Why doesn't God destroy the devil now?

[ateista]

I’m intrigued. What would this world be like?

Your take on it is as good as mine. It would be a very comfortable world to live in. Maybe the natural problems would still exist, but no rape, no murders, no wars, no embezzlements, etc… would make it quite decent to live there.

Interesting how you seem to need to be unserious at regular intervals here. Not sure why that is.

I don’t take myself too seriously. Could be that I am still not fully “grown up”, despite my biological age - which is unfortunately quite advanced.

 

[ateista]

Well this is very interesting because you said God does not obiterate evil… But how can you even answer for God when you dont even believe in him?

I use my logic. I believe that God would be a very reasonable, logical, and a decent fellow if he existed.

To say what God does or does not do for what reason would be saying he exists!

Hypothetically exists. The concept of God most certainly exists. Whether this concept is correct, is a whole different ballgame.

 

[rinnie]

I use my logic. I believe that God would be a very reasonable, logical, and a decent fellow if he existed.

Hypothetically exists. The concept of God most certainly exists. Whether this concept is correct, is a whole different ballgame.

Well see thats not what this Post is about the Concept of God, this is to help the OP help answer questions about People who believe in him and trust in him. Getting back on track God will destroy the devil, and evil, but IMO it will be when God ends the world. And thats why just like the end of the world only God himself knows the day and the time. But thats how I would answer that question. When the end comes so will the end of evil (the devil) and it could be now. But think about it without the devil the world would be heaven on earth.

 

[ateista]

But think about it without the devil the world would be heaven on earth.

I doubt it. It would not be “heaven” on Earth, it would be a vastly improved life here and now. After all we do not experience God directly here and now, and that is what heaven is supposed to be.

But if you are right and it would be heaven on Earth, what is wrong with that?

Imagine the following hypothetical scenario: you know that a bad, evil person wants to tempt your kid to become a drug addict, and you know that he will succeed, if allowed to continue. You have the power to prevent this, but you do not use your power in the name of non-interference with your kid’s free will. The evil person succeeds. How could you live with the result of your non-interference policy?

I know that this analogy is not perfect. No analogy is. The reality is much worse. You may attempt to justify your non-interference with the hope that “maybe” your kid will be able to kick his habit.

But hell is not supposed to be “reversible”. So God’s non-interference carries much more dire consequences for us, than the hypothetical parent’s non-interference with the process of his kid’s drug addiction.

 

[juhothenero]

I doubt it. It would not be “heaven” on Earth, it would be a vastly improved life here and now. After all we do not experience God directly here and now, and that is what heaven is supposed to be.

But if you are right and it would be heaven on Earth, what is wrong with that?

Imagine the following hypothetical scenario: you know that a bad, evil person wants to tempt your kid to become a drug addict, and you know that he will succeed, if allowed to continue. You have the power to prevent this, but you do not use your power in the name of non-interference with your kid’s free will. The evil person succeeds. How could you live with the result of your non-interference policy?

I know that this analogy is not perfect. No analogy is. The reality is much worse. You may attempt to justify your non-interference with the hope that “maybe” your kid will be able to kick his habit.

But hell is not supposed to be “reversible”. So God’s non-interference carries much more dire consequences for us, than the hypothetical parent’s non-interference with the process of his kid’s drug addiction.

I remember in the bible when Jesus said to Peter after Peter had told Jesus that Jesus should save himself or prevent the suffering Jesus needed to endure to “Back of Devil, your words are not coming from God but from human”.

These words in this statements are coming from human and there for they are not nearing towards the truth… This is attaching oneself to a point which in fact is not a point at all, It is like talking about literature in mathematics course…

What one must remember is that God knows all, and He is all powerful and love what follows is that He knows more then us, and we should submit to his knowledge to gain knowledge, that means we cannot be critical of Him but we cannot be critical on the wrong point.

The question should be Why would man want to get rid of the devil? Would you want to be completely obedient to Gods rule? Would all humans want to be completely obedient to God? If not how would God turn our heads towards him? When we don’t even listen His Church or His people who are telling us all what we are supposed to do but make up excuses for our own bad actions?

Let’s take example of Artificial birth control, how many of us is willing to completely follow Gods rule on this issue? Another issue how many of us is willing to let go their own pride as what comes to i think this way, i want that job i think i am better then you in this?

He already came to earth and did things humans cannot understand and what happened? He got himself killed and his followers killed and ridiculed even up to this day…

 

[Skip_Wiley]

I agree with skip on this one. Every unbaptised person and every baptised person who is living in mortal sin is God’s enemy until they repent, stay in grace and finish in grace. All are tested and verified.

James

You’re not agreeing with me because I never said that. Baptism has nothing to do with it.

 

[ateista]

What one must remember is that God knows all, and He is all powerful and love what follows is that He knows more then us, and we should submit to his knowledge to gain knowledge, that means we cannot be critical of Him but we cannot be critical on the wrong point.

