Gal 5:22-26

I understand that your doctrine teaches these things. I'm not sure if you were responding to my hypothetical argument with this, or if you were just trying to educate me on what you believe. Either is fine with me, but I need to know which one so I can better respond..
My doctrine? There is only one truth and then there is alot of nonsense. According to the truth....I am merely pointing out that you cannot blame God for creating evil. All He did was create intelligent beings able to freely choose it...which is best defined as rebellion to Him and His ways.
If God can't at least be defined, then any questions of God are impossible to answer. If God really couldn't be defined in some way, then it's impossible to believe he exists/doesn't exist. If I asked you if you believe in ljfaghakdgj, you'd have to have a definition before you could begin to have a conversation about it.
You are on a Christian site trying to define God. I am merely pointing out that if you are going to try that with our God, use scripture properly and not to insert assumptions. The MOST typical being....God created all, God created evil, God created many for hell (your post # 6). That my friend is simply ignorance and a complete misrepresentation of scripture / the truth ;).
You're asking me to assume and respect things about something that I don't believe in. That's impossible. ;)
Here is where you are in denial bud. You KNOW God made you! Nobody can honestly look at themselves and deny the existence of intelligent design. I have been where you are and I have discussed with 100's of atheists. If you say you do not believe...I know you have not meditated on God / really applied your mind to it. You are either 1. at the very first stage of seeking God or 2. You are in sin and know it....You want to ease your conscience by harrassing faithful believers (I used to do it) or 3. You have been reading some Richard Dawkins books and are going through a brainwashed phase.
If you're convinced of that, then you have a misunderstanding. First off, my position isn't to simply say "there are no gods". My view of the question of gods is to first define what is meant by "God". Then I make a decision about it. Different people mean different things when they say "God".

The commonly held concept of the Christian God (all knowing, all powerful, creator of all that exists, yet holds us accountable for evil) is logically impossible. That's what explains my atheism with respect to that concept.
Logically impossible? STOP reading atheist material for a while!!! sit down and let your thoughts and some applied common sense kick in! You had NO control over being created. You have FULL control over what you choose to do today. God created you and that same God is giving you true free will / space to exercise it. Saying there is no God / God is evil so you don't care much for Him.... is dodging and will NOT hold water when you stand before Him on your judgement day. Perhaps you want to raise your actual concerns about God? Why exactly do you not want to get on your knees and serve / submit / repent before Him?
What you're doing is a logical fallacy called argument from ignorance. This means you don't know how something happened, so you just assume a cause. "I can't think of any explanation for the universe, so it MUST be a creation" - this is an error in logic. Also, the existence of apparent laws of physics isn't good enough to be evidence of a creator..
You are in a hole, there is ONLY one way out. You are completely dodging reality / the need to face the truth by saying the underlined! If you cannot accept that 0 + 0 does not and never can equal 1, there is simply no possible logical discussion with you. We delay / chase our tail /delude ourselves by thinking there are other options. I have heard them all...we came from sludge, from an astronaut, from big bang, from ..... :rolleyes::rolleyes: its high time all atheists faced reality :sleep:! The ONLY option available is that there is a God / creator. Deal with it and stop daydreaming / stalling / showing ignorance.

What I have found in my many discussions with atheists (I am not including you in this bunch as you are young) is that you really don't need to scratch them hard before their hatred for Christianity / God is shown. Most atheists are ex-Christians ;). A normal person would not be atheist. Someone who is an atheist has applied effort in the direction of not believing in God. That effort has a source. That source is mostly hatred and desirous of entertaining any God bashing thoughts.
The only logical answer to our existence is to say "we don't know", rather than jump to a conclusion that it was created by a being
No, the logical answer is to acknowledge physics and its clear limitations. Logic should also tell us that the complexity of our thumb is no co-incidence. Our superior intelligence over all animals is no co-incidence. The existence / survival of the Jewish race is no co-incidence. Jesus's impact on the world is no co-incidence http://www.thesacredpage.com/2008/04/napoleons-proof-for-divinity-of-jesus.html. Logic should tell us all that we are going to have to give an account one-day for all we have done and there is NO escaping that! Despite what thoughts of the day we choose to entertain.
 
