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Dylan28
Guest
I think He created us with the potential for evil. This is a difficult question. In Job, God never gives an answer, he just wants us to remain faithful no matter what. 
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SSTeacher
Guest
Hi Dylan,
Welcome to Catholic Answers Forums.
Thoughtfully,
Mick
Welcome to Catholic Answers Forums.
I agree.
In the Book of Job, God is not the author of evil but He does allow evil to occur. So do you think an adequate conclusion is that evil is inevitable?This is a difficult question. In Job, God never gives an answer, he just wants us to remain faithful no matter what.
Thoughtfully,
Mick
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tonyrey
Guest
If God created the universe God must be ultimately responsible for everything that happens - both good and evil. Since it is impossible to create a universe totally devoid of accidents and disasters evil is inevitable. The alternative is to create nothing at all - which would be a greater evil!:dancing:
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patrickp200
Guest
Everything that God created was created good. Sin and evil came from freewill and the choice to turn away from God. Satan chose to turn away from God and so did Adam and Eve. Main thing… they had a CHOICE to make. God created humans and Angels in perfection but they chose to sin by disobeying God.
God Bless and Mary Keep,
-Patrick
www.ourladysyouth.com
God Bless and Mary Keep,
-Patrick
www.ourladysyouth.com
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jkiernan56
Guest
Peace is NOT the absence of conflict anymore than Evil is the absence of Good.
Evil is Goodness that has gone rotten. You can’t have a rotten apple unless you first have a good apple. You can have a good apple without it going bad - but you cannot have a bad apple unless there is first a good apple. Evil cannot exist without what is Good whereas what is Good CAN exist WITHOUT Evil.
Before anything was created, only God (who Goodness Itself) existed. Evil DID NOT exist before creation. God created what is Good thus enabling the potential and possibility of Evil to exist.
If 1 = 2 and 2 results in 3, does 1=3? NO!!!
Did God “make” what is Good to go bad? No - only the potential of what is good to go rotten. If I “make” a hammer and give it as a gift, and that person then takes the hammer and bashes a person’s head in with it (uses it in a destructive manner) … did I cause the person I gave the hammer to - to use it in the way it was used? No!!! Did I cause the 3rd party to get their head bashed in? No!!! I created the POTENTIAL and POSSIBILITY of it happening.
So the only way God could have prevented evil from occuring was to never create the universe. But the fact that God did, and gave his creation the ability to use his creation in the manner they “choose”, the consequences of those choices are seen in our own lives and the world around us. Goodness gone rotten.
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Leela
Guest
I thought all things were possible for God? Is God not omnipotent?
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fhansen
Guest
I don’t know about accidents and disasters but more generally speaking anything God creates is inherently inferior to Him, i.e. He alone can possess perfection.
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jkiernan56
Guest
That is a very common misunderstanding. **“ALL” ** things DOES NOT mean ANYTHING (including what is not real). Only what is REAL is possible for God. God cannot do what is not real. God cannot will Himself to cease to exist. God cannot make a four-sided triangle. God exists in reality and can do all possible things … THAT ARE REALLY POSSIBLE !!! Things that are NOT real with inherent contradictions are NOT possible.
“All confess that God is omnipotent; but it seems difficult to explain in what His omnipotence precisely consists: for there may be doubt as to the precise meaning of the word ‘all’ when we say that God can do all things. If, however, we consider the matter aright, since power is said in reference to possible things, this phrase, “God can do all things,” is rightly understood to mean that God can do all things that are possible; and for this reason He is said to be omnipotent.” St. Thomas Aquinas
newadvent.org/summa/1025.htm
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Leela
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People who pray generally believe that God occassionally heals sick people. Why doesn’t God heal all sick people? Isn’t this the sport of evil that God could prevent if he was so inclined?
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davidv
Guest
I don’t know have, you asked Him?
What God does is for our benefit not His. Just because you don’t see the benefit, doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
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fhansen
Guest
All healed people proceed on in life to eventually die of their final illness. God has occasionally healed for the purpose of producing/increasing faith, according to His purposes. The ultimate enemy for man though is death itself which we believe Jesus conquered, proving Gods power over life and death and implanting trust in Him for the promise of eternal life.
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jkiernan56
Guest
And I would add to your statement that God ALWAYS answers prayer - but not necessarily in the manner asked or wanted. Without meaning to diminish God’s gift of our human physical body, there is an “inner” healing of the soul that far exceeds the physical.
