Who created evil spirits!

[DanieltheDragon]

Who created evil spirits, the snake, the devil, and various other malevolent forces?

Why would such a being create such things?

[Claire Evans]

[Replying to post 2 by tam]

Even if they weren't created evil, wouldn't God have known they would become evil? Doesn't God know the future? And yet He still chose to create them.

But who am I to judge. Humans can and have proven on many occasion to be just as evil as the demonic creatures we fear. To argue that those creatures should never have been given a chance at existence is to argue that humankind should have never been given a chance either.

Just because you CAN whistle, do you whistle all the time? God CAN know the future, but sometimes CHOOSES to not know. Just think how boring it would be to Jehovah to already know the turnout of every little thing from creation to endless time?

Good observation about giving a chance to angels and humans.

What? Where on earth do you get the idea from that God chooses not to know things? If God is to guide us in this life then He must know the future. It would be selfish for God to choose not to know the future because it would be boring for Him. He puts us first. And you are also thinking of time that is linear that is bound to our dimension. The believe the past, future and present are all happening at once.

[ttruscott]

Fair comments, but don't you think that a God would have a really good idea of what evil that being would ultimately do? He knows us better than we know ourselves right?

If I knew that my future child was most likely going to be a psychopath I would choose not to conceive it.

This is the exact same reason I discredit the definition of omniscience as knowing everything that can be known from eternity past...it makes HIM responsible for everyone in hell because all HE had to do to keep hell empty was to not create them. Therefore since HE did create them HE must not have known the results of their free will decisions. Period.

When every reference to what HE knows is to something HE has created, it is concerning to speculate about what HE knows about what HE did not create. But I know once HE created, HE knew all the possibilities of what could be chosen by those HE created before they chose because we know that the Lamb was chosen to answer sin before there was any sin, so HE does plan ahead.

To give us free will (without creating the results of our free will decisions) to enable us to truly love and to enter a true marriage with HIM and each other, IS to open reality to the misuse of that free will by choosing what we were told was evil which carried dire natural consequences for the person.

So the question really asks, do we think the possibility of such evil outweighs the good from the possibility of true love and the marriage communion? This is the decision Christians think GOD made when HE created us with a free will. There are people on this forum who claim they think that if there is a GOD who decided that then HE made a mistake as nothing is worth the possibility of suffering under evil.

I disagree and though not probable, it is possible that no one might accept HIS deity and HIS whole creation would end in hell, a possibility balanced by the other possibility that 100% of HIS creation might choose to accept HIS deity and then the heavenly communion of marriage would have started at that very moment and hell would have remained as an uncreated non-reality.

[McCulloch]

Who created evil spirits, the snake, the devil, and various other malevolent forces?

Why would such a being create such things?

They weren't created. They just are. Good and evil both existed from the start.

You're confusing me. To you, God is not the only uncreated being? God didn't create the entire universe, but there are some things, malevolent things, in the universe that are like God eternal.

[ttruscott]

They weren't created evil, and I see nothing to suggest that they were created evil. They caused harm and 'became' evil by what they chose to do, beginning with the Adversary (the one called Satan, the devil, who was the serpent/seraph in the Garden of Eden).


Peace to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

If they weren't created evil, then why did Jesus say...

"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." ?

According to the belief in our pre-earth existence, the beginning refers not to his beginning but to the beginning of the physical universe well after he chose to be the first sinner and became The Satan. Job 38:7 proves the sons of God were there at the creation of the physical universe with the morning stars and all bowed to HIS divinity and glory at that event.

The devil could never have become evil because in order to be evil means that evil must already have existed.

This is not logical. All that was necessary was to have everyone created in HIS image to be ingenuously innocent and to have a free, uncoerced, non-constrained will and the possibility that evil was possible.

What made the devil have evil thoughts? How did he get tempted. We do evil because we are flawed and have the propensity to do evil. Therefore in order to do evil, Satan must have been created flawed with the propensity to do evil.

Society had grown in their innocence to the point of sophistication that the Trinity could make a public claim without proof to be our creator GOD and that we should make a decision to accept that claim or to deny it by faith, without proof. Acceptance came with various promises; rejection came with various warnings. Innocence is an amoral position until it is tested. If an innocent makes a righteous moral decision, she becomes good. If an innocent makes an unrighteous moral decision, he becomes bad. Morality is found in the decisions we make about the things we experience and whether those decisions conform to GOD or do not.

The Bible seems to hint that satan fell over arrogance and the desire to put himself above GOD. If this is true then he was miffed that some he knew as ordinary would suddenly say They were above him. He recognized the fact that if they were lying that that would make them as the first liars in reality and therefore the lowest of the low. This represented for him the point of view of the greatest happiness for his life so he took it on faith that YHWH was a liar and a false god.

But whatever the actual process was within his mind, it is my contention that nothing in his creation and nothing in his experience FORCED him to put his faith into believing YHWH was a false god, but that he chose to go that route by his free will. We are tempted by our desires James 1:14 But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. Since there might be references to his pride in life and his accomplishments, these feelings may have been nurtured by him until he desired to believe he was the best in all creation only to have his hopes threatened when YHWH made the claim to deity.

