Theodicy, will we ever know the full origins of evil?

ALAYMAN

ALAYMAN

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Many difficult and sometimes ostensibly unresolved problems or even paradoxes persist throughout philosophy and theology, problems such as the freewill/sovereignty debate, the Trinity, the Solas, etc. The matter of the origins of evil may arguably be one of the most difficult to flesh out for all sides of the moral argument. One Christian theological pacification to some of these issues is invoked by citing Deuteronomy 29:29 ("the secret things belong to God"). I have no qualms with the argument that the finite creature will NEVER come to a place of total understanding of an infinite God, but I have to ask, do you believe that once the veil is lifted and we enter into sanctified perfection in glory that we will have or be given an adequate understanding of where evil originated from? Or, do you believe that the question is a misplaced one, insofar as that such "trivialities" won't matter in light of enjoying His presence and prerogatives for us?
 
ALAYMAN said:
Many difficult and sometimes ostensibly unresolved problems or even paradoxes persist throughout philosophy and theology, problems such as the freewill/sovereignty debate, the Trinity, the Solas, etc. The matter of the origins of evil may arguably be one of the most difficult to flesh out for all sides of the moral argument. One Christian theological pacification to some of these issues is invoked by citing Deuteronomy 29:29 ("the secret things belong to God"). I have no qualms with the argument that the finite creature will NEVER come to a place of total understanding of an infinite God, but I have to ask, do you believe that once the veil is lifted and we enter into sanctified perfection in glory that we will have or be given an adequate understanding of where evil originated from? Or, do you believe that the question is a misplaced one, insofar as that such "trivialities" won't matter in light of enjoying His presence and prerogatives for us?
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I addressed this in one of my "Doctrine of Satan" paper. This is one of the verses that comes up in discussions of theodicy:

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

I looked at everything John MacArthur had to say about this but wasn't fully satisfied. He says that the King James translators got it wrong when they translated the Hebrew word "ra" as "Evil" but translating this word as "Calamity" or "Disaster" still implies that God created something that is "Not Good" so what exactly is going on here?

Look at the context of the rest of the verse. God forms the light. The bible also says that God is light and in him is no darkness at all (1 Jn 1:5) so how is darkness even possible? Darkness is possible outside of God and darkness is simply the absence of light. Same with Evil. The opposite of evil is good and God is GOOD! Everything that God creates is good and VERY GOOD so how can EVIL be present in God's creation? It is then a matter of basic logic. Since everything WITHIN the context of God is Good, any and everything OUTSIDE of the context of God is evil! Therefore, any attempt to justify the reason of your existence to be anything other than the glory of God is evil! Evil was "Theoretically" present from the beginning of God's creation (and even before if you think about it) but no one even acknowledged its existence until Lucifer decided that he should be lifted up and worshipped as God (Therefore stepping outside of the reason for his existence). The reason for Man's fall into sin was quite similar to Satan's fall! Man stepped outside of the reason and purpose for which he was created!

It may even be a "Theoretical" thing in the age to come where everything is perfect but THANK GOD we will not have the possibility of sinning (Non-Posse Pecarre) so we could not commit the sin even if we wanted to (and we would never WANT TO!)
 
Baptist Renegade said:
I addressed this in one of my "Doctrine of Satan" paper. This is one of the verses that comes up in discussions of theodicy:

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

I looked at everything John MacArthur had to say about this but wasn't fully satisfied. He says that the King James translators got it wrong when they translated the Hebrew word "ra" as "Evil" but translating this word as "Calamity" or "Disaster" still implies that God created something that is "Not Good" so what exactly is going on here?

Look at the context of the rest of the verse. God forms the light. The bible also says that God is light and in him is no darkness at all (1 Jn 1:5) so how is darkness even possible? Darkness is possible outside of God and darkness is simply the absence of light. Same with Evil. The opposite of evil is good and God is GOOD! Everything that God creates is good and VERY GOOD so how can EVIL be present in God's creation? It is then a matter of basic logic. Since everything WITHIN the context of God is Good, any and everything OUTSIDE of the context of God is evil! Therefore, any attempt to justify the reason of your existence to be anything other than the glory of God is evil! Evil was "Theoretically" present from the beginning of God's creation (and even before if you think about it) but no one even acknowledged its existence until Lucifer decided that he should be lifted up and worshipped as God (Therefore stepping outside of the reason for his existence). The reason for Man's fall into sin was quite similar to Satan's fall! Man stepped outside of the reason and purpose for which he was created!