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My doctrine? There is only one truth and then there is alot of nonsense. According to the truth....I am merely pointing out that you cannot blame God for creating evil. All He did was create intelligent beings able to freely choose it...which is best defined as rebellion to Him and His ways. You are on a Christian site trying to define God. I am merely pointing out that if you are going to try that with our God, use scripture properly and not to insert assumptions. The MOST typical being....God created all, God created evil, God created many for hell (your post # 6). That my friend is simply ignorance and a complete misrepresentation of scripture / the truth ;).
Here is where you are in denial bud. You KNOW God made you! Nobody can honestly look at themselves and deny the existence of intelligent design. I have been where you are and I have discussed with 100's of atheists. If you say you do not believe...I know you have not meditated on God / really applied your mind to it. You are either 1. at the very first stage of seeking God or 2. You are in sin and know it....You want to ease your conscience by harrassing faithful believers (I used to do it) or 3. You have been reading some Richard Dawkins books and are going through a brainwashed phase.
Logically impossible? STOP reading atheist material for a while!!! sit down and let your thoughts and some applied common sense kick in! You had NO control over being created. You have FULL control over what you choose to do today. God created you and that same God is giving you true free will / space to exercise it. Saying there is no God / God is evil so you don't care much for Him.... is dodging and will NOT hold water when you stand before Him on your judgement day. Perhaps you want to raise your actual concerns about God? Why exactly do you not want to get on your knees and serve / submit / repent before Him? You are in a hole, there is ONLY one way out. You are completely dodging reality / the need to face the truth by saying the underlined! If you cannot accept that 0 + 0 does not and never can equal 1, there is simply no possible logical discussion with you. We delay / chase our tail /delude ourselves by thinking there are other options. I have heard them all...we came from sludge, from an astronaut, from big bang, from ..... :rolleyes::rolleyes: its high time all atheists faced reality :sleep:! The ONLY option available is that there is a God / creator. Deal with it and stop daydreaming / stalling / showing ignorance.

What I have found in my many discussions with atheists (I am not including you in this bunch as you are young) is that you really don't need to scratch them hard before their hatred for Christianity / God is shown. Most atheists are ex-Christians ;). A normal person would not be atheist. Someone who is an atheist has applied effort in the direction of not believing in God. That effort has a source. That source is mostly hatred and desirous of entertaining any God bashing thoughts.
No, the logical answer is to acknowledge physics and its clear limitations. Logic should also tell us that the complexity of our thumb is no co-incidence. Our superior intelligence over all animals is no co-incidence. The existence / survival of the Jewish race is no co-incidence. Jesus's impact on the world is no co-incidence http://www.thesacredpage.com/2008/04/napoleons-proof-for-divinity-of-jesus.html. Logic should tell us all that we are going to have to give an account one-day for all we have done and there is NO escaping that! Despite what thoughts of the day we choose to entertain.
I started to make a reply countering the mistaken notions you have about me, my views, and reality. However, I decided that it's not worth the time. There are other posts more deserving.
 
Yes, I see your argument, evil exists because we can observe its effect. I don't think evil doesn't exist, for the record. It is a thing in the context of something that has an observable interaction with other things, as you accurately point out, but it's a non-thing in the context of creation: it is as uncreatable as nothingness is uncreatable -- it doesn't need to have been created to explain its existence. Even in a purely philosophical sense where we recognize the existence of evil as a "thing," we also don't have to ignore that it's existence can be explained without it needing to have been created.
Very interesting thoughts, but the first hypothetical premise in the argument I made was that God was the ONLY preexisting thing. It also says that God created all else that exists. We both agreed that evil exists. This automatically puts it in the category of things that were created by God Saying that evil is uncreatable and doesn't need to be explained as creation puts it on the same level with God as another uncreated, preexisting thing thing. That would lead to saying that evil is preexistent along with God, which doesn't follow from the first premise.

Now, I know people who don't accept the first premise and believe that evil was preexisting along with God (good). if that's you, then that's another conversation we can have.
 
