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I'm sorry you're hurting. I know how much it can feel like the entire world isn't working right when we're heartbroken, and I pray that God will comfort you in this difficulty. Here are a few things to consider as well.
First, I would encourage you to read a book by C.S. Lewis called "The Problem of Pain". I read this after my dad passed away, and while it didn't make the pain go away, it did help to give me a different perspective on pain. It was really helpful, and I think it could be for you too. To (very briefly) sum it up, pain is a guardrail, it tells us where the boundaries in life are, and while it's unpleasant, it's often a sign that God is trying to keep us from the really bad things. You can learn from pain, if you can wrap your mind around a different perspective.
Second, if God didn't allow pain, then we would have no free will. Pain is the result of choices - ours or those made by others - that diverge from His will. But if He only ever allowed us to choose things that were in His will - and as a result, avoid pain - then we wouldn't really be free, would we?
Third, Scripture does not say that God will not give us more than we can handle. 1 Corinthians 10:13 is the often-cited justification for this belief, but it's also misquoted. It says that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability, but also that He will give us a way of escape. This doesn't mean we'll never get more than we can handle, it means that when we're overwhelmed God will provide a way out. And the usual way? Relying on Him.
Again, I hope that God will help to mend your wounded heart and help you to rely on Him through this time.
Bro be coming into r/ChristianMemes calling us cultists for acknowledging the attributes of God; cool story. Fodder for philosophy/religion class, I’d wager.
Also, I never said God was omnibenevolent; by virtue of the fact that some people were created for the ultimate purpose of spending an eternity in hell, that attribute is irreconcilable with the character of God as we know Him.
C.S. Lewis has a decent book addressing the problem of evil, if you’re so inclined.
At least CS Lewis wrestled with the concept and wrote a whole book about it. The fact that these people don't seem to learn anything from it and just wave it away as "God's Plan" is very telling of their faith.
I'm sorry to hear that you are having such trouble, I presume, through health problems. C.S. Lewis deals with this issue in his book "The Problem of Pain." We can learn from it about what to avoid, for example. It's not an end in itself, but a means to another end. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969
>When adam and eve had kids and all, they are the only humans in existence, incest must have happened
I don't think they
>After god drowned the earth and Noah survived, they are the only humans, incest must have happenedwere the only humans.
I don't think the flood was global. But that being said, I do think incest happened here (Ham and his mother / Noah's wife).
>Why aren't we all born with birth defects, and why does incest cause birth defects then?
I'm not a biologist so I won't even attempt this answer. I don't know the exact mechanism that causes birth defects.
>Why does he need to test us? He already knows the outcome
The wisest words I've ever read on this come from CS Lewis. He uses the example of God testing Abraham to sacrifice Isaac before stopping him.
“If God then is omniscient, he must have known what Abraham would do, without any experiment. Why then this needless torture?” But as St. Augustine points out, whatever God knew, Abraham at any rate did not know that his obedience would endure such a command until the event taught him: and the obedience which he did not know that he would choose, he cannot be said to have chosen. The reality of Abraham’s obedience was the act itself; and what God knew in knowing that Abraham “would obey” was Abraham’s actual obedience on that mountain top a that moment. To say that God “need not have tried the experiment” is to say that because God knows, the thing known by God need not to exist. (<em>The Problem of Pain</em>, 101)
Look you probably won't like this answer but that's such a deep and complex question that I'm not gonna try and freehand it on Reddit. Sorry. I know your point because I've held that point before so I'm going to refer you to someone who is a much better authority on that question than myself and this is the main source that delivered me from seeing human suffering the way most people naturally do:
This is the Amazon #1 Best Seller in Religious Ethics
I promise you if you read that book it will change your outlook on human pain and suffering. C.S. Lewis was an atheist because of the very issue you pose but he was able to sort it out in a brilliant manner. He later became a devout Christian and one of the best Christian intellectuals of that time. Please read this book man, it's cheap and a pretty quick read.
If you're here and you're debating these issues and you're thinking about these issues that means you have a thirst for more knowledge. People have dedicated their lives to this very question. Seek and you shall find brother.
