is a fact that the traditional God of the great monotheistic religions has all three attributes as omnibenevolent, omnipotence and omniscience, which raises serious logical problems with what the theologians have struggled without success for centuries. how to reconcile the three attributes with the existence of evil?

asked 02 Apr '10, 18:34

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Robert
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edited 29 Mar '13, 18:51

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Jaianniah
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8FdnT2-qm0 Is this man evil?Or just trying to explain to you that you reap what you sow?

(29 Mar '13, 15:02) white tiger
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Don't forget omnipresent as an attribute of god. I look at like this. Helen Wilmans was an advocate of the Mental Science Movement. She puts it this way. All things are good. In relation to something that is more good it would come to a point where something is bad or evil compared to something extreme good. Therefore it is a matter of where on the scale of good it is located.

Its our own perceptions and behaviors that come from our own free will that are "evil." God is all impersonal Love He loves us all the same with no favortism.

LUKE 6:35--But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward will be great, and ye shall be sons of the Highest, because He(god) is kind unto the ungracious and evil;

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answered 03 Apr '10, 03:57

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RPuls
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I love that analogy of the scale of good - such a clear, succinct way of explaining the good/evil concept

(26 May '10, 06:28) Stingray

If God is exists why is there evil?

The number one objection people raise against the existence of God is based on this question of evil. If God is God why doesn't He remove all the evil people? It is a good thing He does not. If He removed all the evil people using His standard, none of us would still be here (including you)!

Nevertheless, the question of evil is a legitimate question that deserves an answer and the bible provides one. The answer is found not in the Garden of Eden, but in Heaven. God reveals the mystery of iniquity, and allows us to see exactly what happened at the beginning of this creation.

When God created the angels, He created one who was full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. He was known as the anointed cherub.

Ezekiel 28:13-17; 13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 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. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 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. 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.

Isaiah reveals a little more about Satan.

Isaiah 14:12-15; 12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Side note: verses 15 speaks about hell. Jesus said in Matthew 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: (That is the reason hell exists.)

The first sin in the universe was covetousness. Lucifer became discontented as the guardian cherub, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, he wanted to be worshipped! It was then that his name was changed from Lucifer (which means the light one) to Satan (which means the adversary).

Based on Rev. 12:4, Lucifer convinced 1/3 of the angels to follow him instead of God. So, here we have 1/3 of the angels in opposition against God. The question is, what should He do about it? Look at His options. He could have vaporized them instantaneously. He could have crushed the rebellion with a word! The problem with that approach would be obvious. If the Creator had simply wiped out the fallen angels, the worship in Heaven would have been tainted by fear. It would have been forced worship and praise (out of fear) on the part of the angels and everybody else.

The answer to the question of evil is only understood in the context of love. Without evil, we would not understand perfect love.

For God to show his love he allows evil to exit. This will one day end. Revelation 20:10,14-15; 10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. 14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

1 John 4:18-19; 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 19 We love him, because he first loved us.

Even though God is sovereign, one thing he cannot do is to make someone love him. Forced love is a contradiction in terms.

If God were to violate your free will here, true love would not be possible. So, God said, in effect, I will prove my love, not with a show of force, but with a demonstration of perfect love. That is where we come in. We are exhibit "A" to all the host of Heaven, that God is love.

Romans 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Hope this answer helps you understand a little more.(Phil DelRe)

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answered 02 Apr '10, 22:38

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Frank 1
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very good frank and what was the verdict? This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. http://bible.cc/john/3-19.htm

(04 Apr '12, 14:58) white tiger
1

Wow @Frank 1, my heart is rejoicing as I read your answer. Thank you for sharing.

(29 Mar '13, 10:44) Romel

It depends on how you define evil as Rplus mentioned. If you believe that we are creating our own reality then where does evil come from? Either the physical existence is just a random series of events or there are spiritual laws guiding its existence. If you believe in the former then we are really in trouble. However if we believe that there are spiritual laws then we have a personal resonsibility to learn and apply them to our lives.

Whatever you believe will manifest in your life. I choose to believe that we create our own reality and as a result I have to take personal responsibility for whatever happens to me. If you choose to believe in evil then you always have someone/something to blame and you will always be a victim.