Very interesting thoughts, but the first hypothetical premise in the argument I made was that God was the ONLY preexisting thing. It also says that God created all else that exists. We both agreed that evil exists. This automatically puts it in the category of things that were created by God Saying that evil is uncreatable and doesn't need to be explained as creation puts it on the same level with God as another uncreated, preexisting thing thing. That would lead to saying that evil is preexistent along with God, which doesn't follow from the first premise.

Now, I know people who don't accept the first premise and believe that evil was preexisting along with God (good). if that's you, then that's another conversation we can have.

There are other "things" that God wouldn't have needed to create as well, but became recognizable as "things" and nameable through the act of creation. For example, darkness is a thing, but we can explain its existence through the creation of light. God didn't need to have created darkness for it to be a thing. Nothingness is a thing, but God didn't have to create nothingness for it to exist. So darkness and nothingness are both things, but they only exist as nameable things through the creation of other things -- neither of them had to be created for them to exist.

Another question you might consider is, did God create good? From my best understanding of Christian doctrine, we can't say that God created good, but that his nature is what defines good. If we understand evil as something that is contrary to God's nature, we don't have to say that it was pre-existing with God, neither do we have to say that He created it. By creating beings with the ability to choose their own actions, God created the potential for actions to be undertaken that could be described as "evil." Neither evil nor the potential for evil existed before there was someone who could choose to do something contrary to the nature of God, since it would be impossible for God to choose to do evil.
 
There are other "things" that God wouldn't have needed to create as well, but became recognizable as "things" and nameable through the act of creation. For example, darkness is a thing, but we can explain its existence through the creation of light. God didn't need to have created darkness for it to be a thing. Nothingness is a thing, but God didn't have to create nothingness for it to exist. So darkness and nothingness are both things, but they only exist as nameable things through the creation of other things -- neither of them had to be created for them to exist.

I understand what you're saying. You're saying that darkness wasn't directly created by God. It only came to be because he created light. Let me explain my view.

The argument you used attempts to use the current scientific understand of darkness as absence of light and say that darkness wasn't created and equate it with the philosophical "nothingness".

First off, nothingness can't be a thing. It's nothing. It has no effect on the universe that can be observed. I can't show you an example of nothingness. Nothingness, then, doesn't exist.


Darkness either preexisted or was created by God. Now, ironic to me making this argument, I did some reading and the Genesis account never says that darkness was preexisting along with God. It is mentioned before light, implying that light wasn't needed to define darkness nor did darkness only come into existence because of light. I would like you to respond to this point especially, because it seems to me to contradict your view of light and darkness. That's not my most important point though.


Darkness is scientifically understood in relation to another concept, light. This happens all the time in science. Gravity is scientifically understood in relation to the force it puts on matter. Did God not create gravity either? God, being the creator of all things, created the laws of the universe, and all components of these laws, including light/darkness and matter/gravity. God didn't simply create light, with darkness coming from that. He would have had to create darkness and light AND the laws of how they work in a way to where describing darkness as the absence of light is the best way we currently have with science.

Another question you might consider is, did God create good? From my best understanding of Christian doctrine, we can't say that God created good, but that his nature is what defines good. If we understand evil as something that is contrary to God's nature, we don't have to say that it was pre-existing with God, neither do we have to say that He created it. By creating beings with the ability to choose their own actions, God created the potential for actions to be undertaken that could be described as "evil." Neither evil nor the potential for evil existed before there was someone who could choose to do something contrary to the nature of God, since it would be impossible for God to choose to do evil.
Interesting question.
Thanks for explaining your view. I feel like I understand it, but consider this view.

If the definition of good is anything consistent with God's nature, and evil is something that isn't consistent with God's nature, then evil wouldn't exist. the third premise would have to be alterned in the following argument:


Premise 1: Before all that exists came into existence, there was ONLY God (I'm ignoring the special pleading fallacy, he is thought to be preexisting).
Premise 2: God created ALL that came into existence.
Premise 3: Evil exists.
Conclusion: God is the ONLY person who could have had a hand in creating evil.