Okay. Those points have been made time and time again throughout history. It's difficult to answer in a reddit post off the top of my head. This is a complex issue. Here's my question to you:
Are you going to hold onto those offenses you hold toward God, and then confront Him after you die? Like, how will that go? Do you think if you actually were standing in front of God (that means He's real and you're staring at Him) do you think you could make the case that He was wrong in how He handled His creation? What, could you have done a better job or something?
I'm not trying to be rude I'm just explaining to you how this won't work out for you. You will lose if you stand against God. God could easily ask you if you tried to learn His ways, if you sought after the bible and books and Youtube videos and asked questions (which you are doing now) to honestly try to learn. Seek and you will find, that's God's word. So try this instead. Read a few books written by Christians that explain the very offenses you have. Learn about it. Find the answer to it. I promise you people have given this a lot of thought and have compelling arguments for why evil exists in the world.
The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis is an excellent book and a great starting point that I promise will change how you think about this issue. Or you can spend some time on Youtube listening to different pastors and different Christians explain this topic. You'll feel better after you learn more about it, just please don't stay where you are, move forward with it.
God is there in the good times and the bad. You should thank Him for your suffering, because when you suffer, you understand His Passion better and come closer to Him. Being happy should never be the aim of faith; being the best servant you can possibly be for God should.
I'm really, really sorry to hear that all of those horrible things happened to you. If it makes it any better, I stopped believing in God and thought religion was dumb for a long time. At that point, my life was a series of trauma that would take too long for me to explain, and I was considering suicide, because life was not worth living to me whether God existed or not. When I recovered, I didn't attribute my recovery to God--I attributed it to my own hard work and the help of a therapist. In retrospect, I do believe that God delivered me from the brink, but I could not see Him in the moment, and in fact, a part of me despised Him. I only renewed my faith recently. God understands our weakness as humans and forgives everyone, because He loves you a lot. Faith is not easy at all, and it never will be, not even for the most devout.
It might be worthwhile to read the book <em>The Problem of Pain</em> by C. S. Lewis. The epigraph of the book is a quote by George MacDonald:
>The Son of God suffered unto death,
>not that men might not suffer, but that their
>sufferings might be like his.
Hang in there. I'll pray for you.
Have you read The Problem of Pain by C.S.Lewis? He tackles that issue pretty well regarding evil in the world. Not trying to push anything on you, I'm just saying - he's a smart guy and it's a good read. As for how could God reach out to you if you don't worship Him: haven't you ever loved someone who didn't love you back? I have; Megan Fox still won't return any of my phone calls or emails. And yes, there are some really oblivious Christians out there. Sorry about them; there's not much I can do. However, there are some others out there that understand the evil in the world far better that you and me. Did you know there are more Christian martyrs in the world now then there were when the Romans were feeding them to the lions?
>so much injustice and misery
the price of original sin
>why does God allows such things to continue
C.S. Lewis literally wrote a book on this: The Problem of Pain http://www.amazon.com/The-Problem-Pain-C-Lewis/dp/0060652969
“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself” ― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
I strongly recommend The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis: http://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969/
I just finished it recently and it helped my understanding of these questions immensely. I'm not a theologian, but as far as I could tell it was pretty much in line with the teachings of the Church. I would be interested in hearing if I am wrong about that.
While not an easy question to respond in a good way to a child, the answer is very well explained in important Christian books such as: http://www.amazon.com/The-Problem-Pain-C-Lewis/dp/0060652969
“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself” ― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
“His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. There is no limit to His power.
If you choose to say, 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prifex to them the two other words, 'God can.'
It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
I hear you. People suck.
For me, getting past the "blame God for evil and suffering" mindset came by better understanding free will and God's role in the world. Three sort of classic books on this include: the problem of pain by C.S. Lewis, Evil and the justice of God by N.T. Wright, and God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga.
Many, many people go through similar doubts and struggle with this. I certainly have. So your thoughts and concerns are perfectly normal - it's okay to question this stuff. For me, my way past was to work on understanding the boundaries between people and God in this world, and understanding what God is doing here. Attributing complete agency to God ignores the (very good / important) agency that people have to take their own actions. And people can suck. Hope this is helpful.