It may even be a "Theoretical" thing in the age to come where everything is perfect but THANK GOD we will not have the possibility of sinning (Non-Posse Pecarre) so we could not commit the sin even if we wanted to (and we would never WANT TO!)
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On the matter of Isaiah 45:7 most of what I have read is that it's not appropriate to conflate evil/calamity in the natural world in terms of how God causes natural events to befall earth with the moral evil inherent to depraved humanity. As to the rest of what you said about theoretical possibilities of evil prior to the fall, or to Satan's fall, that is somewhat helpful, but it seems to me that just pushes the goalposts further back, because if God created the potential for evil then it seems the question of what culpability (assuming that He is omnipotent as well as omniscient) He may own in creating that theoretical potentiality. Of course on the other side of that horn of dilemma is to concede that if any thing proceeded from God, or preceded Him, then there's another problem of what it means to be sovereign and eternal (and opens up a concept of dualism for good and evil).
 
ALAYMAN said:
On the matter of Isaiah 45:7 most of what I have read is that it's not appropriate to conflate evil/calamity in the natural world in terms of how God causes natural events to befall earth with the moral evil inherent to depraved humanity. As to the rest of what you said about theoretical possibilities of evil prior to the fall, or to Satan's fall, that is somewhat helpful, but it seems to me that just pushes the goalposts further back, because if God created the potential for evil then it seems the question of what culpability (assuming that He is omnipotent as well as omniscient) He may own in creating that theoretical potentiality. Of course on the other side of that horn of dilemma is to concede that if any thing proceeded from God, or preceded Him, then there's another problem of what it means to be sovereign and eternal (and opens up a concept of dualism for good and evil).
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I would still maintain that from a theoretical standpoint, it is an impossibility for evil NOT to exist. Even prior to God's creation evil was present although God was the only being in existence to acknowledge its presence (anything outside of God) but since there is nothing outside of God, nothing is evil, and therefore evil does not exist.

Evil went from theoretical to being a reality when Lucifer suggested that he could set himself apart from God and be worshipped as God.

You tell me, where did this evil come from that so seduced the Cherub Formerly Known as Lucifer?
 
Baptist Renegade said:
You tell me, where did this evil come from that so seduced the Cherub Formerly Known as Lucifer?
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You make evil sound like some kind of material substance that has to have an origin.

Evil is merely a spirit being making a decision to go against God. What it brings forth is confusion and misery the opposite of joy and LOVE which God is.
 
Baptist Renegade said:
I would still maintain that from a theoretical standpoint, it is an impossibility for evil NOT to exist. Even prior to God's creation evil was present although God was the only being in existence to acknowledge its presence (anything outside of God) but since there is nothing outside of God, nothing is evil, and therefore evil does not exist.

Evil went from theoretical to being a reality when Lucifer suggested that he could set himself apart from God and be worshipped as God.

You tell me, where did this evil come from that so seduced the Cherub Formerly Known as Lucifer?
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I don’t believed it can be proved scripturally that “evil” existed until pride gained control over Lucifer which led to his rebelling against God. Evil is an action how could evil be exhibited if there was no one to do evil ? For evil to always have existed ( even prior to creation)implies that God is evil because there was a time when only He existed.
 
Leatherneck0311 said:
I don’t believed it can be proved scripturally that “evil” existed until pride gained control over Lucifer which led to his rebelling against God. Evil is an action how could evil be exhibited if there was no one to do evil ? For evil to always have existed ( even prior to creation)implies that God is evil because there was a time when only He existed.
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Standard reading on evil’s origin (citing) Augustine, but I find such explanations ultimately lacking full satisfactory explanation. Link
 
ALAYMAN said:
Standard reading on evil’s origin (citing) Augustine, but I find such explanations ultimately lacking full satisfactory explanation. Link
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Interesting article though I skipped the philosophers views. I don’t place any credence on philosophical views. This portion is just wrong according to scripture: God gave good creatures the freedom to do bad. If a being is perfect in its goodness, he held, it would never sin even if it were free to. Evil would then have to create itself ex nihilo, which is ridiculous.7 God did create Eden without any evil present. The evil showed up when Lucifer showed up. Eve was tempted with learning a new knowledge which God had forbidden. I know you know who told the first lie and as Jesus said he is the father of lies.
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Jas 1:13 - Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for Godcannot be tempted with evil,neither tempteth he any man:
 
