Can any of you defend the biblical ideas of God being all controlling and all powerful yet all good considering the world in which we live?
Can any of you defend the biblical ideas of God being all controlling and all powerful yet all good considering the...
Read the book of Job
...
Can you just explain what I'd learn from Job?
this is known as the problem of evil, and it's solved by free will & sin.
two words: felix culpa
I mean, you can READ it.
But I'll do you one better.
Here is another video, but longer and more in depth
How Satan’s chief role is to accuse God of being evil, and to convince humans to accuse God of being evil.
Couldn't be completely because there is natural evil which is evil regardless of anyone, other than God's, will.
It sounds like you're not actually answering my question but you're telling me to be content with evil without any reason to be except that it will go by more easily. Is that correct?
that's from living in a fallen world.
Natural evil is permitted by God because of human evil. They can’t be separated.
No you should despise evil. Evil should cause you to want to repent and rid yourself and your surroundings of evil.
And has nothing to do with the free will you don't have if this verse is correct: Ecclesiastes 3:1 Everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses.
Tell me why the God who can do anything can't separate two things.
Is it?
If natural evil isn't what God fights against then what does he fight against? Is it what he does not want?
I'm no expert in theology, but afaik only rational creatures (men and demons) are capable of evil acts.
He can, but why would He?
Yeah. Unless you life suffering in which case no. :P
God doesn’t “fight” evil, the fight was already won on the cross. The struggle against human is human’s struggle, not God’s. God has never “struggled” except on the cross.
Fallen angels cause natural disasters, yes.
Ugh typos.
*Unless you LIKE evil
**The struggle against EVIL is a human struggle
Natural disasters are evil?
“The Problem of Evil” is just another word for “the problem of suffering.”
Because we (on this board) have answered this question so many times it's a meme at this point.
Everything that happens happens for a reason.
Like the Roman persecution of Christianity.
Is it terrible that so many christians were killed by the hands of Rome? Yes
But in the end it is Rome that ends up converting.
The whole point of the book of Job is that bad things happen to good people, but we shouldn't allow those things to come in between us and God. For God will always hear our suffering and be by our sides.
Look at Job, he lost his family and farm, yet he didn't abandon God. In return, God gave him back everything 10 fold over time.
God gives you trials in this life because, like a striking a hot iron, it makes you a better person.
If you want anyone to blame for the state of the modern world, blame yourself first for you are complicit in it.
It would benefit us. Why am I supposed to believe he cares about us if he doesn't do something like this that would greatly benefit us (and quite possibly him)?
A fight is not won if it is not over.
LOL
Satan is definitively defeated. The onus is now on us to cooperate with grace, thereby purging evil from our midst. This is only possible because of what Christ has done.
So God does not care about our suffering? Why even kill his son then?
God cares about our suffering but He “benefits” more in the long run by raising wise children who are resilient strong and wise and purged of their sin by the fire. Through suffering, God progressively reveals the mystery of iniquity, which is the most wonderful mystery of all. Have faith.
Because the LORD your God is a just God, who needs to punish us for being sinful.
This. He told us not to do certain things, but we did it anyways. Now we face the consequences of our actions
What specifically did he tell us to do that we’re ignoring?
But evil and suffering are different things.
Also whatever happened to Jesus paying the FULL price of sin in order to satisfy God’s holy sense of justice?
How are they different?
How are they equal?
Protip: If the world was utterly free of suffering, the Problem of Evil would never have been formulated, because if Evil didn’t cause suffering then it wouldn’t be a Problem. But it does and so it is.
I agree with you to the extent that because of Jesus’ work on the cross, the Problem of Evil doesn’t really exist (it’s a Satanic ploy to make people doubt God) so that the only real problem anymore is sin.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. Love your neighbour as yourself. The two great commandments. You (as everyone else) have not kept them. Perhaps we can look at the 10 Commandments as the perfect summation of God's Moral Law (Exodus 20)?
1. Thous shalt have no other gods before me. Have you ever idolised anything above God? Fashioned a god of your own liking?
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. Similar to above, how many times have you whored after the idols in your heart?
3. Thou shalt no take the name of the LORD thy God in vain. How many times have you used God's holy name as a curse word? Any OMG's, or blaspheming the name of Jesus?
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Have you given God a day out of every seven?
5. Honour thy father and thy mother. Were you ever disobedient as a child? Did you always honour and submit to your parents?
6. Thou shalt not kill. Jesus says that if you have hatred towards a man, it is as if you have murdered that man in your heart. Ever hated someone? Been so angry at them? As you were driving and they cut you off, maybe you, just for an instance, were filled with anger at that person?
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Jesus says that to look with lust is to commit adultery with that person in your heart. Every done that?