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. True, various philosophical attempts to derive an “ought” from an “is” exist, such as the differing arguments of James Q. Wilson (“the moral sense” that has a psychological/mental/behavior origin in our human natures), C.S. Lewis (“the Tao” or way, of cross cultural ultimate similarities show traditional morality is a kind of irreducible primary), and Ayn Rand (“living entities intrinsically need certain values to sustain life”) show. But unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to discard God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. But unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to discard God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis
Great little book; why does an omnibenevolent, omnipotent God allow pain?
The author of the Chronicles of Narnia, oddly enough, can explain it far better than I ever could in a reddit thread. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Since you have suffered and seen other people suffer, I presume the weakness in your faith is the result of the problem of evil. So let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
It seems that you are troubled by the problem of evil. So let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
You make an interesting point here. I'll try to reinforce it by mentioning other reasons for why God allows evil.
God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
At this point, let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
It’s an unpleasant thought, but can suffering often be useful, such as when it helps us improve our character? While suffering from a very bad case of Lyme disease after being bitten by a tick, the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat encountered in an airport a young Benedictine monk who told him: “[Suffering is] a gift. It’s not something just to wish away or run from. It’s there for purgation, refinement, redirection if you’ve wandered onto the wrong path. And if you’re on the right path, doing important work — well, then you should expect to get some demonic attacks from time to time.”
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
I'll try to answer the question on the first guy's sign here: Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
God didn't create evil, but He permits it for His own purposes. Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
The short answer to your question is because God has free will, so He wants us to have free will also. Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
I suppose the main reason why, to answer your question directly, is that God created Lucifer to begin with, and is far stronger than Satan, the name he acquired after He rebelled. So then, why doesn't God stop the devil from tempting us? So let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
You may wish to read Psalm 37, which deals with this issue of why it seems that the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer.
Now, let's back up and get the overall view of why God allows evil. God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
A key point also is that we are born into a fallen sinful world that God cursed because of Adam and Eve's sin. So death and disease are part of our condition as humans because of what our first parents did. So that's not God's fault, but it's a just punishment for sin and rebellion.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s back up a little and give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
I'll just answer question 1 here by explaining the problem of evil, since He gave the angels and all people free will for a reason. God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Problem of Pain | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Problem of Pain | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Problem of Pain | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Problem of Pain | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Problem of Pain | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
We are in no position of knowledge to suggest that He handle it any differently than He has.
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52).
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Problem of Pain | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Problem of Pain | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Problem of Pain | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let's back up and look at the big picture. Here's a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
| Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Problem of Pain | - | - | 4.5/5.0 |
^Item&nbsp;Info | Bot&nbsp;Info | Trigger
This kind of experience also happened to Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, and also to Charles Darwin, the originator of the modern theory of evolution, but it crushed their faith completely. They failed to keep the big picture in mind and interpreted the bible based on their lives' circumstances instead of using the bible to interpret what happened to them in life.
So let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.”). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short, painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted, “If it’s true that it [belief in evolution] causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). The atheistic viewpoint provides no comfort, since suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer and women from rape? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of our freely chosen decisions. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” naturally seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided. If you’re called to salvation now, don’t allow the problem of evil to become a distraction from what you need to do spiritually, as Ken Ham has observed (p. 115, emphasis removed): “The point right now isn’t why death and suffering exist, or why some seem to suffer more or die sooner than others. . . . the point is that you will die, and you need to be prepared for that reality.”
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short and painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism, Richard Dawkins, admitted that if people feel evolution makes people’s lives feel meaningless, “If it’s true that it causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). So if a skeptical critic says, “The Christian viewpoint lacks sufficient sympathy for people’s suffering,” the atheistic viewpoint provides even less comfort, since their suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of freely chosen decisions by humanity. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short and painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism admitted that if people feel evolution makes people’s lives feel meaningless, “If it’s true that it causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). So if a skeptical critics says, “The Christian viewpoint lacks sufficient sympathy for people’s suffering,” the atheistic viewpoint provides even less comfort, since their suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of freely chosen decisions by humanity. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins. Furthermore, we should see sickness and death as expected and normal, not abnormal and shocking, in this fallen world; it’s time to reset our overly optimistic expectations to realistically lower levels, since neither can be avoided.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview, which also explains why He made the human reason to begin with: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist. The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 154) explains: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Ken Ham makes a similar observation in “How Could a Loving God . . . ?” p. 50: “In order for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to exist, God must exist. . . . Anyone who speaks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has to presuppose a world view that includes God, because without a godly world view there can be no absolute authority to define those words.” Hence, this kind of question, “How can a good God allow evil?,” is actually a self-defeating and self-refuting argument if it is designed to prove there is no God.
