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Why Evil?

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by th1bill, Dec 15, 2012.

  1. th1bill

    th1bill Well-Known Member
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    The inevitable question hangs tough today, demanding an answer. Millions want to know, “If God is (real), how could He allow such evil? Yesterday, twenty innocent (in the eye of God) little people entered Heaven, never to feel pain again and we, like Job, are left to work this over, trying to wrap our heads around this evil. In the first book of the Bible, we find Gen. 1:26 and we see that God made man in His Image.

    God is a Spirit being and in no manor human at the point of Creation and that is important to remember here. And in the Bible, we learn that God created all that has been created for “His” pleasure... God has free will and because we are created in the image of God, we have free will. In the first chapters of Genesis we see that free will has good and evil options to work with ad sometimes from.

    We find early on that God, the Creator, walked with Adam in the cool of the evening. Adam and God both longed for fellowship and both chose to enjoy the other. And in the second chapter, we see God finds that Adam is without a help mate and God removes one of Adam's ribs and creates the most beautiful, perfect vision of a woman and rings her to Adam to wed. God's free will is always perfect and His actions are always time just right.

    Adam was alone just long enough to know that he was incomplete, just long enough to develop the need for his mate. If God had created Eve at the same time He did Adam it is quite possible that Adam might never have realized his deep need need of the fellowship she brought to his life. If Adam had never had the opportunity to realize his need for companionship, he and we might never have had the opportunity to realize that his need was a picture of the free will love God feels for us. (The first three chapters of Genesis cannot be exhaustively taught from the pulpit in a year, maybe two.)

    The other side of free will is evil! But, you see, without the ability to exercise free will, there can be no love and love is the good every one of us needs. Love is not the product Hollywood pushes onto our children when we fail to live the truth in front of them. What Hollywood is selling is a soft side of evil. No! I did not just call the coupling of a man and his wife evil. However, what is ignored in the church today, the back seat activities of teens and the married but not to each other activities, promoted by Hollywood and Broadway is evil... soft, wanted but evil!

    And I assure you that you need to study the Book of Job until you can see the love of God that I see there. As bad as it appears, God knew Job's breaking point and He never allowed Satan to push Job that hard. When Job's trial was over and he had learned how strong his faith was, he ws completely restored and he was blessed wit hthe knowledge he would never have gained.

    The moms and dads are mentally collapsed today and the journey back is very, very hard to travel. When my very best friend took an eighty-one mm in the chest, I was the first to find him and I remember nothing of the following three months other than what I was told I did. The parents of these missing babies do not have an ever present enemy and they are not supplied with a never ending supply of munitions, praise God.

    They need our tears and our prayers and no, they will not be healed in ninety days and they will not be healed in twenty years. These fellow parents, grandparents, classmates, brothers and sisters are hurt and incomplete until the day they, I pray, go home to Heaven.

    Please, cease not to pray.
     
  2. Luke2427

    Luke2427 Active Member

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    No.

    If by free will you mean this mythical ability to choose one thing as much as you can choose the other- this is NOT NECESSARY FOR LOVE.

    And I wish you folks would think this stuff through before you go poisoning other people with this terrible idea.


    God the Father cannot CHOOSE to not love the Son. He never has had that ability- not throughout eternity past and he never will have that ability.

    Yet the love he has for his Son is the pinnacle of love.

    "Free will" is simply TOTALLY unrelated to love.

    Real love is not choosing to love someone when you could choose NOT to.

    The realest love is when your love is so great that "free will" is consumed by it and you cannot HELP but love.
     
  3. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
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    believe that Adam had 'free will", but NONE after him have that remaining, due to the fall!
     
  4. humblethinker

    humblethinker Active Member

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    The odds of me responding to someone who shows me love a lot compared to someone who shows me love a little are obvious. It must not be that possibility is defined by 50/50. There is probability with different odds than 50/50 and any such probability can ensure the existence of free will. Improbabilities do obtain. The fact that an event actually occurs is not indicative of inevitableness but rather indicative of probaility. It is not rational to reject genuine love, when the preponderance of the evidence of such love is known. The probability of such a rejection is low and the odds of acceptance are high, yet both instances actually do obtain very often in this world.

    Do you just wait until you are consumed with this sense before you decide to act? If what you say is correct, why not just wait until there is some compelling force to overcome oneself?
     
  5. th1bill

    th1bill Well-Known Member
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    I'm going to exercise my free will and choose to love you and to ignore your big mouthed insult seeking to fight and just agree to disagree with you.

    God bless.
     
  6. th1bill

    th1bill Well-Known Member
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    If that were true there could be no righteous condemnation for any but Adam.
     
  7. Luke2427

    Luke2427 Active Member

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    But... you didn't, did you. You claimed the ethical high ground by saying you would not respond WHILE RESPONDING.

    You pretended to be more mature by refusing to return an insult WHILE BEING INSULTING.

    Calling someone a "big mouth", listen very closely- IS AN INSULT.

    Responding to a post while saying you are not going to respond to a post is, wait for it- STILL RESPONDING TO A POST.

    I contend that it is this kind of mixed up thinking that drives you to these weird conclusions that you purport in your op.
     
  8. Luke2427

    Luke2427 Active Member

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    EVERYONE makes decisions based on causes.

    Something CAUSES you to make EVERY DECISION you make.

    You choose a chicken sandwich over a hamburger on a particular afternoon. Why?

    There is a REASON.

    Something drove you to make that decision.

    That reason, that driving force is a CAUSE.

    If there is no REASON for our choices then our choices are arbitrary and ridiculous.
     
  9. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    Hi Bill...Merry Christmastime to you brother.
     
  10. pinoybaptist

    pinoybaptist Active Member
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    Baptist Board: same old same old. lol.
     
  11. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    Yes Tim..... (God Bless Us All--EVERYONE) :laugh:

    Now I think there are some here who have sufficiently proven on another thread, that if you want a forum that is anal retentive, try the Puritan one.....I hear you could even crimp steel pipe while engaging in it! :D
     
  12. quantumfaith

    quantumfaith Active Member

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    My neurons and synapses usually prefer a chicken sandwich over a burger, with a high degree of probability. :)
     
  13. Monster

    Monster New Member

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    Mine on the other hand chooses the burger, particularly if bacon, BBQ sauce and fried onions are included. In light of the thread context; my body would respond less evilly to chicken with an absolute degree of absolut-ivity.
     
    #13 Monster, Dec 29, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 29, 2012
  14. saturneptune

    saturneptune New Member

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    Why evil? Because evil results in people having vices, and that gives the local church gossips something to talk about. Without evil, gossips would be mimes.
     
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