I believe as St. Augustine so elequently stated that the only reason God “allows” evil is because He is able to bring about a greater Good. You and I may not be afforded to “see” this greater Good while here on earth.
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tonyrey
Guest
Omnipotence does not entail doing that which is self-contradictory, such as creating a highly complex system devoid of unintended coincidences. The element of chance cannot be excluded from a physical world no matter how well planned it may be. Sooner or later some one is bound to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one has ever produced a blueprint of a perfect world for the simple reason that it is not feasible.
Accidents and disasters can be prevented by direct intervention but to do so on every occasion would undermine the order of the universe. Not only would a rational existence become impossible in such an unpredictable world we would no longer be free to choose what to believe because there would be coercive evidence of a benevolent power at work.
On top of all that, God’s power is limited by human freedom. The world is out of divine control in direct proportion to the extent that it is under human control. If all life on this planet disappears due to our abuse of the environment we shall have only ourselves to blame…:sad_bye::sad_bye:
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jkiernan56
Guest
Actually nothing is out of God’s control … it is God who is giving you your existence this very moment … and if God so willed … could stop thinking of you … or me … or the whole universe … and it would cease to exist … “in Him, we live, and move, and have our being” … Acts 17:28
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jkiernan56
Guest
Yes, if God were so inclined … He could heal ALL sick people instantaneously … He could also stop thinking and willing His creation … .and it would no longer exist. Only God has to exist … that I know from experience is absolutely true … I don’t pretend to think I understand everything … and why God heals some people and not others … I do know that one day we will all stand before the Holiness of God … and will clearly see His Justice … those who love Evil and died in that state of being will send themselves to Hell … not God … God does not send anyone to Hell … the very nature of sin and evil sends them away from the Holiness of God … and no one will be able to place any blame on God for Evil … that I am totally sure of
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Leela
Guest
You can say that God does not send anyone to hell, yet he created hell and set up a syetm of who goes there. It ammounts to the same thing.Yes, if God were so inclined … He could heal ALL sick people instantaneously … He could also stop thinking and willing His creation … .and it would no longer exist. Only God has to exist … that I know from experience is absolutely true … I don’t pretend to think I understand everything … and why God heals some people and not others … I do know that one day we will all stand before the Holiness of God … and will clearly see His Justice … those who love Evil and died in that state of being will send themselves to Hell … not God … God does not send anyone to Hell … the very nature of sin and evil sends them away from the Holiness of God … and no one will be able to place any blame on God for Evil … that I am totally sure of
Also, how can you say that you know from experience that only God has to exist? That isn’t the sort of thing that one can experience.
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jkiernan56
Guest
Everything I say comes from the reference point of the Holiness of God. Yes, I have had a personal experience of God’s Holiness that has turned my life upside down. It was an experience of Grace. Before this experience I could intellectually try to explain what Grace was … but that would be like me trying to tell you about the Grand Canyon if I’ve never been there personally. God in His Goodness allowed me to experience Him in a way that devastated me … that made me realize for the first time in my life that I was wanted, willed, and most of all - LOVED. I used to hate myself intensely and often wished I had never been born. The Lord allowed me to experience His Holy Presence in a way that burned hotter than the midday sun. In that experience of His Presence was one of intimately knowing ONLY GOD HAS TO EXIST and could have continued in BEING for all eternity without ever creating ANYTHING. It was a direct experience of GRACE … realizing that everything is a pure GIFT that is totally undeserved. St. John says it so eloquently that love consists not in that we love God but that “He first loved us.” That really says it all. I now know that I am loved … a unique gift of God to the Body of Christ just as is each person God has created. When God is done with His work of forming each of us into the image of Christ in our own unique way of expressing that Holiness … you and I can’t even imagine what that Holiness is going to look like … more beautiful than whatever you can imagine …
I will reiterate what I said before - God DOES NOT send anyone to Hell. That is a state of being where because of the very nature of sin and evil … a person is unable to be in the Holy Presence of God … to be in a state of being that diametrically opposes what God is in His own nature … God’s Holiness and anything sinful cannot coexist. I don’t understand yet how persons and angels in Hell exist in relationship to God’s existence … but I do know that God must continue to think and will all of His creation … or otherwise it would cease to exist.
Evil DOES NOT come from God - period.
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Leela
Guest
That reminds me of this story"
“I recently spent an afternoon on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, atop the mount where Jesus is believed to have preached his most famous sermon. It was an infernally hot day, and the sanctuary was crowded with Christian pilgrims from many continents. Some gathered silently in the shade, while others staggered in the noonday sun, taking photographs.
As I sat and gazed upon the surrounding hills gently sloping to an inland sea, a feeling of peace came over me. It soon grew to a blissful stillness that silenced my thoughts. In an instant, the sense of being a separate self—an “I” or a “me”—vanished. Everything was as it had been—the cloudless sky, the pilgrims clutching their bottles of water—but I no longer felt like I was separate from the scene, peering out at the world from behind my eyes. Only the world remained.”
Was your experience something like that? The above is from an article by Sam Harris.
newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/sam_harris/2007/01/consciousness_without_faith_1.html
He continues:
“The experience lasted just a few moments, but returned many times as I gazed out over the land where Jesus is believed to have walked, gathered his apostles, and worked many of his miracles. If I were a Christian, I would undoubtedly interpret this experience in Christian terms. I might believe that I had glimpsed the oneness of God, or felt the descent of the Holy Spirit.But I am not a Christian.
If I were a Hindu, I might talk about “Brahman,” the eternal Self, of which all individual minds are thought to be a mere modification. But I am not a Hindu. If I were a Buddhist, I might talk about the “dharmakaya of emptiness” in which all apparent things manifest. But I am not a Buddhist.
As someone who is simply making his best effort to be a rational human being, I am very slow to draw metaphysical conclusions from experiences of this sort. The truth is, I experience what I would call the “selflessness of consciousness” rather often, wherever I happen to meditate—be it in a Buddhist monastery, a Hindu temple, or while having my teeth cleaned. Consequently, the fact that I also had this experience at a Christian holy site does not lend an ounce of credibility to the doctrine of Christianity.
There is no question that people have “spiritual” experiences (I use words like “spiritual” and “mystical” in scare quotes, because they come to us trailing a long tail of metaphysical debris). Every culture has produced people who have gone off into caves for months or years and discovered that certain deliberate uses of attention—introspection, meditation, prayer—can radically transform a person’s moment to moment perception of the world. I believe contemplative efforts of this sort have a lot to tell us about the nature of the mind.”
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fhansen
Guest
**I hope you don’t mind if I jump in. A mystical experience doesn’t need a church or temple-I had one of the most profound ones a human being can receive, I believe, in a barn. But why not?-Jesus was said to have been born in a stable. And this is one awesome aspect of Christianity. Would God really reveal Himself through one small group of people wandering around in a desert in one little corner of a world in one minute speck of the universe? It sounds kind of hoaky and yet God can reveal himself anywhere and His revelation is written now in the history of the world, for all to witness if their interested, culminating in the life and death of one God/man who actually humbled Himself by incarnating to reveal His nature-Himself- in no uncertain terms. God is no longer vague, distant, ethereal, aloof. God is here and God is love. It’s beautiful.
The experience related by Sam Harris is different from mine, for what its worth. The experience of being in Gods presence is, for one thing, to know with absolute certainty that you are in the presence of another, separate being-and one unimaginably superior-and one who is orchestrating the whole event. And while there’s awe, there’s no fear because love is surrounding you: palpable, overwhelming, unconditional.
**
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jkiernan56
Guest
No - this was definitely NOT my experience at all. With no intention of disrespect to that person’s experience, mine was one of knowing that I was WANTED by God … at the same time realizing that God KNEW EVERYTHING about me … and in His knowledge of me, He LOVED me … and wanted me … and that is the only reason I exist … rather than loose my sense of individuality … it rather affirmed that my intrinsic self-worth is that God the Almighty wanted me … who was I to tell God that He should never have created me? He is the Artist - I (and we) are the Painting.
not only in my uniqueness as an individual … but also in a grandeur scheme of what God is building … like a beautiful painting … everything that an artist puts into a painting is because the artist wanted it to be there … so too you and I are wanted by God … LOVED for who we are individually … but also in who we are to one another in His Painting - the beautiful Bride of Christ - the Church - the Family of God - starting with His own Eternal Son … and us as adopted Sons and Daughters of God.
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