Atheism fundamentally has no solution to the problem of evil since it basically says, “Life is meaningless, short and painful, and then you die.” Nothing anyone does will make any difference. It offers no hope to its adherents, but only counsels despair. Even the supreme philosophical advocate of atheism admitted that if people feel evolution makes people’s lives feel meaningless, “If it’s true that it causes people to feel despair. That’s tough. If it’s true, [it’s] true; and you had better live with it” (as quoted in Ham, p. 52). So if a skeptical critics says, “The Christian viewpoint lacks sufficient sympathy for people’s suffering,” the atheistic viewpoint provides even less comfort, since their suffering is utterly pointless and useless since it serves no larger purpose.
So why do the innocent suffer, such as children with cancer? The origin of all human death and suffering goes back to Adam’s decision to reject God’s authority for his life, which resulted in the earth being cursed by God in response (Genesis 3:17). Humanity mistakenly blames God for sickness and death when those problems are the result of freely chosen decisions by humanity. Because of our evil human nature, our “locus of control” seeks to blame God, not ourselves, for the results of our sins.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Your question is really about why God gave us free will to begin with. So let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
This argument is simply a question about why God would give us free will to be able to engage in cognitive dissonance. So let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Maybe you should read Psalm 37 carefully and then you'll feel a little more comforted. And then there's the book of Job, of course.
Now let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
You've asked several major (and difficult) questions here. It would take several comment posts to respond to them at all convincingly. So pardon me as I chew up some space here, if you really want some answers. I would suggest, however, looking into the Christian apologetic references built into my comments here, since I'm unlikely to sound at all persuasive here with the limited space available.
First, let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
For another one of your questions, let's give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Habakkuk really does deal with the problem of evil some in chapter 1. The prophet complains that God hasn't intervened yet to set the world right in verses 2-4. God responds that He is at work, in part by planning to use Babylon to punish Judah for its sins.
In this context, let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
yep. theodicy
i'd start w cs lewis' the problem of pain
Let's consider some other actions that were sinful, but God used them for ultimate good. Can we be like Joseph, and see good ultimately coming out of our trials and tests, at least for others, whether in this life or the next? After all, much like Job, Joseph was severely tested. Joseph’s trial lasted for many years, since his brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt out of jealousy and envy. He even got falsely accused and imprisoned after resisting the sexual advances of Potiphar’s wife. After hearing his brothers’ concerns that he would take vengeance on them after Jacob died and their asking for his forgiveness, Joseph replied: “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for God to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children” (Genesis 50:19-20).
Similarly, consider how Rebekah’s and Jacob’s skullduggery was used to displace Esau from receiving Isaac’s blessing. Their sinful actions secured the ultimate outcome God wanted since the younger son was to rule over the former (see Genesis 25:23-34; 27:1-46). True, had Rebekah and Jacob acted righteously instead, the Eternal would have intervened somehow miraculously to make Isaac bless Jacob instead of Esau, much as He inspired the blind Jacob cross his hands to bless Ephraim more than Manasseh (Genesis 48:12-19). Similarly, did God approve of Rahab's lie to protect the spies? (See Joshua 2:1-14; 6:17, 22-23; Hebrews 11:31). The lie was a sin, but the result was correct. God had given Jericho to Israel, so He wanted the spies to survive.
Now let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
Now, let's face the ultimate issue lurking behind our temptation to question God about His allowing evil into His creation: God's utter sovereignty. Fundamentally, we puny creatures are in no better position than Job was to question His justice and righteousness. The general spirit of Romans 8:28 to 11:36 emphasizes this point.
