by nature, therefore if God didn't allow evil in the world, He wouldn't allow us, and as such we would likewise all be consumed. The reason there is evil in the world is because mankind likes to do evil.

We question God all the time and shake our fist at Him because of the problems in the world (that we bring on ourselves), and sneer at Him, saying a loving God wouldn't allow or do this or that, without ever understanding that God is far more patient with and loving toward us, than we are thankful to, or obedient to Him.

The world turns away from God, blames Him for the resulting mess, and still God loves us and doesn't turn away from us.

Here's something I don't think people consider when they blame God for "allowing" evil in the world : what exactly do they expect and want Him to do about it ???? When people blame or question God about evil in the world, they don't even realize that they are testifying against themselves, because they are in effect saying, "God, how come you let us do so much evil, as much as we want?"

We don't ask ourselves why we do so much evil, not a chance. Rather we ask God why He allows us to! We love it when we have no responsibility for our actions! We do it because He allows us to, it's His fault! And if He decides to not allow us to, He will be mean and controlling, etc.

In order for God to get rid of evil He would have to change peoples' propensity to do evil, but we love our freewill too much for that. We will always have a negative attitude toward God, no matter what He does for us, as long as we remain "us-centered" and refuse to bow the knee to Him.

The Father loves us so much that He sent His Son to the world to save us from God's wrath. But we killed Him and said we don't want it your way, we want it our way; and if it doesn't turn out very well we can always keep blaming you. In our selfishness we want our cake and eat it too - run our own lives but blame someone else for them.

2 Chronicles 7:14
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Sounds good to me!! If it sounded good to the world as well, we'd have a much better world.

 

[faithfulservant]

I think this question can be answered with another question: How can a good God not allow His creation to have freewill? And if a good God must offer freewill to His creation, how can the creation blame Him for choosing evil over good?

 

[Asanima]

Id say that Plantingas response to the PoE addresses the problem of evil in regards to free will, decently enough, although there are several problems with his arguments.

However, the problem of natural evil, evil that is not the result of mans choice but that exists through nature, i.e. Hurricanes, Polio, Small pox, etc, is not addressed. Free will has nothing to do with getting and dying from smallpox or being caught in a hurricane or storm and drowning. If anyone has a response to this, id gladly appreciate it.

 

[Thiscrosshurts]

Romans 11:32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

I don't know how that works but it doesn't seem much like freewill.I understand we can make a finite number of choices but that's not really freewill.
This is the reason:
Romans 8:19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope
Romans 8:21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.