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answered 06 Apr '10, 18:19

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Drham
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Hi Drham it is a fact that evil is a reality that surrounds us, despite our belief

(06 Apr '10, 23:33) Robert

Drham free will is the gift that God gave you. you are on your path to become perfect. a light with no darkness in truth and love.

(04 Apr '12, 15:01) white tiger

Dont forget that we have the very essence of God in us and therefore we are creators too. so we create and mostly we create what we have in us, for the mind that is not yet renewed, it will create evil. Now ask yourself what you have been creating and depositing in the world for the past few days. The earth is for our domination, what happens here is our fault.

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answered 25 May '10, 11:27

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Sunshine
1938

very good sunshine. the earth is our physical house for our physical body for this test of growth.

(04 Apr '12, 15:04) white tiger

This is something my pastor was speaking of not long ago, these things must be understood first to understand why this is so with the earth.

1 God is a just God, he does not change things just because he would rather them be a different way. If he did that it would be unfair and unbalanced to any who oppose him.

2 Adam was originally God of the Earth as God made him to have full dominion over all of the Earth but because the devil convinced him to disobey God and (basically not trust what God said to him) the devil had won Adam's dominion and become the God of the Earth.

3 The devil tempted Jesus saying bow to me and I will make all of Earth yours every kingdom shall bow down to you. Jesus was not stupid he would have caught the devil in this lie if it were a lie, he did not say lair you do not own the earth you are not God of the earth! If it were a lie Jesus could not be tempted by this offer, it had to be a contract the devil could make good on. So this shows scripturely the devil is running things here mostly except those that turn to God of course.

4 Yes pick up any news paper, turn on any news channel, weigh the good of the world vs the evil, I'll try to make a list here.

On the side of evil, drugs, drinking, arguing, fighting, killing, torture, theft, hate, lying, bullying, extortion, slavery, rape, wow I don't want to continue this list it is upsetting me!

On the side of good, love, healing, caring, compassion, donating, helping, freeing.

So we can see the list seems very lopsided towards evil unfortunately for the world.

This is until Jesus comes back for the final battle and wins Earth back for God.

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answered 06 Aug '10, 21:08

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Wade Casaldi
36.9k428102

1

don't wait on jesus. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. http://bible.cc/john/14-12.htm

jesus have pass you the flag with all the keys.

(04 Apr '12, 15:11) white tiger

God gave us free will. We create an image in our mind of who we are/who we think we are/who we think others think we are. This egoic person does not exist outside of our minds, it is an illusion, however, it is a driving force for our actions. When people believe the illusion of being separate from God and from others, it allows fear, disease, greed, hate, etc... If we believe that we are separate, we treat eachother differently than we would if we realized that what we do to others is what we do to ourselves and to God.

People fight to protect this egoic person if they feel it is threatened, based on their perceptions of reality, based on their judgements, fears, etc...

The illusion of separateness is taken even further in individuals who don't recognize their own thoughts and believe that their thoughts are separate from them like in schitzophrenia, or even create separate personalies within themselves. In people with multiple personalities, each personality believes they are a separate person, yet sometimes still know they share a body with other/s. The further we separate ourselves from Oneness, the less control we believe we have over ourselves, our lives, etc... and the less friendly other people seem to be. So people protecting themselves or their egoic self behave in ways that are what we would consider to be evil.

The oposite is true also, that the more we realize we are One with God and with others, the better we treat eachother/ourselves/God, the more of the fruit of the Spirit we experience and demonstrate and attract love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control and perfect health.

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answered 04 Apr '12, 12:36

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Fairy Princess
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very good Fairy Princess.

(04 Apr '12, 15:15) white tiger
1

thank you White Tiger

(04 Apr '12, 18:59) Fairy Princess

God cannot deny evil, because by doing so he would deny himself.

I don't mean to say that God is evil, but God is certainly not opposite of evil. The opposite is good. And God is oneness of all things. So Good and Evil are equal part of him, and they remain ever in balance, because for any great evil deed, there is equally great deed of good.

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answered 05 Apr '12, 10:59

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CalonLan
(suspended)

it may be your ability of conceptualization
that limits the power of your god,
personification or anthropomorphic thinking
so we can believe we communicate with It

it is us who are compassionate and loving
or elitist and feed of our brothers
do you rationalize how you deserve
or seek to see the sameness within all

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answered 05 Apr '12, 18:34

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fred
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