Besides punishing the Canaanites for their sins, God inflicted other collective punishments on the human race. Jehovah had Gomorrah and Sodom totally destroyed for their sins (Genesis 18:20; 19:13, 24-25). And even more completely and utterly, God drowned every human being and land animal in the world during the great Deluge, except for Noah's family (only 8 people!) and the animals with him in the ark (I Peter 3:20). So now, is God evil for executing people for violating His law? Well, God tells us through Paul that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Sinners have no right to live in God's sight: He has the right at any time to execute someone for their sins before time of natural death comes. Fortunately, God normally doesn't exercise that option! And most mysteriously, He had His Son, who also was God, take on the pain and sin of the world, and die on its behalf despite He was innocent! Jesus' great sacrifice allowed God to reconcile mercy and justice together: For our sins make us worthy of death, but by having Jesus pay such a great price in our stead, that death penalty is lifted off us, but not because of our merit from obeying His law (John 3:16; Romans 5:6-10; 7:25). God still believes in and practices capital punishment, unlike the western Europeans. As the Creator of life, He may also take it. But unlike men, He can resurrect and bring to life again the people He executes. For example, God chose to execute all the people on earth outside of Noah's family by sending the great flood because of humanity's general wickedness (Genesis 6:5-7): "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.'" Notice that Jesus predicted that many would be killed again when He returns like it was in the days of Noah (Matt. 24:36-39).
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Your problem relates closely to the general problem of evil, which is also closely related to why God made the human race to begin with and gave it free will. So let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
I'm sorry to hear that you have such a spiritual and mental battle in your life. You may wish to seek professional help, such as through the kinds of pharmaceutical drugs for treating depression and other forms of mental illness that are now available.
However, I'll also give an explanation of the problem of evil, since that seems to really bother you. Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
For the biblical evidence that the ignorant will not be tortured in hell forever, but will receive their first chance at salvation at the second resurrection at the end of the millennium, click here: https://lionofjudah1.org/doctrinalhtml/Do%20You%20Have%20An%20Immortal%20Soul%201007.htm
Oddly, your questions really relate to why God created the human race to begin and why God allows evil to exist. The purpose of life and to having children is closely related to to this broader issue. So let's give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Incidentally, can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
I' m sorry to hear that you personally feel a lot of pain from bad health. It's true that there are texts that indicate that bad health can be a punishment from God, but I don't wish to quote or dwell on those here because I don't wish to be judgmental, especially of someone that I don't know.
Let's back up and give the big picture view. Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
In order to help you some, let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That would include animal predation. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
For the problems with evolutionists' complaints about evil existing in nature, such as animal predation, click here: https://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Darwins%20God%20Review.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34; Hebrews 2:6-11) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15). The purpose of life for Christians is to develop holy righteous character during their tests and trials in life as the Holy Spirit aids them (James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 11:5-6, 11; II Corinthians 4:16-17).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Joy comes from focusing on the outcome of the process of enduring well painful problems in life, as it did for Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), looking to time after the cross. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations). No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if atheists and agnostics attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about young babies dying from disease or wars as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical atheists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
In order to reply to your questions at all reasonably, I'll make two posts here. Let's first tackle the problem of evil, which seems to deeply trouble you.
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let's try to answer question 5 first here. These questions simply can't be well and convincingly answered, at least as a group, in a single 10,000 character comment. It would be wiser to spread them out, one per day, to get better, more detailed answers. Therefore, I will make multiple, separate comments here in response to this original post. (If that's bad form, then let me know, old-time Redditors).
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
This reasoning totally ignores that God gives us free will also, and thus didn't directly create evil. So let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
I'm sorry to hear about the problems that you are having. Maybe we should back up and look at the big picture, as opposed to various individuals who suffer one way or another, about the problem of evil.
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
I'm sorry to hear about the health problems that you have. Here I'll focus on the "big picture," which often can be a relief to us emotionally when it's something for our ultimate good.
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
There are so many questions here that it's basically impossible to convincingly answer them in a single 10,000 character posted comment. However, I will focus on answering the problems related to the problem of evil and God's justice concerning those who died ignorant and unsaved.
