It is good that evil exists!

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tonyrey

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This apparent paradox is summed up in the words “felix culpa”. If we hadn’t sinned Jesus wouldn’t have redeemed us and we wouldn’t understand God’s love. In fact we wouldn’t be capable of unselfish love if we couldn’t sin! What is your view?
 
tonyrey said:
If we hadn’t sinned Jesus wouldn’t have redeemed us and we wouldn’t understand God’s love.
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If we didn’t sin then Christ wouldn’t need to redeem us and wouldn’t have had to suffer on the Cross.

Why do you say we wouldn’t understand God’s love without sin? (Didn’t Jesus say the kingdom belongs to little children, a.k.a. innocents?)
 
I agree that in order for us to freely chose love, we must also be capable of freely choosing against love (sinning), but I do not think it follows that sin is good because of this. If we hadn’t sinned to begin with, we would be in the Garden of Eden, in a state of perfection, and wouldn’t have -needed- Christ to die for us, and suffer as He did. I’d lay odds we would have a significantly better relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit if we had never sinned to begin with.
 
In principle, it is wrong to use evil as an instrument of good. If it is wrong for a person to do it, God would not do it.

If the whole salvation of the entire universe could only be achieved by one single evil act (such as a rape or an act of torture), I would not find it acceptable. The Christ whom I follow also would not, I believe, find it acceptable.

Evil is never right. No quantity of good can ever justify any evil action.

It would be wrong for a parent to cause their child to suffer to teach it to be loving. So it would be wrong if God did that.
 
Qoeleth said:
In principle, it is wrong to use evil as an instrument of good. If it is wrong for a person to do it, God would not do it.

If the whole salvation of the entire universe could only be achieved by one single evil act (such as a rape or an act of torture), I would not find it acceptable. The Christ whom I follow also would not, I believe, find it acceptable.

Evil is never right. No quantity of good can ever justify any evil action.

It would be wrong for a parent to cause their child to suffer to teach it to be loving. So it would be wrong if God did that.
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Why put the tree in the Garden?
 
tonyrey said:
This apparent paradox is summed up in the words “felix culpa”. If we hadn’t sinned Jesus wouldn’t have redeemed us and we wouldn’t understand God’s love. In fact we wouldn’t be capable of unselfish love if we couldn’t sin! What is your view?
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the problem is evil doesn’t exist, it is a privation of the good.

I would rephrase to say that it is good that Jesus has saved us from evil and eternal damnation
 
Bahman said:
Why put the tree in the Garden?
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Well, for starters, it has a lot to do with whether you believe Genesis to be literal, or an allegorical relation of literal truths. (very different things) I personally believe Genesis, at least the creation account, is not literal, but rather an allegorical method of describing the origin of the universe, and ensoulment of our first parents. In that event, the tree is not a real thing, but rather represents sin, and the snake is the Devil’s whispers and temptations.

If the story is literal, however (a potential I do no wholly dismiss); the tree exists as a reminder to Adam and Eve that they are not gods. They were free to do whatever they wished in the garden, except this one thing, which was reserved for God, who is above them. In their desire to be like God, they turned against Him. They turned the reminder of His greatness into the fuel for their rebellion; just as we, today, continue to misuse His gifts. This is my personal opinion, and may or may not be supported by Church teachings, I honestly have no idea.
 
In the Tanya it is said that the sin of Adam and Eve is really a blessing in disguise in that it will eventually take our souls higher than they could have gone had Adam and Eve not sinned.
 
I would not go so far as claiming that “it is good” that evil exist and limit my statement to say that it is an unfortunate consequence of us having free will and leave it at that.

God may use our evil actions to ultimately bring good out of them, but we can never state that HE wills evil in order to further His agenda.
 
The Genesis is a great work of figurative representation. A representation that matches with all theories scientists put forward about the creation of the universe, the solar system, the earth, and evolution of life. The tree in the Garden of Eden is also a part of it.

I have no knowledge of other factors.

Evil, I think is that which brings harm to the soul and body of others. But, I couldn’t reply a question, ‘why did God create ‘evil’ while He could’ve created only ‘good’. Was not that ability with Him?
 