You avoided my question. If you were that parent, how could you justify your non-interference policy? Because that is the question the OP presented.

I am not trying to make artifical scenarios to “paint” God in an unfavorite color. It is the assertion of the RCC and Catholics in general, that God could get rid of the devil and he does not do so. The only reasoning they bring up is the “respect” for our freedom.

What kind of “love” is the one which allows the loved one to go a route which leads to the ultimate peril?

The question should be Why would man want to get rid of the devil? Would you want to be completely obedient to Gods rule? Would all humans want to be completely obedient to God? If not how would God turn our heads towards him? When we don’t even listen His Church or His people who are telling us all what we are supposed to do but make up excuses for our own bad actions?

No, that is not the question at all.

 

[juhothenero]

Probably something about the “respect” for our free will. But that is a bogus argument.

The free will defense has been refuted many times, most recently in the Philosophy forum, where both SeekingCatholic (who is Catolic) and myself (an atheist) gave a mathematical proof that God could have creted a world with free will and without sin.

I gave my own answer at the beginning of the thread. God does not obliterate evil for the same reason that the good heroes never “fully” kill the evil opponents in comic strips, because that would be the end of the story. And the show must go on…

The second paragraph makes sense that is what God did in the beginning, the thing is human used that free will to choose differently, it was not God who created evil but human and the devil who created evil, God created the potential for evil called free will (and free will does not only allow choosing evil but choosing between two good choices as well) and human and devil used this potential to create evil in to the world, That is why there was the apple…

Other paragraphs seem to be personal opinions

 

[juhothenero]

You avoided my question. If you were that parent, how could you justify your non-interference policy? Because that is the question the OP presented.

I am not trying to make artifical scenarios to “paint” God in an unfavorite color. It is the assertion of the RCC and Catholics in general, that God could get rid of the devil and he does not do so. The only reasoning they bring up is the “respect” for our freedom.

What kind of “love” is the one which allows the loved one to go a route which leads to the ultimate peril?

you are making artificial scenarios hence a parent is not what God is hence God is not a human… This is a truthful scenario according to human understanding of the issue, the position that is the most clearest is We Do Not Know Why evil endures what we know is that it endures…

God said he was going to take care of the devil when the time comes, but the problem i am thinking of taking care of him is that maybe too many humans will go with him… Too many humans are on devils side and that must be a problem for God…

You have to start from Genesis, The world in the beginning was the world God created which was a world without suffering and evil and with free will

devil comes to the world and seduces human being to follow him instead of God and problems start, what logically follows is that God did not create evil, evil is a result of rebellion in which the bible talks about, it is about pride wanting to become God or like God instead of being what human or angel is a created being supposed to love the creator as humans loves his father…

Problem with the rebellion is that if you know war theory you should know that to make sure no rebellion will come anymore you have to kill all the rebels and keep the rest under control… So God did, he said while you are in this world you will endure suffering and die…

No, that is not the question at all.

you cannot refute a claim in this kind of way, you have to give some arguments for refuting claims made by debators

 

[ateista]

The second paragraph makes sense that is what God did in the beginning, the thing is human used that free will to choose differently, it was not God who created evil but human and the devil who created evil, God created the potential for evil called free will (and free will does not only allow choosing evil but choosing between two good choices as well) and human and devil used this potential to create evil in to the world, That is why there was the apple…

Excellent analysis! Very well said! The actuality of evil is not necessary, only the potentiality.

Now comes the question of the OP again: God could have instantiated or actualized a somewhat different world, where the same potential of evil exists, but neither Satan rebelled nor was the “apple” tasted. Why did he not do so? What is so good about the actuality of evil, as opposed to the potential of it?

 

[juhothenero]

Excellent analysis! Very well said! The actuality of evil is not necessary, only the potentiality.

Now comes the question of the OP again: God could have instantiated or actualized a somewhat different world, where the same potential of evil exists, but neither Satan rebelled nor was the “apple” tasted. Why did he not do so? What is so good about the actuality of evil, as opposed to the potential of it?

The potentiality creates actuality, a problem is that how do we know there is potentiality if actuality does not exist, it is like apple that has potentiality to be dropped but never drops, how do we know it can drop if it never drops?

you can say that physicists say there is a potentiality but physicists calculated that potentiality by actuality not by potentiality…

Why devil must be? Because otherwise there is no visible potentiality for evil to exist… Was devil forced to do what he did? no, otherwise it would not be potentiality to do but rather a forced decision… This is a contradiction but it can be gotten rid of when thinking that there is many or infinite amount who have potentiality and hence potentiality becomes actuality, like apples fall when there is one apple we might know it can fall or we might not know it, but when there is a million apples the probability that one of them drops comes so near to actuality that it happens…

One must remember that evil actualized not by human action but Angels action and we do not know how many angels there really is… neither do we know how many humans there will be…

 

[rinnie]