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “Gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. Unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to dispose of God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. But unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to discard God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. But unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to discard God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:\~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
For evidence that people can be saved after they died as unbelievers, which appears to be one of your particular concerns, click here:
http://lionofjudah1.org/doctrinalhtml/Do%20You%20Have%20An%20Immortal%20Soul%201007.htm
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. True, various philosophical attempts to derive an “ought” from an “is” exist, such as the differing arguments of James Q. Wilson (“the moral sense” that has a psychological/mental/behavior origin in our human natures), C.S. Lewis (“the Tao” or way, of cross cultural ultimate similarities show traditional morality is a kind of irreducible primary), and Ayn Rand (“living entities intrinsically need certain values to sustain life”) show. But unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to discard God.
I would suggest that doubters and skeptics should read C.S. Lewis' classic treatment of this problem in "The Problem of Pain" so they understand how informed Christians respond to this issue. This should be the starting point for these kinds of discussions. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969
​
For more about why God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/doctrinalhtml/Protestant%20Rhetoric%20vs%20Sabbath%20Refuted.htm
C.S. Lewis, who had been an atheist, wrote a classic analysis of this problem in his book, "The Problem of Pain." The troubled and the skeptical should start with his book's answers and try to refute them if they wish to still not believe in God for this reason. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969
Let’s now give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? But if evolutionists attack and eliminate God’s existence from their consideration based on His allowing evil in nature to exist, they can’t then say evil doesn’t exist. That is, they use a system of moral absolutes to eliminate God, but then (almost always) erect a system of moral relativism for people after getting rid of Him. But if indeed all is relative, and there are no moral absolutes, they can’t complain about parasitic wasps eating the living bodies of caterpillars or about cats playing with mice as “immoral.” If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, they can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. True, various philosophical attempts to derive an “ought” from an “is” exist, such as the differing arguments of James Q. Wilson (“the moral sense” that has a psychological/mental/behavior origin in our human natures), C.S. Lewis (“the Tao” or way, of cross cultural ultimate similarities show traditional morality is a kind of irreducible primary), and Ayn Rand (“living entities intrinsically need certain values to sustain life”) show. But unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to discard God.
For more on this subject overall, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
If you want to believe in what's true why don't you start with something small and then work your way up to the bigger things. For example, you still won't admit that the Kalam Cosmological argument has 5 premises in total.
What in the world makes you think you'll ever believe in God if you can't even believe the basic foundation of an argument for Gods existence?
As far as pain and suffering goes, nobody likes pain and suffering. Mankind does not have the perfect answer to that question because we are totally and completely limited in cognitive ability to understand why a being so powerful as God would allow such things to exist.
My question to you is, how much research have you done on that topic? How many books have you read that describe possible reasons for allowing pain and suffering in the world?
You can't expect me to tackle that question and do it justice in a Reddit post, but I can give you the tools to help you understand. Start by reading The Problem of Pain and I would also suggest you read Is God a Moral Monster.
It's going to take a lot of time and effort to read up on these issues and you won't get a simple answer to that question in a simple Reddit post. The onus is on you to do the proper research because humans have been thinking about this problem and writing books about it for hundreds of years.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument IS evidence for the existence of God.
First of all, abortion is immoral whether it's legal or not. Like either way it's a terrible sin. I'm not addressing rape/incest life/death abortions, which are the vast minority of cases and much more complex. I'm addressing the 90-something % of abortions that happen for lifestyle reasons.
You have to understand that even if abortion is illegal and a woman breaks the law and has some back-alley abortion ... that's her fault. She has to answer to God for that. Not me. Not "society". She is personally 100% responsible along with anyone else that helped her. So it's a non-argument to the Christian to try and suggest that we can do more to help this woman. We can't. If she is going to have a back-alley abortion her mind is made up and it's between her and God. None of us will be standing there with her having any type of relation to what she chose to do when she answers to God about it.