Bahman said:
Why put the tree in the Garden?
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a 5 year old wants to have a cookie before dinner, his mom says no it will spoil your dinner, but then after mom leaves the kitchen to go get something he sneaks a cookie. Is the cookie evil? no is what the 5 year old did wrong? yes

the same can be said about the Garden of Eaden, the tree that they eat from was good but God commanded them to not eat of that tree. Their action was evil not the tree itself.
 
Aloysium said:
It represents our having free will.
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you are correct but you must be careful when you say this because while it may have not happened exactly like it said in Genesis they still had to sin in some way. It is possible that the first sin of adam and eve really was to eat something God didn’t tell them to. This is all speculation but be careful when you say this, because one may interpret that you are saying something along the lines of Adam and Eve never existed (which is in contrast to the truth) or they never sinned. I know you didn’t say that but it can be implied by what you said.
 
catholictiger said:
you are correct but you must be careful when you say this because while it may have not happened exactly like it said in Genesis they still had to sin in some way. It is possible that the first sin of adam and eve really was to eat something God didn’t tell them to. This is all speculation but be careful when you say this, because one may interpret that you are saying something along the lines of Adam and Eve never existed (which is in contrast to the truth) or they never sinned. I know you didn’t say that but it can be implied by what you said.
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They did sin. I imagine that it could through the actual physical eating of a fruit.
Perhaps it is described as a fruit because the story was originally conveyed by the Holy Spirit to people who were hunter-gatherers and would understand the notion of poisonned fruit.

Adam and Eve definitely did exist. They were actual people, our original parents. Their story describes why and how we find ourselves here, which is a very real place.

The question the poster asked was “Why put the tree in the Garden?”
In the garden, the tree offers them the ony opportunity to decide to follow God’s commandment or not.
Thinking more about the matter, I agree that the tree represents more than just their free choice; it is the opportunity for them to show their love and obedience to God.

Thx
 
Felix culpa means happy fault. The idea is that God is so good, that through our evil choices He can bring about a greater good. The specific concept Felix culpa refers to is that were it not for the first sin (and all subsequent sin), then we would not have Jesus as our Redeemer. He would always have been King, but due to our sin, He lovingly became our Redeemer.
However, evil is a “deprivation of good”. This means that evil is the absence of good. Evil is not a thing in and of itself, but is actually the loss or privation of a thing, specially, of good. Therefore, we could never claim that the reality of evil is good, in any way. But we can acknowledge that “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more”. God is so wonderful and beautiful and good, and He loves us so much, that He can take the most broken, the most wretched of His creatures and of His creation, and make it whole and holy and radiant. The new creature would be infinitely better off AFTER redemption than it ever was in its intact, pre -fallen state. That is not because evil is good! That is because God is good beyond imagining!
 
As was pointed out Evil does not exist .- for God would never create evil. When we sin
we create the absence of good - A terrible vacuum in God’s universe where God gave us the freedom to Love and we blew it. It is certainly good that we had the opportunity and the fact that we failed to fill it allowed the Infinite Mercy of God to fill it
The question might be rephrased : Is it good that we left a hole in the Universe and
Jesus came to fill it… It is sin to leave the hole but Where sin abounds (Paul tells us) Grace does more abound."
 
inocente said:
If we didn’t sin then Christ wouldn’t need to redeem us and wouldn’t have had to suffer on the Cross.

Why do you say we wouldn’t understand God’s love without sin? (Didn’t Jesus say the kingdom belongs to little children, a.k.a. innocents?)
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I didn’t! You omitted the main point of my post:
In fact we wouldn’t be capable of unselfish love if we couldn’t sin!
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In other words we wouldn’t understand God’s love if we didn’t have free will.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
I agree that in order for us to freely chose love, we must also be capable of freely choosing against love (sinning), but I do not think it follows that sin is good because of this. If we hadn’t sinned to begin with, we would be in the Garden of Eden, in a state of perfection, and wouldn’t have -needed- Christ to die for us, and suffer as He did. I’d lay odds we would have a significantly better relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit if we had never sinned to begin with.
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I didn’t claim sin is good! Moral evil is valuable because it implies the existence of free will which enables us to love God and one another. It is unrealistic to think no one would ever have sinned…
 
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