This would be re-written as

Premise 1: Before all that exists came into existence, there was ONLY God (I'm ignoring the special pleading fallacy, he is thought to be preexisting).
Premise 2: God is good
Premise 3: God created ALL that came into existence.
Conclusion: ALL things in existence is good.

Evil, then, CAN'T exist if ONLY God (who is good) preexisted and created all things. All things and events would have to necessarily be defined as "good", because all things were created by God.
 
I started to make a reply countering the mistaken notions you have about me, my views, and reality. However, I decided that it's not worth the time. There are other posts more deserving.
No stress, I have discussed with enough atheists to know their arguments are weak, circular, void of logic and they get rude / personal very quickly ;). Just DON'T ever say you want a logical discussion! Because only a fool would say atheism is logical. Psalm 14:1 For the director of music. Of David. The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good
 
You are making the false assumption that evil is a "thing". This has been covered before but I'll repeat it,
"Evil" is a behavior of free willed beings, actually an abuse of free will. God created free will, be He did not create its abuse
nor does He condone it.
 
You are making the false assumption that evil is a "thing". This has been covered before but I'll repeat it,
"Evil" is a behavior of free willed beings, actually an abuse of free will. God created free will, be He did not create its abuse
nor does He condone it.
Thanks for your input. I understand what you're view of this is. Views similar to yours have been expressed.

This has been covered. I've given my take on this. If you haven't seen it before, I'll restate it.

In a philosophical sense, evil is indeed a "thing". In order for something to philosophically exist, it has to have interaction with the universe in some manner. I think you'd accept that evil has interaction with the universe. Therefore, evil exists.

As far as free-will, it would only be "free-will" from our perspective as limited beings. From the perspective of an all powerful creator of all things (including creating free will), it can't be free will. Just as a book character may think it has free will in the story, but the author of that story knows that the character doesn't have free will from the author's perspective (unless the author is mentally ill or otherwise deluded).
 
Premise 1: Before all that exists came into existence, there was ONLY God (I'm ignoring the special pleading fallacy, he is thought to be preexisting).
Premise 2: God created ALL that came into existence.
Premise 3: Evil exists.
Conclusion: God is the ONLY person who could have had a hand in creating evil.

Hey WingedVictory, before I get into anything else, I just want to further explore some of the complications in your initial set of premises. I don't think that any of these points are inarguable, it's just an exploration of the problem, but I think the exploration can point to certain conclusions.

The first observation illustrates some of the semiotic problems in the argument. I took the liberty of slightly rephrasing two of the premises to include the word "thing," because our discussion that followed, I think, adequately illustrates the significance of the concept of "things" in this argument:

Premise 1: Before all that exists came into existence, there was ONLY God
Premise 2: God created ALL things that came into existence.
Premise 3: Cats the Musical is a thing that exists.
Conclusion: God is the ONLY person who could have had a hand in creating Cats the Musical.

I think it's difficult to accept the conclusion as legitimate, because Cats the Musical is obviously a product of human free will rather than a direct creation of God. At best, you could say that God created the potential for Cats the Musical to exist. So as glomung points out, this discussion actually seems to be more about the usual questions about free will, and less about a question over whether or not God created evil.

One way of explaining how the conclusion could not be true is identified through semiotics. So I'm not sure how familiar you are with terminology in semiotics, but I think what my modified premises demonstrate is that "thing" in premise 2 and 3 is the same signifier, but they each point to different signifieds (a simpler, but not identical, way of looking at it is that "thing" is the same word, but it has a different definition in premise 2 and 3. Or to use a mathematical analogy, premise 2 and 3 don't have the same common denominator, so you can't add them up yet).

This second observation illustrates some of the complications in defining the term "evil." So let's first see what happens when we reword the third premise to a more obviously arbitrary concept.

Premise 1: Before all that exists came into existence, there was ONLY God
Premise 2: God created ALL things that came into existence.
Premise 3: Beauty is a thing that exists.
Conclusion: God is the ONLY person who could have had a hand in creating beauty.

