Omnipresent?

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Friend and I were discussing God.
We both agree on His existence (although my friend is not Christian).

Here is the question.
God is truly omnipresent, omniscient, and all powerful.
There exists evil in this world.
Most common things I’ve heard on this forum is that evil is the void/lack of God.

My friend argues that God is everything, and that includes what is void of anything.
To say that evil is not of God is to say that God is not everything and is not all powerful as the entire world is not completely of God.

Not sure how to respond?
 
Kmon23 said:
Friend and I were discussing God.
We both agree on His existence (although my friend is not Christian).

Here is the question.
God is truly omnipresent, omniscient, and all powerful.
There exists evil in this world.
Most common things I’ve heard on this forum is that evil is the void/lack of God.

My friend argues that God is everything, and that includes what is void of anything.
To say that evil is not of God is to say that God is not everything and is not all powerful as the entire world is not completely of God.

Not sure how to respond?
Click to expand...
The Catholic response is typically that evil is the privation of the good (i.e. something is deemed to be evil if it deprives one of reaching his or her full potential). Also, I’m not sure if you were implying this, but “omnipresent” means “all present” or “present everywhere,” not “everything.”
 
Kmon23 said:
My friend argues that God is everything, and that includes what is void of anything.
To say that evil is not of God is to say that God is not everything and is not all powerful as the entire world is not completely of God.
Click to expand...
It’s a false argument to say that God is everything and at the same time should be void of anything. That is like saying that since God exists, he should also not exist as well. This is a contradiction. God cannot contradict who he is. Since God is love, he cannot be the absence of love which is evil.

Another example to quote the Bible, “God is light”. The void of light would be complete darkness. God cannot be both light and void of light since this in itself is a contradiction.

that’s my 2 cents, hope that helps.
 
Kmon23 said:
Friend and I were discussing God.
We both agree on His existence (although my friend is not Christian).

Here is the question.
God is truly omnipresent, omniscient, and all powerful.
There exists evil in this world.
Most common things I’ve heard on this forum is that evil is the void/lack of God.

My friend argues that God is everything, and that includes what is void of anything.
To say that evil is not of God is to say that God is not everything and is not all powerful as the entire world is not completely of God.

Not sure how to respond?
Click to expand...
This world is ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in conjunction with each other. To say that it’s ‘good’ vs ‘evil’ implies two Gods and would constitute Hersey. God has the power to remove evil, but I suspect that humans would cease to exist as a species. ‘Good’ and ‘evil’ are both necessary in bringing our world to salvation, and it’s all perfectly willed by God.

LOVE! ❤️
 
Everything does not include what is void of anything because “what is void of anything” does not exist and should not be taken into account. It doesn’t make sense to include zero - as opposed to a number - in a calculation, e.g. 20+0=20.

Evil is negative because it is a defect not a positive quality. God doesn’t exist in physical defects any more than He exists in physical evil. He permits them because they are inevitable in a physical universe: the laws of nature cannot possibly cater for every contingency.

Nor does God exist in moral evil which is a negative rather than a positive attribute. God permits it because it is a product of free will without which we would be incapable of love. God is not present in Hell where there is an absence of love. He sustains the existence of the damned because they are His children but it is a mistake to identify sinners with their sins, i.e. their failure to love God, themselves (reasonably) and others. St Thomas made this quite clear:
The ontological goodness of things is their rational desirability. Therefore, an evil is “a missing good’, a privation ( I, 48,1), the absence of good that ‘ought’, either naturally or morally, to be there. It is privation, like blindness in a person, not mere absence like blindness in a stone. Natural evils, like animal blindness, suffering and death, lethal earthquakes, tornadoes, and the like, are only incidentally evil, that is, locally and relatively undesirable by affected creatures, (if they are not caused, like some plane crashes, say, by immoral acts).
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Nothing, in so far as it has being, is or can be evil. It is not possible for God to make something that is less than it ‘ought’ to be. For in so far as it is made, the thing is rationally desirable. “Nothing can be essentially bad”(I, 49, 3). Further, there is nothing that absolutely ought not to be, not even the worst evil actions of free rational creatures. Still (I, 49,2), God can be the cause of what ought not to be, by causing a penalty fitting to justice (I, 49,1), for creaturely wrongs, but never can, as angels can (I, 63,1), and humans can, cause evil by fault (I, 48,5).“Every evil in voluntary things is to be looked on as pain or fault”.
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%between%
 
God gave his creatures free will. If we choose to reject and disobey Him that is evil.
 
