What type of design is this?

[OnceConvinced]

Presuming God is real and presuming demons and Satan is real...

Presuming God created them as angels and then the ones that rebelled became the demons, let by Satan himself. These fallen angels became so corrupt that they became completely evil, with no redeeming features at all.

So God created these beings and for whatever reason they became pure evil. Yet God, even if he didn't know for sure, had a good idea they would become that way. Yet he created them anyway, knowing they would be come corrupted and turn against him.

Or maybe he had no idea at all? Maybe their corruption was a complete surprise to him?

The thing is for them to become corrupt, they must have been designed in such a way that would allow them to become corrupt.

So....
What sort of design would this be?

Malevolent?
Incompetent?
Intelligent?

Please justify your answer.

[ttruscott]

Presuming God is real and presuming demons and Satan is real...


So....
What sort of design would this be?

Malevolent?

Hardly. GOD is the great warrior against evil. Wet cannot be dry. Evil cannot be good. Good cannot create evil.

Incompetent?

GOD is the creator of all. HIS competence is within the definition of GOD.

Intelligent?

From a pov of hostility to the Christian religion this question would imply that there is no reasonable or intelligent way a benevolent GOD can allow evil to exist within HIS creation. Once again into the breach my friends... a longish essay to deal with a deep question.

The logical and reasonable allowance of evil by a benevolent GOD:
1. SINCE we were created to become marriage partners with the Trinity in a loving heavenly state, it is a logical and absolute necessity that we be
- created in HIS image ie, as proper marriage partners, not pets
- created with free will as no real marriage can be forced upon anyone nor can true love be forced
- be allowed the ability and the opportunity to accept HIS offer of marriage with attenuating conditions and rules OR to reject the offer of marriage because we disbelieve the conditions and rules were proper.

2. All of creation was thereby separated into (A. those who accepted HIS marriage proposal, putting their faith in HIS Deity and in HIS Son as the saviour from any sin they might fall into, thus becoming HIS elect, HIS chosen, promised to heaven and

(B. those who rejected HIS marriage offer, putting their faith in the idea that HE was a false god and a liar driven by the evil impulse to manipulate innocents to worship him, thereby sinning the unforgivable sin, putting themselves beyond HIS mercy and goodness forever, outside of HIS promise of salvation found in the Son. These folk were forever unable to fulfill the purpose of HIS creation of them.

3. Since the communion of the heavenly state was a perfect telepathic loving communion, emotionally fulfilling with full communication between everyone in the heavenly marriage, any discord with the link would be felt reverberating across the whole of heaven deep within everyone's minds.

The nature of the evil of the satanic is that they would never stop trying to corrupt the good moral nature of HIS Family as expressed by the Biblical adage, a little leaven (sin) leavens (corrupts) the whole lump (person, city, nation, world, reality), therefore it was an absolute logical necessity that these eternally sinful ones, the reprobate not-elect, be banished from the reality contained by the heavenly marriage to outside that reality called the outer darkness.

4. The first order of a perfectly good moral person upon the self creation of eternal evil in some people by their free will decision to reject YHWH's claims to be our GOD and to become HIS eternal enemy is to banish them to the outer darkness. But a decree by fiat to banish all sinners not in accord with HIS will to the outer darkness would also banish any elect who had decided to side with the reprobate against the judgement (which would destroy HIS promise of HIS marriage with them), so HE first called for all HIS elect to come out from among the reprobate in their hearts, to accept HIS call for judgement above their love for their evil friends, so the judgement could proceed.

Some elect did side with the Satanic reprobate, became sinful themsleves losing their faith in HIM and needing the redemption as found in HIS Son to be brought back to faith.

This forced the postponement of the judgment day so HE created the physical universe and the earth as a prison planet for all sinful spirits. HE then caused all sinner sof both types (elect, good but sinful seed) and the non-elect (reprobate tres) to live together for the edification of HIS sinful elect until they can be redeemed and brought to holiness and the judgement day may commence, cleansing this reality from all evil and establishing the telepathic link of heaven in everyone.

Thus is the absolute necessity of evil being allowed established once it has been created by the free will decision of some to reject their GOD, at least until the least sinful elect repents fully and the judgment day occurs.

[ttruscott]

God loves all, unlike humans, who usually love only those who are beneficial for them.

