Evil and suffering.

[Lily]

Augustines argument in brief.

God is perfect. He made a world free from flaws.

God cannot be blamed for creating evil, since evil is not a substance but a deprivation, and it makes no sense to say that God created a deprivation.

Evi comes from angels and human beings who chose to deliberately turn away from God.

The possibility of evil in a created world is necessary. Only the uncreated God Himself can be perfect. Created things are susceptible to change.

Everyone is guilty because everyone was seminally present in Adam.

Natural evil is a fitting punishment and came about because the human action destroyed the natural order.


Augustine started from the assumption that God is wholly good and that God created a world free from defect.
He made the logical point that it is not possible for God to be responsible for evil, since evil is not a substance. Instead, evil refers to what is lacking in a thing, it is the " privation of good ". Augustine used the analogy of blindness, which is not an entity in itself but an absense of sight.

If God cannot have created evil, Augustine traced it's origin to thos entities within the world that have free will, namely angels and human beings. These abused God's gift of freedom. In keeping with the story in Genesis 3, he argued that the desire for power prooved to much for Adam and Eve, who were tempted by satan.

Having explained the origin of evil, Augustine went on to show that all suffering is a fully deserved consequence of human sin. Natural evil originated from the loss of order within nature following the first sin. This destroyed the natural balance of the world.

He interprets both types of evil as a punishment,,, " All evil is either sin or a punishment for sin ".
He stressed the point that " all " humans, including supposedly innocent babies, deserve to suffer because " all " humans were present in the " loins of Adam ".

Augustine has been severely criticised for containing,,
Logical error
Scientific error
Moral error

The logical problem was expressed by FDE Schleiermacher ( 1768-1834 ). He argued that there was a logical contradiction to a perfectly created world going wrong, since this would mean that evil created itself out of nothing, which is logically impossible. Whether or not evil is a deprivation, it still is a real feature of the world, as is the suffering it produces. As such, he concluded, either the world was not created perfectly or God enabled it to go wrong.

Scientific difficulties have arisen, say critics from Auguustines reliance upon the Genisis creation and fall stories.
As a result, much of the argument rested upon ancient and scientifically controversial Judaeo-Christian theology. This dependence led to two major critcisms,
1. The idea of Augustine that the world was made perfect by God, then damaged by humans, contradicts evolutionary theory, which asserts that the universe has been continually developing from an early stage of chaos.
Essential to evolution, moreover, is the innate and selfosh desire for survival. This renders the Genesis concept of blissful happiness in the garden less easy to accept. Yet if Gods world contained flaws at the outset, God must bear responsibility for evil.
2. The second major criticism conerns Augustines assumption that each human being was seminally present in Adam. This has been rejected on biological grounds, which means that we are not infact guilty of Adams sin, which in turn, say the critics, God is not just in allowing us to suffer for someone elses sin.

The moral criticism lay within Augustines concept of hell. Hell apears to be part of the design of the universe. This would appear to mean that God must have already have anticipated that the world would go wrong and indeed, must have accepted it.

Finally, although Augustine argued that God's selection of some people for Heaven shows his mercy, others would argue that it displays irrational inconsistency, further questioning God's goodness, essentially in the light of Augustine arguing that even babies deserve to suffer.

Something to think about today,,, ( from my college notes )

Hell is a place of complete separation from God. It is often thought to involve eternal and therefore pointless, suffering. This marks the opposite of the good world that Augustine claimed God created.
If God's plan had been turned upside down this way, what might that suggest about his omnipotence ?

In conclusion, do you consider Augustines theodicy " fully " plausible or do you see flaws ?
Can you see contradictions to his theodicy in comparisson with the theodicy of St Thomas Aquinus or do they tally ?

Tomorrow,,,,, Irenaeus' theodicy.

[DeaconDan]

Duet 20:17Completely destroy* them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.

Then they say how could a God of love destroy all these people?

Lev 20:23 Because they did all these things [homosexuality, incest, bestiality], I abhorred them.