A real quick answer, evil is the absence of good (God)…just as dark is the absence of light 🙂 technically it doesn’t exist, it is lack of existence.
 
Those who claim that evil is the absence of good really need to read the Catholic Encyclopedia. The definition is extremely detailed and does not include the overly simplistic answer being given. In Catholic theology evil is an active force whose origin is open for considerable debate.
newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm
 
oldcelt said:
Those who claim that evil is the absence of good really need to read the Catholic Encyclopedia. The definition is extremely detailed and does not include the overly simplistic answer being given. In Catholic theology evil is an active force whose origin is open for considerable debate.
newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm
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Thanks. Besides what I’ve learned in a Catholicism course, I’m definitely lacking in Catholic teaching (besides what I’ve learned on forums and wiki).
Really appreciate the link, thanks.
 
Kmon23 said:
Thanks. Besides what I’ve learned in a Catholicism course, I’m definitely lacking in Catholic teaching (besides what I’ve learned on forums and wiki).
Really appreciate the link, thanks.
Click to expand...
My pleasure…good fortune on your journey
 
Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence
by Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure & St. Claude de la Colombiere
  1. GOD CONTROLS ALL EVENTS, WHETHER GOOD OR BAD
    Nothing happens in the universe without God willing and allowing it. This statement must be taken absolutely of everything with the exception of sin. ‘Nothing occurs by chance in the whole course of our lives’ is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, ‘and God intervenes everywhere.’
    I am the Lord, He tells us Himself by the mouth of the prophet Isaias, and there is none else. I form light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. It is I who bring both death and life, I who inflict wounds and heal them, He said to Moses. The Lord killeth and maketh alive, it is written in the Canticle of Anna, the mother of Samuel, He bringeth down to the tomb and He bringeth back again; the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, he humbleth and he exalteth. Shall there be evil (disaster, affliction) in a city which the Lord hath not done? asks the prophet Amos: Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches are from God Solomon proclaims. And so on in numerous other passages of Scripture.
    Perhaps you will say that while this is true of certain necessary effects, like sickness, death, cold and heat, and other accidents due to natural causes which have no liberty of action, the same cannot be said in the case of things that result from the free will of man. For if, you will object, someone slanders me, robs me, strikes me, persecutes me, how can I attribute his conduct to the will of God who far from wishing me to be treated in such a manner, expressly forbids it? So the blame, you will conclude, can only be laid on the will of man, on his ignorance or malice. This is the defense behind which we try to shelter from God and excuse our lack of courage and submission.
    It is quite useless for us to try and take advantage of this way of reasoning as an excuse for not surrendering to Providence. God Himself has refuted it and we must believe on His word that in events of this kind as in all others, nothing occurs except by His order and permission. Let us see what the Scriptures say. He wishes to punish the murder and adultery committed by David and He expresses Himself as follows by the mouth of the prophet Nathan: Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in my sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me, and host taken the wife of Urias the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thy own house, and I will take thy wives before thy eyes and give
    them to thy neighbor and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing in the sight of all all Israel, and in the sight of the sun.
    Later when the Jews by their iniquities had grievously offended Him and provoked His wrath, He says: The Assyrian is the rod and the staff of My anger, and My indignation is in his hands. I will send him to the deceitful nation, and I will give him charge against the people of my wrath, to take away the spoils, and to lay hold on the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
    Could God more openly declare Himself to be responsible for the evils that Absalom caused his father and the King of Assyria the Jews? It would be easy to find other instances but these are enough. Let us conclude then with St. Augustine: “All that happens to us in this world against our will (whether due to men or to other causes) happens to us only by the will of God, by the disposal of Providence, by His orders and under His guidance; and if from the frailty of our understanding we cannot grasp the reason for some event, let us attribute it to divine Providence, show Him respect by accepting it from His hand, believe firmly that He does not send it us without cause.”
Peace
 
Kmon23 said:
Friend and I were discussing God.
We both agree on His existence (although my friend is not Christian).

Here is the question.
God is truly omnipresent, omniscient, and all powerful.
There exists evil in this world.
Most common things I’ve heard on this forum is that evil is the void/lack of God.

My friend argues that God is everything, and that includes what is void of anything.
To say that evil is not of God is to say that God is not everything and is not all powerful as the entire world is not completely of God.

Not sure how to respond?
Click to expand...
God is not one with the material universe, so he is not part of evil. God is present in the universe by his power.
 
Kmon23 said:
Friend and I were discussing God.
We both agree on His existence (although my friend is not Christian).

Here is the question.
God is truly omnipresent, omniscient, and all powerful.
There exists evil in this world.
Most common things I’ve heard on this forum is that evil is the void/lack of God.

My friend argues that God is everything, and that includes what is void of anything.
To say that evil is not of God is to say that God is not everything and is not all powerful as the entire world is not completely of God.

Not sure how to respond?
Click to expand...
Everything happenes by power of God. Human has a free will for being examed and tested. God’s will look at human will. When human choose a deed to do it is not importand if its good or bad God create it. Here human is responsible for his choices. **Because it is not evil to create evil but it is evil to choose and occasion to evil. **

For example there are many benefits in deluging rain. But if someone does not get prudent, an umbrella, so if he get wet then does he have any right to say that rain is evil? Or human use fire to cook his meal, warm up etc. İf some act carelessly and burn his home then could he say that fire is evil?

Mankind has a free will. When some choose to sin God create that action and God does not stop it. Here all responsibility is humanbeing’s but creating is belong to God. So creating evil is not evil but choosing evil is evil.
 
oldcelt said:
Those who claim that evil is the absence of good really need to read the Catholic Encyclopedia. The definition is extremely detailed and does not include the overly simplistic answer being given. In Catholic theology evil is an active force whose origin is open for considerable debate.
newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm
Click to expand...
**Evil is always negative in some respect:
**
One opposite is known through the other, as darkness is known through light. Hence also what evil is must be known from the nature of good. Now, we have said above that good is everything appetible; and thus, since every nature desires its own being and its own perfection, it must be said also that the being and the perfection of any nature is good. Hence it cannot be that evil signifies being, or any form or nature. Therefore it must be that by the name of evil is signified the absence of good. And this is what is meant by saying that “evil is neither a being nor a good.” For since being, as such, is good, the absence of one implies the absence of the other.
Click to expand...
ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FP_Q48_A2.html

Inexorable logic!**

Only God is perfect in every respect.

**Without goodness evil wouldn’t exist…
 
oldcelt said:
Those who claim that evil is the absence of good really need to read the Catholic Encyclopedia. The definition is extremely detailed and does not include the overly simplistic answer being given. In Catholic theology evil is an active force whose origin is open for considerable debate.
newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm
Click to expand...
Catholic Encyclopedia:
It is evident again that all evil is essentially negative and not positive; i.e. it consists not in the acquisition of anything, but in the loss or deprivation of something necessary for perfection.
Click to expand...
newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm
 
oldcelt said:
Then you are saying that evil exists. (I’m assuming that you believe in some good in this world)
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Evil “exists” only in the sense that it is not an illusion. It is as real as failure and deprivation. The lack of food, clothing, housing, money and friends are all evil, as I’m sure you would agree. The results of evil - like hunger, misery and despair - certainly exist. They presuppose food, hope and happiness which are undoubtedly positive.

It is a question of logical, spatial and temporal precedence. Defects cannot occur before anything else!
 
Omnipresent? Yes. Everything? No.

I can prove it. God is not my job. My job sucks. God does not suck. Therefore God is not everything.

Simple logic :cool:
 
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