Not quite:

Malachi 1:3 "but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.�

Of course what will follow will be ...

What follows is that GOD did at one time love all equally but their decision to go against HIS warnings of the natural and onerous consequences of choosing to reject HIS deity brought them under HIS HATE and so it went.

But even though HE abhors (worse than hate) the wicked, HE still treats them the most lovingly HE can, sending the rain and the sun to shine upon them though they are outside of HIS loving kindness by their own free will choice.

[Clownboat]

Hardly. GOD is the great warrior against evil. Wet cannot be dry. Evil cannot be good. Good cannot create evil.

This is meaningless church speak. Not to mention an empty premises.

Incompetent?

GOD is the creator of all. HIS competence is within the definition of GOD.

More empty platitudes.... Oh hum.
Can you show that you speak the truth?

Intelligent?

From a pov of hostility to the Christian religion this question would imply that there is no reasonable or intelligent way a benevolent GOD can allow evil to exist within HIS creation.

No hostility to Christianity is required to think this.

The logical and reasonable allowance of evil by a benevolent GOD:
1. SINCE we were created to become marriage partners with the Trinity

Uh.......
So... hard... to... keep... reading...
Have a good one.

[ttruscott]

According to Christianity the Christian God couldn't even create so much as a single solitary human who was perfect. That's a 100% failure rate as a creator.

So you seem to be overlooking the fact that the Christian God cannot be said to be perfect since he can't even create a perfect human.

This must surely be incompetent design.

As a Christian, I find the argument that GOD cannot but create, can only create, a flawed creation is wrongly decided for the implication you folk have pointed out.

I think everyone created in HIS image was created perfect, ie, perfectly able to fulfill the reason for their creation, ie, to decide if they wanted to marry their GOD or not.

That those who decided they didn't like the idea of marriage to what they decided was a false god, created evil in HIS perfect creation by their free will DOES NOT INDICATE THAT THE ORIGINAL CREATION WAS FLAWED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER ! since a free will, free to reject GOD and so create evil, is an absolute necessity to the fulfillment of HIS purpose for our creation.

[ttruscott]

He also created them with a human nature, giving them urges, which he himself deemed sinful, knowing full well that they would act on those urges. Why give those urges if they are so bad?

Some Christian theologies fly in the face of scripture and HIS revealed attributes and believe this but I contend it to be false. We were instead created ingeniously innocent with a free will, that is, able to choose to go either way.

HIS purpose was a loving marriage with us and no forced marriage is 'real' and neither can true love be forced.

HIS knowledge that some might choose to reject HIS offer does in no way mitigate the proper and morally good creation that was designed to fulfill that purpose by the free will decision of that creation.

[ttruscott]

Satan is also very intelligent but he did evil and rebelled against God. Do you actually consider it an intelligent thing to rebel against God? Or a stupid/incompetent thing?

No intelligent person would rebel against a proven GOD. The fact Satan rebelled is all the proof we need of two things: 1. he had a free will 2. he did not know yet the proof of YHWH's deity but chose to rebel from an understanding of the gospel that YHWH was our GOD and our LORD, ie, HIS morals were the standard for all goodness etc.

He chose to believe without proof except HIS claims that YHWH was a false god who had made up a pretty good gig, ie, to convince all of creation that he was god and we should all worship him. So convinced was he that he was right in rejecting HIM that he did not even avail himself of the method the sinful elect choose, that is, to make themselves safe from hell by accepting HIM as their GOD and HIS Son as their saviour if ever they so needed, and then going their own way in rebellion to HIM! NO, that way was too wussy for him and beneath the strength of his commitment against the most evil person in all creation, YHWH. He convinced some few that this was the way to go...

No one had any definitive proof of HIS Divinity and power until HE created the physical universe right before our eyes and we all bent our knee and sang HIS promise, Job 38:7 and became without excuse, Rom 1:20, after we had all chosen our eternal relationship to YHWH as our GOD or as our eternal enemy.

[ttruscott]

Murder is also crime in the Bible and there is judgment for that. But attempting something is not same as murder and perhaps is not enough for judgement, especially because we may not really know what people are attempting....

Perhaps Matt 5:27“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. sheds light on this matter...