Look, about you personally. It's not the end of the world to fail. That's where God comes in. There's a reason it's so difficult for the rich and successful to enter the kingdom of God. It's because they don't need God. They have all the money and resources available in this life and so they never cry out to Him. edit: the majority of rich people don't "think" they need God. That's what I meant. Of course they really do need God.
I would recommend you read a book that helped me a lot when I was a young Christian. Even before I became fully convinced actually. It's called The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis CS Lewis also wrote the Chronicles of Narnia which you've probably heard of. That story is full of Christian references. CS was actually a long time atheist who later became a devout Christian. He has a way of explaining pain, failure and grief in this life and how it relates to God in a way that will really help you. This has nothing to do with thinking you're gay, I'm just talking about whatever pain you're feeling. Good luck man, read the book if you can and I wish you the best.
Well, I don't see much value and debating you, seeing as you are an anti-theist, a group I've found far to euphoric to convince of anything; I will, however, point you to CS Lewis' 'The Problem of Pain'. An exceptional book by an exceptional man.
It's probably not your only reason, but you mentioned that you cannot worship a god that would allow so much atrocity and chaos. It would be worth your time to really explore your doubts even if only at first for your immediate goal of trying to understand her faith, and ultimately for your own sake. The Problem of Pain and The Reason for God are both books I have read and enjoyed that address those issues and more. Best wishes to you both.
Let’s give a general Christian explanation for why God allows evil into His creation, based on a basic Biblical worldview: God is now in the process of making beings like Himself (Matt. 5:48; John 17:20-24; John 10:30-34) who would have 100% free will but would choose to be 100% righteous. Consider in this context what could be called the "thesis statement" of Scripture in Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Why did God make us look like Him and think like him? This is further confirmed by the statement concerning the purposes for the ministry's service to fellow Christians includes this statement: "for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . ." (Ephesians 4:12-13). God wants us to become just like Jesus is, who is God and has perfect character (i.e., the habits of obedience to God's law (Hebrews 5:8-9), not just imputed righteousness), yet was tempted to sin and didn’t (Hebrews 4:15).
Now the habits of obedience and righteousness can't be created by fiat or instantaneous order. Rather, the person who is separate from God has to choose to obey what is right and reject what is wrong on his or her own. But every time a person does what is wrong, that will hurt him, others, and/or God. Yet God has to allow us to have free will, because He wants His created beings to have free will like He does, otherwise they wouldn’t be becoming like Him (cf. Hebrews 2:5-13). God didn't want to create a set of robots that automatically obey His law, which declares His will for how humanity and the angels should behave. Robots wouldn’t be like Him, for they wouldn't have free will nor the ability to make fully conscious choices. So then God needs to test us, to see how loyal we'll be in advance of granting us eternal life, such as He did concerning Abraham’s desire for a son by Sarah by asking him to sacrifice him (Genesis 22). Furthermore, the greatness of the prize, being in God's Family and living forever happily in union with God, ultimately makes up for all the suffering in this life. For what's (say) 70 years of pain relative to trillions of years of happiness in God's kingdom? Unfortunately, our emotions, which normally focus on what's right before us physically, rebel against this insight, but it's true nevertheless. Furthermore, as part of the process of impressing how seriously he takes violations of His law, He sent His Son to die in terrible pain on the cross for the sins of others. God here rather mysterious decided to become just like His creatures who do suffer, and chose to suffer along with them (John 1:1-4, 14; Hebrews 2:14-18). For if his forgiveness was easily granted and given without this terrible cost paid for it, then people might not take violations of His law seriously as a result. So then, we have the great mystery of God dying for the sins of His creatures despite they were in the wrong, not Him. God allows suffering in His creation, and then chooses voluntarily to suffer greatly Himself as a result of His allowing it into His creation, as a cost of His making creatures with free will. Therefore, since we know that God understands suffering (cf. Hebrews 4:14-15), we should never think emotionally, “God can’t understand my painful life!”
