By Tim Callaway
DayBreak Community Church
Preferably, in 25 words or less, right? Every question, including this one, reflects certain assumptions made by the questioner. Assuming, for brevity’s sake, that your assumptions are accurate, let me try to be as succinct as possible on this “huge” matter.
You appear to be aware that God did not create evil, but that what God did create was humankind with free-will … free-will to choose to do good and/or evil. And God declared such a creation to be “good.” It’s important to be careful that we’re not just playing word-games here, so try and look at it this way. Since, as we believe, God by nature is good, holy, righteous, etc., had He created a being that could only do the good that God commanded but not its polar opposite, what God would have created would have been a robot. And what, one can legitimately ask, is good, holy, righteous, etc., (in a studied definition of those terms) about creating a being that can do no other than what it is programmed to do (ie. good)? Would that truly have been “good” according to the studied definition of that term? Or, was it good-er, or better, for God to create a being capable of voluntarily choosing for himself/herself to select obedience over disobedience, to do good rather than do evil? Many Christian philosophers suggest that despite the horrific trauma that mankind unleashed on the earth by exercising this free-will, nonetheless, to have been given the free-will to voluntarily choose good or evil is nevertheless good-er than, or better than, to have been created as a being capable of only doing good. Rather than creating a bunch of robots with no alternative but to be good (attractive as that option may initially seem compared to experiencing the horrors of living in an evil world), God—in his wisdom—chose to give us the option of choosing to obey Him (and thereby experience Him in all His greatness) or to choose otherwise which is what mankind has done thereby making evil an everyday reality. As horrible and terrible as the reality of evil is, from God’s infinite and eternal perspective, allowing for the possibility of evil was nevertheless a superior (gooder, better) option than to create robots that could do nothing other than obey just as they had been programmed to do. Seen from another vantage point, to choose to truly experience the forgiveness and grace of God thereby enabling us to be more than conquerors over the excruciating realities of living in an evil world is, in God’s mind, a superior way to live than to live never needing or knowing the goodness of His love.
DayBreak Community Church
Preferably, in 25 words or less, right? Every question, including this one, reflects certain assumptions made by the questioner. Assuming, for brevity’s sake, that your assumptions are accurate, let me try to be as succinct as possible on this “huge” matter.
You appear to be aware that God did not create evil, but that what God did create was humankind with free-will … free-will to choose to do good and/or evil. And God declared such a creation to be “good.” It’s important to be careful that we’re not just playing word-games here, so try and look at it this way. Since, as we believe, God by nature is good, holy, righteous, etc., had He created a being that could only do the good that God commanded but not its polar opposite, what God would have created would have been a robot. And what, one can legitimately ask, is good, holy, righteous, etc., (in a studied definition of those terms) about creating a being that can do no other than what it is programmed to do (ie. good)? Would that truly have been “good” according to the studied definition of that term? Or, was it good-er, or better, for God to create a being capable of voluntarily choosing for himself/herself to select obedience over disobedience, to do good rather than do evil? Many Christian philosophers suggest that despite the horrific trauma that mankind unleashed on the earth by exercising this free-will, nonetheless, to have been given the free-will to voluntarily choose good or evil is nevertheless good-er than, or better than, to have been created as a being capable of only doing good. Rather than creating a bunch of robots with no alternative but to be good (attractive as that option may initially seem compared to experiencing the horrors of living in an evil world), God—in his wisdom—chose to give us the option of choosing to obey Him (and thereby experience Him in all His greatness) or to choose otherwise which is what mankind has done thereby making evil an everyday reality. As horrible and terrible as the reality of evil is, from God’s infinite and eternal perspective, allowing for the possibility of evil was nevertheless a superior (gooder, better) option than to create robots that could do nothing other than obey just as they had been programmed to do. Seen from another vantage point, to choose to truly experience the forgiveness and grace of God thereby enabling us to be more than conquerors over the excruciating realities of living in an evil world is, in God’s mind, a superior way to live than to live never needing or knowing the goodness of His love.
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