Does Jesus Cause Evil?

[Haven]

On another thread, a Christian said:

. . . Jesus makes it clear that He is in total control of the Universe.

If Jesus is in total control of the universe, then he is also in total control of every grisly murder, brutal rape, life-destroying terrorist attack, and pestilential genocide. He causes every natural disaster, every agonizing illness, every killer pandemic, every child's death from cancer, every elderly person's suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He personally abuses every victimized child, tortures every innocent victim, and declares every miscarriage of justice.

If Jesus is in "total control of everything," then it logically follows that he is obviously the most abhorrent entity ever to exist.

Debate question: Is Jesus in "total control of the universe?" Does Jesus cause (what most would consider) evil? If he does cause evil, wouldn't that make him abhorrent? Why worship such a god?

[connermt]

On another thread, a Christian said:

. . . Jesus makes it clear that He is in total control of the Universe.

If Jesus is in total control of the universe, then he is also in total control of every grisly murder, brutal rape, life-destroying terrorist attack, and pestilential genocide. He causes every natural disaster, every agonizing illness, every killer pandemic, every child's death from cancer, every elderly person's suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He personally abuses every victimized child, tortures every innocent victim, and declares every miscarriage of justice.

If Jesus is in "total control of everything," then it logically follows that he is obviously the most abhorrent entity ever to exist.

Debate question: Is Jesus in "total control of the universe?" Does Jesus cause (what most would consider) evil? If he does cause evil, wouldn't that make him abhorrent? Why worship such a god?

Now now now....we all know there are multiple explanations for each individual sect of christianity:
Jesus is in control of everything EXCEPT bad things
Jesus is in control of everything including bad things, but the bad things happen because we, as a species/race, jacked up god's plan by sinning so it's our fault
Jesus is not in control of everything - god is.
Etc
Etc
Etc

It seems that, for many believers, their deity is 'great, wonderful, everything good' when it benefits their beliefs, and not when it doesn't.
Seems pretty simple really - not sure why we're making it so hard

[Ooberman]

Christianity took over polytheistic religions, but not polytheists. For some, Jesus is the Love God, for some he's a wrathful god, a judge, a maker, destroyer, etc.
People still practice religion the same as our ancestors living in caves: they anthropomorphize love, goodness, justice, etc., they seek patterns in chaos and try to explain those patterns as best they can.

When their only education is a religious text, they try to explain it by the rules in the text. Most people dont even read or study the text, they only listen to the stories, like most people only watch tv shows and dont investigate the claims.

Of the paltry few people who study the texts in depth, they are usually extremely religious and are motivated to prove what the believe (and unlike science, the bible doesnt try to get them to question, but tries to reinforce).

Still, there is a large percentage of people who study the religious texts and see them for what they are and drop their religious beliefs.

[ttruscott]

...

Debate question: Is Jesus in "total control of the universe?"

Perhaps, but if not Him then the Trinity as a whole which is the same thing.

Does Jesus cause (what most would consider) evil?

No sir, GOD in unity or in separate Persons does not cause or create evil. All evil was caused / created by the free will decision of the creature to go against the revealed standards of good and evil of GOD.

The righteous (that is, not evil) judgments against the self created 'eternally evil people' and the punishments of the (temporarily) evil people used to encourage them to repent and be holy has nothing to do with the creation of evil.

In other words, causing suffering ≠ causing evil.

I like this methodology of asking questions to make us think about our understanding of the nature of GOD and good and evil rather than setting up contrary contentions as straw-man definitions of Christianity that are blatantly false, that is, not Christian. Reps to you,

Peace, Ted

[Ooberman]

All evil was caused / created by the free will decision of the creature to go against the revealed standards of good and evil of GOD.

Isaiah 45:7 disagrees, sir.

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


And, while I'm expecting standard apologetics (so don't bother), the deeper point is that God would have created Free Will and creatures able to create evil - thus creating Evil.

That is, if God didn't create the Universe and Humans, there wouldn't be Evil - correct?

[instantc]

Does Jesus cause (what most would consider) evil? If he does cause evil, wouldn't that make him abhorrent? Why worship such a god?[/i]

Causation is a complicated doctrine. Just because A caused X (in the sense that A's action stands somewhere in the causal chain that results in X) doesn't mean that A is responsible for X, even if A could predict the consequences. In the court of law, the judge is often looking for the so called proximate cause, which is the last voluntary action that can sufficiently account for the result. The proximate cause will then be considered to be what actually caused the result in the legal sense. Humans are the proximate cause of most of the evil taking place on earth. Additionally, blameworthiness must be established independently of causation.

[1213]

Debate question: Is Jesus in "total control of the universe?" Does Jesus cause (what most would consider) evil? If he does cause evil, wouldn't that make him abhorrent? Why worship such a god?

Would the one and only true God tell that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him?

Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
Matt. 28:18

Jesus has not all power because God is not under him:

For, "He put all things in subjection under his feet." But when he says, "All things are put in subjection," it is evident that he is excepted who subjected all things to him.
1 Cor. 15:27

I think Jesus doesn’t cause evil. People cause. And that happens because God and Jesus have allowed it. However nothing evil can destroy anyone’s soul. That is why evil in this lesson world is not real problem.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matt. 10:28

[Korah]

[Replying to post 5 by Ooberman]


I would have expected that commentary on a Post submitted by ttruscott would have gotten us farther than this by now.
Is anyone here aware that the First Council of Nicaea did not yet have the phrase added in 381 A. D., "and of all things visible and invisible". Similarly the Apostles' Creed "Maker of heaven and earth" was absent from the Old Roman Creed. We see that in the very earliest forms of these two creeds that the Gnostic concept was still allowed for, that Our Lord Jesus Christ was not the primordial creator of worldly stuff (like stars, planets, and possibly non-human but sentient intelligent beings). Thus it is open for Christians taking umbrage with, or sophisticated interpretation of, the two main creeds, to hold that the Universe we live in came about without the involvement of the God we worship.

Nevertheless, even clever manipulations of these two creeds does not solve the problem of evil unless our God (not the Creator Demigod) has entered into this Universe as a Redeemer who has chosen to work with the spoiled Creation which started almost from the first to be Evil incarnate. Our "Lord" (to henceforth distinguish between a Deist's concept of a Demigod Creator "God" and the Entity we Christians worship) allows us imperfect spirits (from worlds long ago before our present life incarnated among Homo sapiens sapiens) to have pre-existed even before our present cycle of reincarnations as humans. Our Jesus is not to blame for the evil and suffering we started in and brought ever "worser" (cuter than "more worse") in primordial times/places/beings/whatever. This Lord keeps offering us salvation, but most in each lifetime reject it, so we humans get "recycled" through subsequent earthly lives until we reach a "take-off" readiness to "ascend" to a higher plane of existence where we are always happy or get our jollies from directing (as "guardian angels"?) the conversion of our associates still on our plane of existence.

Wow, I got farther afield than I intended, and was not really intending to tout straight Arianism/Manichaeanism/Gnosticism or whatever I wound up with here above. Even if as an orthodox catholic Christian myself I would not necessarily subscribe to such a "statement of faith" as I presented above, nevertheless all atheists/agnostics/hard-deists out there need to dispose of the case I therein make that would do away with their favorite justification, the Problem of Evil.

I'm not saying that the traditional two Christian creeds have to be done away with, just that if the creeds as now interpreted don't help in obviating the Problem of Evil, we Christians can reinterpret them and/or prune them back by scholarly criticism.

[Ooberman]

[Replying to post 5 by Ooberman]


I would have expected that commentary on a Post submitted by ttruscott would have gotten us farther than this by now.
Is anyone here aware that the First Council of Nicaea did not yet have the phrase added in 381 A. D., "and of all things visible and invisible". Similarly the Apostles' Creed "Maker of heaven and earth" was absent from the Old Roman Creed. We see that in the very earliest forms of these two creeds that the Gnostic concept was still allowed for, that Our Lord Jesus Christ was not the primordial creator of worldly stuff (like stars, planets, and possibly non-human but sentient intelligent beings). Thus it is open for Christians taking umbrage with, or sophisticated interpretation of, the two main creeds, to hold that the Universe we live in came about without the involvement of the God we worship.

Nevertheless, even clever manipulations of these two creeds does not solve the problem of evil unless our God (not the Creator Demigod) has entered into this Universe as a Redeemer who has chosen to work with the spoiled Creation which started almost from the first to be Evil incarnate. Our "Lord" (to henceforth distinguish between a Deist's concept of a Demigod Creator "God" and the Entity we Christians worship) allows us imperfect spirits (from worlds long ago before our present life incarnated among Homo sapiens sapiens) to have pre-existed even before our present cycle of reincarnations as humans. Our Jesus is not to blame for the evil and suffering we started in and brought ever "worser" (cuter than "more worse") in primordial times/places/beings/whatever. This Lord keeps offering us salvation, but most in each lifetime reject it, so we humans get "recycled" through subsequent earthly lives until we reach a "take-off" readiness to "ascend" to a higher plane of existence where we are always happy or get our jollies from directing (as "guardian angels"?) the conversion of our associates still on our plane of existence.

Wow, I got farther afield than I intended, and was not really intending to tout straight Arianism/Manichaeanism/Gnosticism or whatever I wound up with here above. Even if as an orthodox catholic Christian myself I would not necessarily subscribe to such a "statement of faith" as I presented above, nevertheless all atheists/agnostics/hard-deists out there need to dispose of the case I therein make that would do away with their favorite justification, the Problem of Evil.

I'm not saying that the traditional two Christian creeds have to be done away with, just that if the creeds as now interpreted don't help in obviating the Problem of Evil, we Christians can reinterpret them and/or prune them back by scholarly criticism.

In the end, we really are just dealing with different theologies written by dudes who had no better idea whether they were more right than the next guy.

Myth making is a complicated process and it's never clean. There are always contradictions that develop into a type of koan: something to meditate over.

Does Jesus cause Evil? No. Jesus is dead, but if you are asking if the Christian religion claims he does - then it's up to interpretation. Whatever you want Jesus to do, he'll do, simply find a verse to manipulate for your purposes.

It really doesn't matter - it's all made up anyhow.

[Korah]

[Replying to post 9 by Ooberman]
Wellllllll, Oo,
If that's what you think, why read anything here or post? At least the anti- guys here have demons to exorcize, so they have to lay hands on us benighted Christians....