God permitting evil

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JJO

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Hi guys,

We know evil exists and God permits it to happen for a good reason, probably free will.
Why then can I not excuse myself with the same reason so that I myself do not have to prevent evil.

i.e. why do I have to help someone being verbally abused if I, like God, am preserving free will?
 
You have a choice. You don’t have to do anything. It is your choice TO HELP OTHERS or NOT TO HELP and you decide with your FREE WILL. God respects your free will which He gave you and every human and He will not punish you with Hell, you alone chose Hell with your actions and decisions. He even respects your excuses to not to do good but He always wants us saved which means He wants us to be in friendship with Him on Earth and in Eternal Happyness one day. But you chose.
Pretty simple.
 
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Inbonum said:
You have a choice. You don’t have to do anything. It is your choice TO HELP OTHERS or NOT TO HELP and you decide with your FREE WILL. God respects your free will which He gave you and every human and He will not punish you with Hell, you alone chose Hell with your actions and decisions. He even respects your excuses to not to do good but He always wants us saved which means He wants us to be in friendship with Him on Earth and in Eternal Happyness one day. But you chose.
Pretty simple.
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But not to help someone who was being assaulted would be morally wrong.
 
Of course it would. It’s good that you mentioned it, I was more refering to that choice part.
 
JJO said:
i.e. why do I have to help someone being verbally abused if I, like God, am preserving free will?
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Because you aren’t the one who provides it, and therefore, aren’t the one who preserves it.

You can decide whether to honor it, in a particular situation. I would think that for us, as humans, the call to be “our brothers’ keeper” outranks a desire to allow immoral actions to be committed.

(Also, now we’re going to have to get into the distinction between free ‘will’ and free ‘act’. Not all make this distinction, and will claim that if your ‘act’ is impinged, therefore so is your ‘will.’ That seems like nonsense to me – taken to its extreme, it allows me to step off a cliff, freely willing to fly, and as I plunge to the canyon below, I claim “God… is… impinging… my… free… splat”. Nope. Doesn’t hold water.

That being the case, then, a rapist can will a crime, but I’m under no compunction to allow him to actualize his will into an act.)
 
JJO said:
We know evil exists and God permits it to happen for a good reason, probably free will.
Why then can I not excuse myself with the same reason so that I myself do not have to prevent evil.

i.e. why do I have to help someone being verbally abused if I, like God, am preserving free will?
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I think this is a very interesting question.

I would say that it is because God will establish justice in His realm after people’s free will, including ours, has been exercised.

Our realm is the only chance we get to establish justice, hence if we don’t do it here and now then we turn our backs on justice, unlike God.

The only time where the exercise of our free will can establish justice, is now in our realm. I guess it becomes a question of the relative importance and relationship between free will and justice.
 
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In real life, situations are not simple. One would have to discern the specific situation. I have seen well-meaning people who interfere in situations that do not directly affect them only to make them worse.
 
JJO said:
We know evil exists and God permits it to happen for a good reason, probably free will.
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Not just free will. Many things come into play, and we probably won’t know some of them unless God will choose to tell us.

For example, if God would prevent any stone from falling on someone’s head or foot, how would we be able to research gravity?
JJO said:
Why then can I not excuse myself with the same reason so that I myself do not have to prevent evil.

i.e. why do I have to help someone being verbally abused if I, like God, am preserving free will?
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Sometimes you can.

Although usually not because of free will.
Freddy said:
But not to help someone who was being assaulted would be morally wrong.
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Sometimes.

It looks like you are imagining a simple case, but talking as if the same conclusions would apply to all cases.

For example, do you have a duty to stop a boxing match?

Or let’s imagine a scenario when one witnesses an assault from a high building and the only “tool” one has is a flower pot. Are you claiming that in such case one has a duty to throw it down, perhaps killing the perpetrator - but also possibly missing and killing the victim instead?

Prudence does have a part to play here.
 
JJO said:
Hi guys,

We know evil exists and God permits it to happen for a good reason, probably free will.
Why then can I not excuse myself with the same reason so that I myself do not have to prevent evil.

i.e. why do I have to help someone being verbally abused if I, like God, am preserving free will?
Click to expand...
Because you are a human person and God isn’t that type of moral agent.
 
MPat said:
It looks like you are imagining a simple case, but talking as if the same conclusions would apply to all cases.

For example, do you have a duty to stop a boxing match?

Or let’s imagine a scenario when one witnesses an assault from a high building and the only “tool” one has is a flower pot. Are you claiming that in such case one has a duty to throw it down, perhaps killing the perpetrator - but also possibly missing and killing the victim instead?
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I guess I must be wrong. Your flower pot/boxing match argument has blown mine right out of the water.
 
If I do not help someone suffering, yes I do wrong and choose Hell but if God does not help someone suffering, why is that ok?
 
@JJO God helps but at the same time does not interrupt our free will. That is one of answers why God permits evil in world.
God also acts through people by inspiring them for good, to help someone in need, to go against something bad etc.
For example : When person in need pray to God for help and God inspires someone to help person in need then that person is God’s answer on prayer. God helps and acts but we sometimes do not notice that because we expect something else insted of thing we got.
 
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Sorry can you explain this again. I don’t understand.

I am supposed to stop the will to rape from being actualised into the act of rape but God doesn’t stop that because he is the one who provides free will? But why should that mean He cannot stop the actualisation and respect the will itself? And sometimes God does stop an evil will being actualised so why does He not do this all the time?

Thanks
 
But then if God manipulated the weather, how would we study it. We are still able to because we can see that the weather was being influenced supernaturally
 
But God is the origin of goodness and morality and He wants to help others so surely He would desire to
 
Inbonum said:
God helps but at the same time does not interrupt our free will. That is one of answers why God permits evil in world.
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Can you give an example of how God can help someone being bullied without interrupting anyone’s free will?
 
For example God can give person who will encourage and comfor. There is no universal answer for suffering.
Sometimes God permits evil for greater good.

Why are you fixated on this theme?
 
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