So in this argument, I want to observe a few things. First of all, beauty is a thing, but it's difficult to make sense of that particular conclusion, since beauty is clearly relative. It's easier to argue that God created us with the ability to perceive something as beautiful. So one way of looking at good and evil is that "evil" and "good" are things only in that way that "beauty" and "ugliness" can be things (again, "thing" in the third premise is the same signifier with a different signified). What every person perceives as good or evil is relative, but as Christians we think that our perception of what is good and evil should increasingly reflect God's perception of what is good and evil, and that He perceives good and evil according to His nature (or: good and evil are arbitrary according to perception, but God's perception is the "correct" perception). So the term "evil" could be thought of as referring to someone's perception of a thing, more than some sort of mystical force in the universe that's been created. I'm not sure that solves the problem exactly, because we're still left with the problem of why there are acts that should be perceived as evil, but I think this also illustrates that the actual problem we're discussing is not about whether or not God created evil, but the usual questions/problems over free will.

Again, I don't think these observations are totally inarguable, but I hope they at least show some of the complications with the initial premises you submitted, and that Christians have a reasonable position to believe that God didn't create evil. Which leads to my next post...
 
Premise 1: Before all that exists came into existence, there was ONLY God (I'm ignoring the special pleading fallacy, he is thought to be preexisting).
Premise 2: God is good
Premise 3: God created ALL that came into existence.
Conclusion: ALL things in existence is good.

Evil, then, CAN'T exist if ONLY God (who is good) preexisted and created all things. All things and events would have to necessarily be defined as "good", because all things were created by God.

This argument is interesting, since the Bible does say, after each thing God created, He said that it was good, including people, who had, ultimately, free will to choose either good or evil. Again, it seems to be a problem that will ultimately imply the usual questions about free will: everything that God created was good, including humans, with their ability to choose what is evil: "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" Genesis 1:31. So whether we agree that "God created evil" or "God created the potential for evil to exist by creating beings with free will," it seems like a fairly pedantic distinction in retrospect, considering that whichever way you conclude, the usual questions about free will are the same.

Darkness either preexisted or was created by God. Now, ironic to me making this argument, I did some reading and the Genesis account never says that darkness was preexisting along with God. It is mentioned before light, implying that light wasn't needed to define darkness nor did darkness only come into existence because of light. I would like you to respond to this point especially, because it seems to me to contradict your view of light and darkness. That's not my most important point though.

Initially, one of the things I wanted to show was that Christians can reasonably believe that God didn't create evil. I am satisfied that I've shown there is a reasonable argument to be made for that position. I do have a couple of responses about the light/darkness thing, as well as the whether or not "nothingness" can be observed as having an effect on the universe (but this will be from a scientific perspective). I think they're pretty good responses, but I also think to argue those distinctions seems unnecessarily pedantic if the problem of free will is going to be the same in the end anyway. To illustrate:

So if I ask, did God create darkness? I think I can adequately show that God didn't need to have created darkness for it to exist.

However, if I ask, is God responsible for the existence of darkness? Then I would have to answer, yes. I don't think that darkness was either pre-existing, or that it needs to have been created to exist. I think darkness is only a thing at all because the existence of light makes darkness a "thing." So, while I can say with some confidence that God didn't need to create darkness for it to exist, I can't say that He's not responsible for its existence, because its existence as a "thing" came about through the creation of light.

Similarly,

If you ask, "Did God create evil?" I think I can produce a reasonable argument that He did not.

However, if you ask, "Is God responsible for the existence of evil?" That's a much harder question to confidently say "no" to. If I believe that God created people with free will to choose to reflect his nature or not, then I also believe that God created the potential for an action to be undertaken that could qualify as "evil" (as much as He created the potential for, say, Cats the Musical to exist). In other words, it's a question about free will and whether or not we bear responsibility for our choices, more than a question about whether or not we can say that God created evil.

Regarding free will (and your response to glomung), I'm sure you're aware of the massive amount of apologetic material written on the subject, and I can only refer you on to that body of work to determine for yourself whether or not your response to glomung on that matter is inarguable, or whether Christians have a reasonable belief in both God and free will.
 
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