The same holds true, William: God never motivates anyone to do evil. His permissive will (as distinct from His perfect will) allows for evil (which He foreknows will occur), evil which, nonetheless, will never overcome His providential plan of salvation. (This article is helpful in seeing the difference between God’s perfect will and His permissive will:
mcclare.blogspot.com/2004/08/gods-perfect-will-and-romans-12.html)
One has not been “societised” into seeing Judas’ act as evil; evil is evil and good is good and the distinction is written on the hearts of men.
.
Hi, and thank you for your posting … it has given me much food for thought …
I do not mean to sound “impertinent” or “obtuse”, but another point strikes me here (by way of an analogy):-
On my way to the bus stop to go to university each morning, in 1984, I walked upon on open, rolling stretch of land in which there was a hollow into which the rain would collect after it had been raining … and I noticed that, after the rain, a flock of crows had learned to gather at the hollow and easily “pick up” the worms which had come to the surface to avoid drowning …
Now, for as long as I can remember, if I have ever seen a worm or a snail “stranded” on a concrete path, I have picked it up and put it in the grass, hopefully saving its life …
Seeing the crows on rainy mornings, and coming to understand what they were doing, I felt a certain “compassion” for the worms, and took it upon myself to clap loudly at the crows, frightening them away to another part of the field …
I made this my practice, and, one morning, was musing upon it from the background of studying “the problem of evil”, and I thought of putting mysef in the place of the various players in this, my sometimes almost daily practice.
The worms coming up to avoid drowning, I conjectured, had no way of knowing that they were exposing themselves to the peril of the crows, and so I imagined the place of a worm eaten and a worm not eaten …
The former, I conjectured (admittedly with a high degree of anthropomorphism) would consider the crow eating it to be “evil”, whereas the latter, oblivious to the whole struggle going on around it, was oblivious to the whole episode.
The “eating crow”, I surmised, was not “evil”: it was merely doing what it knew to do to ensure its survival.
Clapping my hands, I imagined the mind of the crows:- “evil man, frightening us away from our food …”
Noticing the crows flying to another part of the field, farther away from me, I also noted that they would land and continue feeding elsewhere …
And: “What of those worms in the other part of the field to which I had frightened the crows?”, I asked myself.
If they had been able to perceive the situation as it unfolded, would they not have felt justified in the conjecture:- “evil man; those crows were away at aonther part of the field, and he has now chased them up to this part to feed on us”…?
I certainly had no evil intent …
Thinking further upon the subject, I came to the opinion that “evil”, of itself, may very well not exist; and that, rather it is the perceived (and necessarily imperfectly perceived when we speak of the ways of God to man) effects of actions which are evil (flooding, to a mudskipper, stranded in a drying up lake is a godsend, whereas to the man, whose fields are, by it, submerged, it is a disaster…).
Bearing this in mind, I have always been strongly of the opinion (and, I believe in agreement with the directive of Jesus Christ, in the Gospels) that it is not mine to attempt to comprehend the motivation behind any act -particularly any perceived “unpleasant” act-, but, rather, trusting that it has been presented to me by God, who seeks only to benefit me, it is mine to accept the act, the actor, and its effects … I must answer to God for my reaction to what is placed before me, and, knowing that of myself, believe the same of every man, so, therefore, I am not in a position to judge why another man has done something, just as I am not able to judge why God has (as the Motivator of all that is) motivated this or that man or this or that situation.
Mine is to react and learn …
“The same holds true, William: God never motivates anyone to do evil…”
I believe I made a response to a similar point earlier on this thread … I, in response, asked the writer to consider the example of the Pharaoh, when Moses wanted him to let the Israelites go free … if I remember correctly, after the first plague, the Pharaoh decided that he would set the Israelites free, but God “hardened” the Pharoah’s heart, and made him refuse Moses’ demands. Was that action not “evil” to the Egyptians?
The answer, I would humbly submit, is “yes”, if we look at it from a “critical analysis” and “conjecture” point of view, but actually “no” when the Bible does not give us this information, and “no” again, when I remind myself that God can do no evil.
To the conjecturer, it could be identified as “evil”, but only because we have a situation of an inferior being attempting to infer (from something it cannot ever fully understand or evaluate) this or that motivation on the part of The Superior Being.
Therefore, I try not to judge (… but, being human, of course, often do not succeed …).
God Bless
William