Without any real proof as to what happened this is one answer that at least is plausible to answer your contention he was eternally evil or he could not become evil. Neither did GOD create us flawed leading to our sin because HE is light and dark (flaws leading to sin) does not come out of light. Our flaws are because of our choice to sin, not the cause of our choice to sin.

Why would God create the devil with the propensity to do evil knowing full well what the devil would do?

I agree. GOD would not create Satan knowing his evil and his end in hell. But the answer lies, not in his eternal evil, but in the pagan worldly definition of that which GOD knows and I contend that Acts 15:18 implies that if GOD did not create the results of our free will decisions then HE did not know those results until we made the decision for ourselves and HE learned them then when each innocent person made their first moral decision.

[ttruscott]

What? Where on earth do you get the idea from that God chooses not to know things? If God is to guide us in this life then He must know the future.

I contend that Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Implies that if HE did not create the results of our true free will decisions as one of HIS works, then HE did not know them until we chose them. Since some were created who will end in hell, it is obvious HE didn't know their end or HE would not have created them and the end HE did not know was within their free will decisions HE did not create.

HIS knowing all our lives here on earth is because HE predetermined our lives (not our fate) to conform to our pre-earth decisions to be sinful so as to fulfill HIS promise to us to save us from any and all future sin, a promise given when HE elected us to be HIS Bride before we sinned.

And you are also thinking of time that is linear that is bound to our dimension. The believe the past, future and present are all happening at once.

How GOD experiences time is moot - HE definitely deals with HIS creation in time with if-then sequences. AS for the proof of such a contention about how GOD experiences time, how do you know; what brings you to believe this is the truth?

[ttruscott]

Who created evil spirits, the snake, the devil, and various other malevolent forces?

Why would such a being create such things?

They weren't created. They just are. Good and evil both existed from the start.

You're confusing me. To you, God is not the only uncreated being? God didn't create the entire universe, but there are some things, malevolent things, in the universe that are like God eternal.

Sometimes called Dualism, it is found in different forms throughout religious thinking. Some have affirmed the existence of two eternal principles, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, locked in permanent conflict (Dualism, Manichaeism). According to some of these conceptions, the world (at least the physical world) is evil, the product of a fall, and is thus to be rejected or left behind (Gnosticism). Some admit that the world was made by God, but as by a watch-maker who, once he has made a watch, abandons it to itself (Deism).

Manichaeism: a dualistic religious system with Christian, Gnostic, and pagan elements, founded in Persia in the 3rd century by Manes (circa 216– circa 276). The system was based on a supposed primeval [eternal] conflict between light and darkness. It spread widely in the Roman Empire and in Asia, and survived in eastern Turkestan until the 13th century. An example of religious or philosophical dualism.

[JehovahsWitness]

Who created evil spirits, the snake, the devil, and various other malevolent forces?

Why would such a being create such things?

Who gives birth to thieves? How many doctors announce to a woman that has just given birth, "I'm sorry you haven't given birth to a baby, you've given birth to a thief"?

The question is as reasonable as the doctor asking the woman: Why would such a woman as you have a thief instead of a baby?

[Claire Evans]

Who created evil spirits, the snake, the devil, and various other malevolent forces?

Why would such a being create such things?

They weren't created. They just are. Good and evil both existed from the start.

You're confusing me. To you, God is not the only uncreated being? God didn't create the entire universe, but there are some things, malevolent things, in the universe that are like God eternal.

There are malevolent things that are omniscient and omnipresent like God but are not eternal because of being defeated by Christ. That is what I believe.

[McCulloch]

Who created evil spirits, the snake, the devil, and various other malevolent forces?
Why would such a being create such things?

They weren't created. They just are. Good and evil both existed from the start.

You're confusing me. To you, God is not the only uncreated being? God didn't create the entire universe, but there are some things, malevolent things, in the universe that are like God eternal.

There are malevolent things that are omniscient and omnipresent like God but are not eternal because of being defeated by Christ. That is what I believe.

Two questions:

1. Why do you believe this? Simply stating your belief has no value in debate. You must provide some reason that you believe this. Particularly when you disagree with the writer of Colossians 1:16

   For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.

2. If Christ has defeated them, do they still exist today? If they don't still exist, why do the New Testament writers warn against them? If they still exist, why? When Odin defeated the ice giants, they were never seen again. When Zeus defeated the Titans, they were banished, never to bother humans or gods again. Is your God weaker than the others?

[ttruscott]

If Christ has defeated them, do they still exist today? If they don't still exist, why do the New Testament writers warn against them? If they still exist, why? When Odin defeated the ice giants, they were never seen again. When Zeus defeated the Titans, they were banished, never to bother humans or gods again. Is your God weaker than the others?[/list]

imCo
YHWH is certainly not weaker but HE has made promises HE will not break.

Evil demonic spirits, those not able to be forgiven, are still existing today because we are in a time of postponement of their judgement. They are condemned but the sentence of the final judgment is in abeyance because some of the good seed, those people under the promise of heaven and able to be forgiven, chose to be evil in HIS sight (estimation) and to call for the banishment of all evil to the outer darkness would banish those under HIS promise also.

The entry of the good seed into the heavenly state as the fulfillment of the promise is open by the death of Christ. All that is necessary is that they choose to become righteous with a commitment to loving holiness so they will never choose to sin by their free will ever again. Once the last sinful elect is brought to this maturity, then and not before will all evil be swept away into the outer darkness.