[1213]

…What would you call that if not incompetence on God’s part? If God had not been incompetent, then he would have known that at least there would be a strong likelihood his angels would rebel and mess things up completely. But what does that then make him for not adjusting his design to prevent that from happening? We’d call it evil, just as we’d call a software developer who deliberately left fatal flaws in his software that he knew would be harmful to the user.

why do you think they have messed up things completely? Heaven, or God’s Kingdom is intact, there is no problem there, only in this first death we have evil things so that we can learn.

Then you go against bible teachings which tell us that committing evil is foolishness.

Yeah, it is foolish. But Intelligent person can make foolish things even worse than extremely stupid person.

Please try to remain on topic. We’re not talking about human beings here. We’re talking about God's creations of angels who fell and became demons. How can a god who created angels that could become so corrupted and mess with his creation in such a huge way not be considered either malevolent or incompetent?

I think that is the problem here. Your question is based on strawman argument basically. You take from the Bible idea of corrupted angels, but nothing else, so that you can show you are correct with your claim. I think that is very dishonest. But I understand it works well for you. and with atheistic point of view and by ignoring most of the Bible, you are right.

In Biblical point of view, this is not the real life, but death and only a short lesson about good and evil. We are here to experience things, but we should not fear anything of this world, because:

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

In this “life� many bad things are possible, so that we can learn. But still, God is in control of everything and nothing of this world can destroy our soul, which is the important matter. Body is only like a vessel for soul to experience things and it can be replaced.

So, why would God allow the angels to be corrupted? It seems to me that the reason is that they can show people what evil truly means, because after all, people wanted to know evil. Nice thing is that the lesson is only short and nothing of this can destroy soul. The corrupted ones can’t really mess up anything meaningful.

I think this lesson is good, all though it can be painful. And it is good also because it gives us freedom. And freedom is good, even if it means some will chose evil.

…Incompetent Design?
Malevolent Design?
Benevolent Design?

Benevolent, if you understand the world as explained in the Bible. Malevolent, if you cherry pick suitable parts from the Bible to atheistic world view, where this “life� is only thing.

[bluethread]

Why the inability to address the creation of angels and how they became evil?

Because, there is not sufficient information in the Scriptures. Most of what people say in that regard is derived doctrine. Therefore, I simply evaluate what is presented to me.

Your god concept should not have allowed this. Can you show that I am wrong and that it should have created angels which it then allowed to become evil, rebel and corrupt?

Why should rebellious malakai( royal messangers) not have been created? I can not establish the necessity of rebellius malacai. I merely suggest that for them to not have been intelligently designed, one whould have to determine the purpose of their design. Of that I am not exactly sure, are you?

This is one of those questions I was struggling with before I was freed from my faith. To this day, I have yet to hear a working explanation. You now dance around this scenario like I once did.

I don't know how you dance. However, struggling with concepts is part of the human experience. There are many things in this life for which I have no working explanation. However, even though I have no working explanation of how electricity actually works, that does not stop me from flipping the switch and turning on the light.

On top off all of this we hear many Christians say that a god cannot make himself known, or that would supersede our free will. This is obviously false as Lucifer and the angels knew this god and still chose to rebel. (Just more illogic in the story).

You would have to talk to them about that. I do not make that arguement. Adonai apears to have made Himself known to many people throughout the ages.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 61 by ttruscott]

GOD is the great warrior against evil.

Laughable. Can you show anything that God has demonstrably done to fight evil? An omnipotent being who can't even overcome lesser beings who are the source of evil is hardly a warrior. Beside that, what sort of benevolent God is it that one third of the angels would express their dissatisfaction and side with a rebel who thought he could be a better deity? Heaven was clearly not the realm of love and bliss that believers paint it to be.

GOD is the creator of all. HIS competence is within the definition of GOD.

The problem is that God is only a defined being. He is like a giant whiteboard. Over time humans have added countless attributes that this God should have, but none of those have been attributes that God demonstrably does have.

The logical and reasonable allowance of evil by a benevolent GOD: ..............

Interesting rhetoric, but hardly a logical or reasonable allowance of evil. What fails if God removes Satan and his minions from the scene? Do you allow a serial killer that you can apprehend to remain on the loose on the off chance that some peripheral good might emerge? Are the victims nothing more than pawns with no right to be protected from harm?