Leatherneck0311 said:
Interesting article though I skipped the philosophers views. I don’t place any credence on philosophical views. This portion is just wrong according to scripture: God gave good creatures the freedom to do bad. If a being is perfect in its goodness, he held, it would never sin even if it were free to. Evil would then have to create itself ex nihilo, which is ridiculous.7 God did create Eden without any evil present. The evil showed up when Lucifer showed up. Eve was tempted with learning a new knowledge which God had forbidden. I know you know who told the first lie and as Jesus said he is the father of lies.
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Jas 1:13 - Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for Godcannot be tempted with evil,neither tempteth he any man:
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When you say that evil showed up when Lucifer did, you are only pushing the chronology back for the problem of a question of the origins of evil. Lucifer was not created originally evil, but he chose to rebel.
 
ALAYMAN said:
When you say that evil showed up when Lucifer did, you are only pushing the chronology back for the problem of a question of the origins of evil. Lucifer was not created originally evil, but he chose to rebel.
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The origins of evil started with Lucifer. Problem solved
 
Leatherneck0311 said:
The origins of evil started with Lucifer. Problem solved
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Isaiah 45:7 implies that God created evil.

The King James translation has been widely disputed and as I have already mentioned, the modern translations using "Disaster" and "Calamity" do not seem to be much different.

Remember also that All sin is evil but all evil is not necessarily sin.

We know that Lucifer was seduced by evil so what was this evil and where did it come from?

Looking strictly from scripture, this is pretty much all we have.

Simple logic tells us we understand light when we compare it with darkness.

Same goes with Good. We understand that Evil is the opposite of Good.

Prior to God declaring "Let there be light," was there light? Genesis tells that darkness existed prior to the light and of course we understand that darkness is the absence of light. The scriptures also say that "God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all" (Jn 1:5) so did darkness exist prior to God's work of creation? If darkness did not exist, was it yet theoretical?

Same goes with the Goodness of God. We understand that God is Good and everything that comes from God is good. Since everything comes from God, everything is good. Prior to creation, only God existed and since God is only good, evil did not exist. It was not possible for evil to exist but was it still "theoretical" as was darkness? Does not the goodness of God demand there be the possibility for evil by which God's goodness is compared?

You mentioned the "Free Will" of all God's creatures and prior to the fall, mankind had a PERFECT FREE WILL but how could he be tempted to do evil if evil did not exist? You may say Satan and this is a fair answer but you are just pushing the matter uphill right? How could Satan be tempted to do evil if evil was not already present?

It may be just an exercise in logic and critical thinking but our understanding of this affects our understanding of Hamartiology (The study of sin) as well as out understanding of human nature after the fall.

Evil did not originate with Lucifer but it did change from being a theoretical concept to a real, legitimate thing with Lucifer's rebellion.

If "Evil" existed and originated with Lucifer, would this not imply that this creature was somehow "Less than Good?" If God could create anything "Less than Good" would this not imply that God was somehow "Less than Good" in his character and attributes?
 
Baptist Renegade said:
Isaiah 45:7 implies that God created evil.

The King James translation has been widely disputed and as I have already mentioned, the modern translations using "Disaster" and "Calamity" do not seem to be much different.

Remember also that All sin is evil but all evil is not necessarily sin.

We know that Lucifer was seduced by evil so what was this evil and where did it come from?

Looking strictly from scripture, this is pretty much all we have.

Simple logic tells us we understand light when we compare it with darkness.

Same goes with Good. We understand that Evil is the opposite of Good.

Prior to God declaring "Let there be light," was there light? Genesis tells that darkness existed prior to the light and of course we understand that darkness is the absence of light. The scriptures also say that "God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all" (Jn 1:5) so did darkness exist prior to God's work of creation? If darkness did not exist, was it yet theoretical?