Abhorred = detest utterly, hate, antonym of love
Them = the peoples God told the Israelites to destroy

God hated them because they were wicked. God destroyed them because the penalty for their crimes is execution. Unfortantly for the Canaanites, et. al., God's desire to keep the Isrealites pure lowered His tolerance for the wickedness of the neighbors.

[Jay Dub]

God cannot be blamed for creating evil, since evil is not a substance but a deprivation, and it makes no sense to say that God created a deprivation.

I agree with this. Evil is not a thing but a reference or a description of how far something or someone is from the righteousness of God. The further away form God, from his ways from his love the more evil you are

Those who hate God and his creation we consider evil. It is when we draw closer to God, learning about God, trying to be like God, these are the things that bring us from evil and into the light. The closer to God we are the further from evil we are. The further from God we are the closer to evil we are

[streetsinger]

I agree with this. Evil is not a thing but a reference or a description of how far something or someone is from the righteousness of God. The further away form God, from his ways from his love the more evil you are

Those who hate God and his creation we consider evil. It is when we draw closer to God, learning about God, trying to be like God, these are the things that bring us from evil and into the light. The closer to God we are the further from evil we are. The further from God we are the closer to evil we are

Then what do you make of Isaiah 45.7 Jay?

[Lily]

Trev, what do you think to the interpretation that God permits evil but does not " will " it ? The question here I think is if God “permits” things to happen does He do so willingly or unwillingly?

[Lily]

Trev, would you rather wait for a reply from Jay Dub or shall I move on to Irenaeus' theodicy ?

[Chuckt]

Then what do you make of Isaiah 45.7 Jay?

God made penal evil. He didn't make moral evil.

All of these verses say God's creation was good:

Genesis 1:4 And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1:10 And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good.

Genesis 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

Genesis 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good.

Genesis 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

Genesis 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Did God create evil?
Did God create evil? - Answers to Tough Questions

Did God Create Evil - Does the Bible Say So?
by Rich Deem

Did God Create Evil - Does the Bible Say So?

Does Isaiah 45:7 teach that God created metaphysical moral evil?

Someone came through the Tank with this pushback to my answer on "Did God create evil

I hope all of these links are still good.

[Monique]

[QUOTE=Lily;99792][I]Found my college notes on " evil and suffering ".






Have you been cleaning out a cupboard Lily.
What college/study was this from?

[streetsinger]

[U][B]
Does Isaiah 45:7 teach that God created metaphysical moral evil?

I don't believe it differentiates Chuckt, God just says that he creates evil, why, I have yet to figure out.

[Jay Dub]

Then what do you make of Isaiah 45.7 Jay?

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things].

Street singer, I may be wrong but I have problems with this translation, I prefer these
NKJV
I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things.'

NLT - Isa 45:7 - I am the one who creates the light and makes the darkness. I am the one who sends good times and bad times. I, the LORD, am the one who does these things.

NIV - Isa 45:7 - I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.

ESV - Isa 45:7 - “I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all these things.

I believe the correct translation should be calamity not evil. In the context of the verse we see opposites, crates light and makes darkness, then he goes to peace, the opposite of peace is not evil. If God can creates peace, then it makes sense the correct word used is calamity

As far as my personal opinion
Gods for knowledge, the fact that he knows all things, before he created anything or anyone he saw the beginning from the end.

He saw all he created was good, He knew we would fall, he knew Satan would be filled will jealousy and rebel. There was no reason to create evil.

Jam 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;

Jam 1:14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.

We are tempted by our own evil desires

God created everything and it was good evil came into the world because of our own evil desires. No one can point a finger at God and say you tempted me, you created evil

God allowed evil and let us experience it so that we could love him more deeply. If God would have just put me in heaven with him. I would love him, but because of my great love for him, I would never believe that I could forsake him, that I could reject him, that I would chose my pleasure over his righteousness. Because God our Father allowed evil to come into our lives, I can see all my weaknesses and love him all the more