Hi Longhorns87, thanks for responding and welcome to the forum! Thanks for making such well-thought out points. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), I feel that your arguments illustrate perfectly why the Biblical god character is a megalomanaical psychopath, essentially a cosmic genocidal tyrant. Let's examine this:
[color=darkorange]Longhorns87[/color] wrote:
First of all, a proper response does require a few things be cleared up (which by existing responses I am sure some would be happy to avoid). Personally I can't remember when the word 'cause' became the same word as "allow"???(I hope you can hear the bleeding sarcasm in every word of that sentence...) Cause: "a person, thing, event, state, or action that produces an effect". Allow: "to permit something to happen". Keep that in mind as you read....
The second thing that must be stated is my whole hearted agreement with the statement (minus an error which you will notice). Absolutely God (not Jesus exactly; they are different personages within the same deity (the trinity is a different debate)) does cause evil! The scripture is God-breathed and I believe it in its entirety and when it says "I am Jehovah...""...forming the light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil: I, Jehovah, do all these things" Isaiah 45:5;7, it means exactly that.
My third point, though, is where I must differ from much of what has been stated already and that is WHY and IF this is a contradiction. I will explain in a few different ways. Look at Job as an example (if one is willing to not take one scripture out of context). The book of Job and the life of Job are a perfect explanation of why I can agree with the statement but not the initiator's intent behind the statement. God, in fact, if you read the book, is the one who initiates the whole sequence of events from Chapter 1 to the end when he says "Hast thou considered my servant Job" to Satan. That, by definition, becomes the cause of what we get later on. The next thing however is that God is still in control of his allowing of things. There are countless examples of this in his saying "only upon himself put not forth thy hand""only spare his life" etc. The book of Job however also illustrates some different meanings of evil:namely, ours and God's. Job says "should we not receive evil?" after much of the initial loss of property, family, and health is caused by Satan. But his saying this clearly indicates that to man the loss of these things is evil. But my main point in saying all this and using Job as an example is to show that he is a sample-person in whom we see why God can both cause evil and be a perfect and by-nature good God. Men have many reasons and causes for evil but God only has one: that is the recognition of him in supremacy and the greater faith and glory given to him in result. He uses evil as a means to an end. This does not in any way make him evil because if one was to believe that than one must not have much understanding at all specifically of the laws of causes and effect. Those of us who can think clearly understand that there can not be an infinite number of causes and effects and the first cause in eternity was good thereby making the one to cause it good (possibly this is also another debate). He uses everything in that wonderful book which gives us a window into the life of Job to achieve a good and not evil result. Job can say things like "I know that my redeemer liveth"...according to the initial post, evil from God caused that! He says "I know that thou canst do everything, and that thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine"...apparently "evil" caused that! He says "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee:Wherefore I abhor [myself], and
repent in dust and ashes"...apparently evil caused that! Then Jehovah blesses the latter end of Job more than his beginning. This is how God can both cause evil and be good...because he is
always using it for blessing and for His glory!
There are countless other examples I could elaborate upon but Job alone illustrates my response to the question posed. It seems very straightforward for anyone who knows their Bible well enough to not simply take one verse of the entire thing and base a whole belief system on it. If it was any other book or topic this kind of thing would never stand but people are constantly taking part of one verse or section and making statements without considering the entirety of the Word of God.[/quote]