8. Thou shalt not steal. Ever stolen anything? It doesn't matter how long ago, or how big or small. One murder makes you a murderer, one theft makes you a thief.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. How many lies have you ever told? An uncountable number I imagine. One lie makes you a liar, and 'all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire' (Rev 21.8).
10. Thou shall not covet. Have you ever coveted after and desired something that wasn't yours? If you live in the west you absolutely have.
So there's 2 great commandments. And then the 10 commandments. How many have you broken? But it only takes one broken law to make you a criminal. If you break one law, you have violated the entire Law, and are guilty in the eyes of God.
Anytime we sin, we ignore His commands- do not lust, lie, and steal being examples that, chances are, all of us have committed (especially that 1st one, seeing as we’re on an image board).
God dying on the cross was that full price. If He didn’t for that way we’d go to hell seeing as we can’t exactly sacrifice animals for every sin we commit in this day and age
I stole a Bible from a Catholic monastery once. Buggers deserves it though. I knew the answer to the question, I was just playing Devil’s advocate for the sake of other Anons reading that may be new to the faith)
I know all that, but to the questioning Christian it doesn’t really explain why we are still feeling God’s wrath on Earth if God’s full wrath was poured out and satisfied on Jesus.
Lol they probably don't mind. Glad you understand though.
Holy trips checked. I still don’t fully understand the other question which I posted here and here though. Can a more theologically literate user kindly explain? If not I will be forced to email my pastoral advisor.
I think you're confusing the wrath of God against sin (in the form of eternal suffering and punishment) with the fallen and cursed world we live in today. Ultimately God is not the cause of suffering or sin, but He permits it for His purposes. The way I like to describe it, is that God sinlessley uses sin to accomplish His perfect will. For example, He might allow the devil or another person or even just bad circumstances to make your life difficult or even painful, so that you may be rebuked for unrepentant sin. God chastises His children like a loving father.
The world is full of sin and suffering because the world is full of sinful and evil humans. Ever since the fall, humanity has been plagued by sin, driving our minds and desires away from the things of God. We are servants of our master the Devil (before we are saved and given a new heart to follow Christ). The Bible says the all of creation is groaning in wait for the day when God will restore creation to its pre-fallen state. But until that day, this world is still fallen.
On the cross, God poured out the wrath on Christ that He would have poured out on you for all eternity. He didn't sin and suffering; He will do that at His second coming, when this world will be done away with, and the redeemed will enjoy God forever in the new heavens and new earth. It is in that place where there will be no sin or suffering.
On the cross the work for your salvation was fully completed. If you are in Christ, He has borne God's wrath for your sin, and He has given you His righteousness so that you may enter the presence of God (upon your death). Justice has been satisfied so that when you stand before the Throne, you will be spotless. But we're not there yet. Believe me, no matter how hard life may be right now, you are not experiencing the wrath of God in full as you would be in hell.
this, and understand the concept of Original Sin
man's fallen nature precludes man and his world from perfection, because we have fallen from God whom IS perfection
The world we live in is probably the best of all possible worlds, it could have been stretched to be better in some respect, but at what kind of cost? Really it is not yours to reason why, this is why the anons here are asking you to read the book of Job. At the end of it, God challenges Job to tell him where the foundations of the earth have been laid. His reason for doing so was that everything has a purpose, even if it is not immediately transparent what that purpose is.
why does God hates cartoons so much though?
anti-christian themes
but that's the whole point of fantasy?
to be anti-Christ?
True. Enough said.
May He come speedily in our days!
God permits evil because it is in His nature to be good and also allow human beings free will.
We live in a fallen world but there is still beauty in it if you know where to look. The consequences of the fall is the corruption you see today in man.
anti-reality as a whole yes, that means no Jesus, no Biblical god, magic, creatures, aliens, etc. Anything goes. Notice how cartoons never knowledge Jesus in Christmas episodes, and they have their own set of rules of what is bad and what is good in their made up worlds.
Ugh I wish. some of the things people are saying these days, such as the blasphemous Lord's Super except instead of eating they are all performing homosexual acts on each other. 'Oh we just want to start a conversation :)'. How wicked. If you had said 30 years ago that would happen, we would have said 'no, the Lord will return before then!'. Yet here we are, His patience truly is great. Polite sage for off-topic.
That usually doesn't help
Slamming "read this" in general never helps.
Only God is Good.
Because we still sin. It’s forgiven, but we still get punished for the bad things we do
Some quotes from Augustine in De Civitate Dei - Book I, Chapter VIII:
Of the Advantages and Disadvantages Which Often Indiscriminately Accrue to Good and Wicked Men.
"But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer."
"For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness."
" For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked."