Evil

[bobballen_18]

Again, don’t know where to post this.

This is another question involving the last post I made regarding the friend’s explanation on why she is agnostic, except I didn’t respond with anything regarding this - I just want to ask for myself.

So, why again does evil exist? Some people are going to respond with because we have free will, so we have the option to do evil. But I guess the question is, and this relates to my friend’s issue, why couldn’t have God, if He is all good, have created us to NOT want to rebel? Why couldn’t have He made us with a nature exactly like his? If He made us like that, we wouldn’t feel like our freedom is violated, or whatever.

Also, another point my friend brought up: God is good - He cannot do evil. But how is allowing evil not a bad thing? I guess that sort of relates to free will again.

Let’s just stop the questions there…any views and answers are appreciated.

 

[TiggerS]

If you refer to the Catholic Catechism, you will be able to find the answers. Go to this link:

scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p4.htm#295

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Again, don’t know where to post this.

This is another question involving the last post I made regarding the friend’s explanation on why she is agnostic, except I didn’t respond with anything regarding this - I just want to ask for myself.

So, why again does evil exist? Some people are going to respond with because we have free will, so we have the option to do evil. But I guess the question is, and this relates to my friend’s issue, why couldn’t have God, if He is all good, have created us to NOT want to rebel? Why couldn’t have He made us with a nature exactly like his? If He made us like that, we wouldn’t feel like our freedom is violated, or whatever.

Also, another point my friend brought up: God is good - He cannot do evil. But how is allowing evil not a bad thing? I guess that sort of relates to free will again.

Let’s just stop the questions there…any views and answers are appreciated.

Well, for one evil doesn’t exist as a thing, it is an objectively observable abstraction that we classify as privation of good. Without good, evil cannot be but good can be without evil. If she is objectively observes that there are evils and wrongs, the antithesis is also true of which good also is and thus requires an explain of source, as we know it is transcendental. Also, a good talk might take place speaking of the innate epistemology in all humans of morality, observing basic inalienable rights.

This might satisfy her with the question why aren’t we hardwired not to do evil, since evil is privation of good then God created us in perfect justice and goodness and it is us who are to blame for our own evil. It is odd that someone would desire to be created not to do, when the modern man cries “liberty and freedom!”. Funny how it works though that the truest form of liberty and freedom are achieved by abandoning them and offering them as a sacrifice to God whom then turns around and shows you true liberty and freedom by having you to choose not to do evil but intrinsically desiring to do good. Might be a good question to ask: Who is the greater person, the one doing good out of necessity, as if he or she was unable to choose otherwise, or the one doing good out of desire when the choice not to do such is there?

G.K. Chesterton might be a good example as well of explaining the Fall, “how could a perfect man not fall?”

 

[rhiannonh]

God created us as human. that way we are free to love him. We are not made to love him but free to love him

along with being free to love him is evil

we are free to choose evil or love. the choice is ours and it aint always clear.

but no worries because when we choose evil, God is always there just waiting for our call and forgivess us when we have chosen evil

evil is there because we are free to love God

 

[JRKH]

Again, don’t know where to post this.

This is another question involving the last post I made regarding the friend’s explanation on why she is agnostic, except I didn’t respond with anything regarding this - I just want to ask for myself.

So, why again does evil exist? Some people are going to respond with because we have free will, so we have the option to do evil. But I guess the question is, and this relates to my friend’s issue, why couldn’t have God, if He is all good, have created us to NOT want to rebel? Why couldn’t have He made us with a nature exactly like his? If He made us like that, we wouldn’t feel like our freedom is violated, or whatever.

God could have done this. So perhaps the better thing to ponder is why God chose to create us as He did.

I try to explain it this way.

1. God is Love (1 John 4:8).
2. All that God creates comes from Love
3. Anything not of Love is - what we call - Evil
4. God did not “create” evil. Evil is an absence of Love, just as dark is an absence of light.

Man possesses the knowledge to understand the consequences of his actions. This is called the “knowledge of good and evil” (Love and not-Love). Far from being a blight or a negative, this knowledge is actually a great gift. It permits us to Love God and each other and to know WHY we Love God and each other.
Your friend asks why He didn’t make our nature like His…Well in truth He did. He made us to Love. The more conformed we become to God the more we are, like Him, unable to choose to “not Love”…

Choose Love in all things. Study on Love, and these difficult questions will find answers.

Peace
James

 

[kimbari]

I love the irony. God doesn’t exist until something bad happens, then they’re (atheists/agnostics) all like “why did God allow that to happen?”

eyeroll

 

[JRKH]

I love the irony. God doesn’t exist until something bad happens, then they’re (atheists/agnostics) all like “why did God allow that to happen?”

eyeroll

True, But I don’t see this as necessarily discounting the general question of evil either.
In the case of the theist/agnostic, as well as many Christians it simply illustrates a lack of understanding, or perhaps simply a “wrong way” of approaching the problem.

Peace
James

 

[tonyrey]

Also, another point my friend brought up: God is good - He cannot do evil. But how is allowing evil not a bad thing? I guess that sort of relates to free will again.

Allowing evil is a lesser evil than not creating anyone lest they do evil!

 

[shoe]

Again, don’t know where to post this.