Same goes with the Goodness of God. We understand that God is Good and everything that comes from God is good. Since everything comes from God, everything is good. Prior to creation, only God existed and since God is only good, evil did not exist. It was not possible for evil to exist but was it still "theoretical" as was darkness? Does not the goodness of God demand there be the possibility for evil by which God's goodness is compared?

You mentioned the "Free Will" of all God's creatures and prior to the fall, mankind had a PERFECT FREE WILL but how could he be tempted to do evil if evil did not exist? You may say Satan and this is a fair answer but you are just pushing the matter uphill right? How could Satan be tempted to do evil if evil was not already present?

It may be just an exercise in logic and critical thinking but our understanding of this affects our understanding of Hamartiology (The study of sin) as well as out understanding of human nature after the fall.

Evil did not originate with Lucifer but it did change from being a theoretical concept to a real, legitimate thing with Lucifer's rebellion.

If "Evil" existed and originated with Lucifer, would this not imply that this creature was somehow "Less than Good?" If God could create anything "Less than Good" would this not imply that God was somehow "Less than Good" in his character and attributes?
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The evil began in Lucifer through pride when he wanted to be above God. Where does any evil come from but within the individual giving in to lust or pride ? Evil isn’t an unknown force from the nether world it comes from within the heart or spirit.
 
Baptist Renegade said:
Isaiah 45:7 implies that God created evil.

The King James translation has been widely disputed and as I have already mentioned, the modern translations using "Disaster" and "Calamity" do not seem to be much different.

Remember also that All sin is evil but all evil is not necessarily sin.

We know that Lucifer was seduced by evil so what was this evil and where did it come from?

Looking strictly from scripture, this is pretty much all we have.

Simple logic tells us we understand light when we compare it with darkness.

Same goes with Good. We understand that Evil is the opposite of Good.

Prior to God declaring "Let there be light," was there light? Genesis tells that darkness existed prior to the light and of course we understand that darkness is the absence of light. The scriptures also say that "God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all" (Jn 1:5) so did darkness exist prior to God's work of creation? If darkness did not exist, was it yet theoretical?

Same goes with the Goodness of God. We understand that God is Good and everything that comes from God is good. Since everything comes from God, everything is good. Prior to creation, only God existed and since God is only good, evil did not exist. It was not possible for evil to exist but was it still "theoretical" as was darkness? Does not the goodness of God demand there be the possibility for evil by which God's goodness is compared?

You mentioned the "Free Will" of all God's creatures and prior to the fall, mankind had a PERFECT FREE WILL but how could he be tempted to do evil if evil did not exist? You may say Satan and this is a fair answer but you are just pushing the matter uphill right? How could Satan be tempted to do evil if evil was not already present?

It may be just an exercise in logic and critical thinking but our understanding of this affects our understanding of Hamartiology (The study of sin) as well as out understanding of human nature after the fall.

Evil did not originate with Lucifer but it did change from being a theoretical concept to a real, legitimate thing with Lucifer's rebellion.

If "Evil" existed and originated with Lucifer, would this not imply that this creature was somehow "Less than Good?" If God could create anything "Less than Good" would this not imply that God was somehow "Less than Good" in his character and attributes?
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The evil came from within Satan IMO. Was Adam created “good” God said he was ;therefore, the evil( disobedience) came from within Adam just like it did with Satan.
Eze 28:14 - Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
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Eze 28:15 - Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
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Eze 28:16 - By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
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Eze 28:17 - Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
 
Baptist Renegade said:
Does not the goodness of God demand there be the possibility for evil by which God's goodness is compared?
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So again you're putting forth God had to have a desire to want to see evil so that his goodness can be compared. I disagree. I may have made a world of round wheels. There would be no demand or desire by me to see square wheels brought forth. No need at all and just a waste of material.

Baptist Renegade said:
If "Evil" existed and originated with Lucifer, would this not imply that this creature was somehow "Less than Good?" If God could create anything "Less than Good" would this not imply that God was somehow "Less than Good" in his character and attributes?
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And this is the crux of the whole matter. Calvinists would claim having a free will would be less than good. The Bible says the opposite.
 
Leatherneck0311 said:
The origins of evil started with Lucifer. Problem solved
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Not exactly, but if that helps you then good 😊 (hint) you haven’t addressed the “why” of the origins of evil nor the essence of God’s permissibility for and use of it.
 
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