It's the effect of our sinful choices that have brought about things like pain and fear upon the world. We're subjected to evil, disease, famine, disasters, etc...all the results of our sin. This world and it inhabitants exist in a perpetual state of decay leading to death because of sin.
Ah yes... of course... those little one and two year old kids in Africa are starving because of their "sinful choices." Just like the babies born with congenital heart defects. And the infants with cancer. And so on, and so forth... Yes,
it's their own damn fault. If only they had accepted Jesus, then they wouldn't have be malnourished, or face brutal chemotherapy and radiation.
The world calls this the problem of evil, but attribute it to God. Many accept no responsibility and certainly aren't accountable for their actions.
Even if people have a share - even the lion's share - of the burden, that doesn't absolve your God for any responsibility. Living, breating human beings are suffering this very second, having committed no crime other than to be born into this world. This is something that your God could have prevented to begin with, and something the could stop at any time but he chooses not to. And not only does he not accept responsibility, he has groupies - like you - that think he's holy, just and a moral authority that is beyond reproach.
God entrusted the whole of creation to humanity...to act as stewards and govern it.
And he did that knowing that we'd be shitty stewards and that his creation would suffer for it.
God deemed his creation good and created man without sin. Man chose to defy that relationship with God and thereby corrupt the goodness God established and incur his wrath.
It must not have been a very good creation since... well... here we are.
Begs the question: given we know the potential for evil and outright engagement of evil within ourselves why do we continue to allow it?
It also begs the question why does God, who apparently hates this, continue to allow it, when it is within his power to conclusively end it.
We have every God given resource at our fingertips to prevent all sorts of atrocities, but we don’t eradicate such horrible things. We hide behind politics and rhetoric and do nothing…..or we casually blame God…..shameful.
If you had the power to stop a rape from happening but chose not to use that power, should you not be, at least, shamed by the rest of us? If your God has that same ability, why should we use a different
The reality is, it’s God’s good creation which is the platform for resolving the problem of evil.
No. Assuming your God exists, then God himself created the problem of evil to begin with and now allows it to continue to exist and fester.
Jesus left eternity and entered his finite creation as the incarnate Son of God who came to collect his church – those folks that reject sin and accept his standards and desire to be with him.
It's unclear how Jesus "leaving eternity" and "entering his finite creation" helps anything, or why such a convoluted plan was even necessary. Why not simply make evil go away, forgive everyone, and we can all just remember this horrible human experience and laugh about it while sipping mojitos at the nudist section of Paradise beach?
God wants folks to come unto him that truly want to be with him.
According to Christian dogma, he knows everything, which means he knows what it would take for me to believe and want to be with him. Yet he doesn't take action. Which leads me to conclude that either he doesn't desire fellowship with me or that he simply doesn't exist.
It’s our choice to accept or reject him that provides the purest pathway to eliminating evil.
Is a choice made under duress really a choice? "Believe in me and be rewarded eternally, or else forever suffer!"
Our autonomy ends when we enter eternity.
If your God is omnipotent and omniscient, then we never had any autonomy to begin with. And if he's not omnipotent and omniscient, then he's not the God of the Bible.
You’re a finite creation with finite choices to freely make in this finite existence, but those choices are still subject to infinite ramifications based upon his infinite terms (because God is infinite in nature).
What are "infinite ramifications"? Are they
countably or
uncountably infinite? How are they different from "finite" ramifications?