This is another question involving the last post I made regarding the friend’s explanation on why she is agnostic, except I didn’t respond with anything regarding this - I just want to ask for myself.

So, why again does evil exist? Some people are going to respond with because we have free will, so we have the option to do evil. But I guess the question is, and this relates to my friend’s issue, why couldn’t have God, if He is all good, have created us to NOT want to rebel? Why couldn’t have He made us with a nature exactly like his? If He made us like that, we wouldn’t feel like our freedom is violated, or whatever.

Also, another point my friend brought up: God is good - He cannot do evil. But how is allowing evil not a bad thing? I guess that sort of relates to free will again.

Let’s just stop the questions there…any views and answers are appreciated.

You could ask your agnostic friend upon what basis does she believe that evil in the world exists? It seems to me that your friend is appealing to her own subjective feelings of what she believes is good and evil. The fact is that since mankind is able to distinguish between good and evil indicates that a standard of right and wrong, a framework of absolute morals, must also exist in the world by which people can compare their everyday conduct. I think that it’s a contradiction to acknowledge the existence of good and evil without acknowledging the existence of the absolute laws of morality that make it possible for individuals to know how to recognize the reality of good and evil and right and wrong in the first place.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Without evil we would be destined to live in a twilight world, never coming to know God.

 

[tonyrey]

Without evil we would be destined to live in a twilight world, never coming to know God.

You’re dead right, Robert! Strangely enough, on other thread I’ve just written:

“I knew one prisoner who was fascinated by Graham Greene’s novels. It was as if he sensed that evil is a reality that points to God through the Catholic Church with its sacraments… %between%”

 

[fhansen]

Again, don’t know where to post this.

This is another question involving the last post I made regarding the friend’s explanation on why she is agnostic, except I didn’t respond with anything regarding this - I just want to ask for myself.

So, why again does evil exist? Some people are going to respond with because we have free will, so we have the option to do evil. But I guess the question is, and this relates to my friend’s issue, why couldn’t have God, if He is all good, have created us to NOT want to rebel? Why couldn’t have He made us with a nature exactly like his? If He made us like that, we wouldn’t feel like our freedom is violated, or whatever.

Also, another point my friend brought up: God is good - He cannot do evil. But how is allowing evil not a bad thing? I guess that sort of relates to free will again.

Let’s just stop the questions there…any views and answers are appreciated.

cuz free will is good and if God creates us to want or not want either good or evil then we don’t have free will.

 

[TimothyH]

Evil exists because man thinks of evil and then acts on those thoughts.

God created everything. God created everything good. God did not create anything evil.

But when man thinks an evil thought, the evil thing he thinks about takes shape through his thought and begins to exist in his mind. When he acts on that thought, evil begins to exist in the world.

Man brings evil into the world. It is man who manifests evil in the world. Man gives birth to evil in his mind when he conjurs up evil thoughts and gives birth to evil in the world when he acts on those thoughts.

-Tim-

 

[Sacred_Heart_1]

Again, don’t know where to post this.

This is another question involving the last post I made regarding the friend’s explanation on why she is agnostic, except I didn’t respond with anything regarding this - I just want to ask for myself.

So, why again does evil exist? Some people are going to respond with because we have free will, so we have the option to do evil. But I guess the question is, and this relates to my friend’s issue, why couldn’t have God, if He is all good, have created us to NOT want to rebel? Why couldn’t have He made us with a nature exactly like his? If He made us like that, we wouldn’t feel like our freedom is violated, or whatever.

Also, another point my friend brought up: God is good - He cannot do evil. But how is allowing evil not a bad thing? I guess that sort of relates to free will again.

Let’s just stop the questions there…any views and answers are appreciated.

God willed evil as an ingredient (portion) of his creation. Think of an artist painting a masterpiece. The artist simply doesn’t use one aspect to paint his painting but rather uses many to bring the painting to convey meaning. He may use color(s), he may use shadow, he may use perspective (in different points), he may use contrast, he may use different brushes and strokes…etc…But the point is–the artist uses all his being to create and portray a picture that conveys a certain meaning. That is his masterpiece. Think of evil as one of those aspects that God uses to paint his masterpiece.

 

[TiggerS]

God willed evil as an ingredient (portion) of his creation. Think of an artist painting a masterpiece. The artist simply doesn’t use one aspect to paint his painting but rather uses many to bring the painting to convey meaning. He may use color(s), he may use shadow, he may use perspective (in different points), he may use contrast, he may use different brushes and strokes…etc…But the point is–the artist uses all his being to create and portray a picture that conveys a certain meaning. That is his masterpiece. Think of evil as one of those aspects that God uses to paint his masterpiece.

God never did nor ever does, nor ever will, will evil which is contrary to Church Teaching. The angels were created with free will, meaning that they could accept good or refuse it. Some refused it, hence evil or what is contrary to good and His Goodness entered creation with the fall of Adam and Eve.
God never directly wills evil or what is contrary to good and His Goodness in any way whatsoever; however, He may permit it in order to bring out of it a greater good than the evil itself.

Catholic Catechism
scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p4.htm#311

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:
For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177
312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: “It was not you”, said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God’s only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that “abounded all the more”,179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. **But for all that, evil never becomes a good. **