So although we may not know fully why God allows suffering and pain in His creation, or emotionally and psychologically be convinced that He has a good reason for doing so, we should trust Him and wait in faith on the matter. In this context, consider God's basic answer to Job: “You don’t know enough to judge Me!” Furthermore, many people without suffering pain wouldn't trust God to have our interests at heart when telling us to not do X, just like they didn't trust their parents when they told them (say) doing drugs or getting drunk was bad for them. Therefore, God chooses to prove it to humanity and the angels by hard, practical experience (i.e., empirically) on this earth in order to show that His way is best, not Satan's. After all, when the evil angels revolted against God, they never had experienced any pain or death, but they still mistrusted God for some reason, that He didn't love them fully. (Perhaps the Quran’s explanation, although it must be deemed to be uninspired, Christians could still ponder usefully as a speculation with something to it. According to sura 7:10-17, Satan refused to bow down to Adam despite Allah’s order to do so based on this defiant reasoning, “Nobler am I than he: me hast Thou created of fire; of clay hast Thou created him.” Indeed, an evil angel may have made sure that his reasoning against Jehovah was inserted into the Quran when “inspiring” Muhammad’s recitations. No doubt, the evil angels aren’t looking forward to being judged by saved Christians (I Cor. 6:3) and then being thrown into the lake of fire). So even though many awful things have happened historically in the world, we should trust God that He knows what He is doing.
Can morally absolute ideas of evil be used to prove there’s no God? If indeed all is relative, and no evil therefore exists, atheists can’t condemn God for allowing evil to exist.
The inescapable dilemma skeptical evolutionists face in deploying the problem of evil against the existence of God stems from where the origin of our sense of morality, of right and wrong, comes from. As Cornelius Hunter (“Darwin’s God,” p. 18) expertly summarizes the problem (his emphasis): “The existence of evil seems to contradict God, but the existence of our deep moral sense seems to confirm God.” For if we believe all is relative, that there are no absolutes, in a world without God, how can we condemn God for (say) allowing the Holocaust, the Cultural Revolution, or the Ukrainian terror famine? We can’t judge God unless we believe we can derive some kind of system of moral absolutes separately by human reason without recourse to Him or religious revelation. Hunter (p. 154) penetratingly exposes the evolutionists’ moral conundrum, after citing Richard Dawkins’ comment about the universe having no design, purpose, good or evil, “nothing but pointless indifference” thus: “Since there is no evil, the materialist must, ironically, not use the problem of evil to justify atheism. The problem of evil presupposes the existence of an objective evil—the very thing the materialist seems to deny.” If we can’t derive natural moral law separately from God by human reason, if we can’t get an “ought” from an “is” without reference to religious revelation, we can’t condemn God for allowing evil, now can we? If indeed all is relative, and one person’s good is another’s evil, such as for (say) female genital mutilation or Chinese foot binding, which traditional societies affirm(ed) but feminists condemn, on what basis can we criticize God for being a permissive libertarian about the actions resulting from His creatures’ freely chosen moral decisions? If indeed there are no moral absolutes, the ideologies that led to gulags and concentration camps are just as ethical as the ideologies that eliminated them. Hence, our innate moral sense, although it may manifest itself differently from culture to culture and person to person, constitutes intrinsic evidence for something beyond the material world. Otherwise, a fist hitting someone’s face in the street is no more or less morally significant than two rocks hitting each other in the wilderness, since all are composed of atoms in motion coming in contact with each other. True, various philosophical attempts to derive an “ought” from an “is” exist, such as the differing arguments of James Q. Wilson (“the moral sense” that has a psychological/mental/behavior origin in our human natures), C.S. Lewis (“the Tao” or way, of cross cultural ultimate similarities show traditional morality is a kind of irreducible primary), and Ayn Rand (“living entities intrinsically need certain values to sustain life”) show. But unless atheists and agnostics discard their moral relativism, they can’t use the existence of evil to discard God.
The doubtful and the skeptical should read C.S. Lewis’s classic examination of this old issue in “The Problem of Pain.” There have been lots of answers given on this subject for centuries; there are no “gotchas!” available for atheists in this department that haven’t long ago been answered comprehensively. https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652969#:~:text=In%20The%20Problem%20of%20Pain,of%20compassion%20and%20insight%2C%20C.S.
For more about why a good God allows evil to exist, click here: http://lionofjudah1.org/Apologeticshtml/Why%20Does%20God%20Allow%20Evil%200908.htm
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