Exactly alot of people are giving into the devil, but you must remember alot are not also. Look how many people do try to be kind, and give all they have to everyone. My Dad was like that he would and has given the shirt off his back. He believed in Gods word. He knew the devil was out there, but he taught us to stay away from him. To Follow God, That this is not paradise, it would have been if not for Adam and Eve. But they gave into the devil, It was their FREE WILL to sin. No one made them. But there is the New Adam and the New Eve. And that is CHrist and the Blessed Mother. Adam by sinning brought death, Jesus by dying on the cross took away death. That is how God also beat the Devil. he took away death. That is why this world is short, and difficult its the devils world. It can be long and difficult also if we dont believe in God. As you can tell on these boards, But OP God is winning, when he is ready he will wipe the Devil away, he promised us that. And the bible is amazing how true it is. It is like even today it relates to our life in the present. But also like the bible tells us, we dont question God we trust him.

 

[juhothenero]

So God did, he said while you are in this world you will endure suffering and die…

Also the same thing when he says that you have to die for yourself to be children of God… that is real death not something parallel but it is a death to ones pride and sin not to ones goodness, when one comes to be a child of God one dies for himself and receives eternal life…

logically this is the only way of getting rid of evil… the question why God does not get rid of evil has a little problem in a sense that God is doing just so all the time, he is at work getting rid of evil and preparing for his final coming, but that final coming is such that most people should fear it rather then expect it… if all evil shall be killed it is not going to be nice experience but rather a suffering experience because human loves evil and sin…

 

[rinnie]

The potentiality creates actuality, a problem is that how do we know there is potentiality if actuality does not exist, it is like apple that has potentiality to be dropped but never drops, how do we know it can drop if it never drops?

you can say that physicists say there is a potentiality but physicists calculated that potentiality by actuality not by potentiality…

Why devil must be? Because otherwise there is no visible potentiality for evil to exist… Was devil forced to do what he did? no, otherwise it would not be potentiality to do but rather a forced decision… This is a contradiction but it can be gotten rid of when thinking that there is many or infinite amount who have potentiality and hence potentiality becomes actuality, like apples fall when there is one apple we might know it can fall or we might not know it, but when there is a million apples the probability that one of them drops comes so near to actuality that it happens…

One must remember that evil actualized not by human action but Angels action and we do not know how many angels there really is… neither do we know how many humans there will be…

Very well put, And like you said for evil to exist the devil is always in the mix. Why does God let evil exist. Think of it this way we had paradise but we turned from good toward evil. Adam and Eve had it made, but they gave into evil. You sin you must be punished, otherwise why would you quit sinning? But now in the next world we learned our lesson. We want God, we dont want the devil. We want happiness, love, peace, real fun, and you cannot have complete happiness without God. Thats why not a single person in this world has it. It will come in the next world if we choose God. On the other hand if we choose the devil then we can be unhappy, and live in hate, constant fear, Remember there is one thing God wont forgive us for and that is to NOT BELIEVE. And as long as we believe as much evil there is in this world he will protect us. And we have HIM and the Next World to look forward to, and thats the everlasting world. It makes this world a little easier to take. Because we know when it seems to go against us its okay, its not our world.

 

[ateista]

you are making artificial scenarios hence a parent is not what God is hence God is not a human… This is a truthful scenario according to human understanding of the issue, the position that is the most clearest is We Do Not Know Why evil endures what we know is that it endures…

If it is a truthful scenario according to human understanding and you have to invoke the “we don’t know why evil is tolerated”, then you appeal to faith. That is not a problem per se, but the faith you invoke here is called “blind faith”.

Faith covers a whole lot of territory, from believing something on somewhat flimsy evidence, all the way to believing something contrary to evidence. This latter one is the blaind faith.

God said he was going to take care of the devil when the time comes, but the problem i am thinking of taking care of him is that maybe too many humans will go with him… Too many humans are on devils side and that must be a problem for God…

For God there can be no problems. That follows from omnipotence.

Problem with the rebellion is that if you know war theory you should know that to make sure no rebellion will come anymore you have to kill all the rebels and keep the rest under control…

There is a better way: change the rebels using convincing arguments which one can can refute and there will be no rebellion.

The potentiality creates actuality,

No, no, no. The potentiality only allows actuality, it does not cause or create it. Without potentiality there can be no actuality, that is true. But the opposite is false.

Why devil must be? Because otherwise there is no visible potentiality for evil to exist…

That is not true either. As long as there is freedom to commit both good and evil, the potentiality exists.

 

[juhothenero]

Very well put, And like you said for evil to exist the devil is always in the mix. Why does God let evil exist. Think of it this way we had paradise but we turned from good toward evil. Adam and Eve had it made, but they gave into evil. You sin you must be punished, otherwise why would you quit sinning? But now in the next world we learned our lesson. We want God, we dont want the devil. We want happiness, love, peace, real fun, and you cannot have complete happiness without God. Thats why not a single person in this world has it. It will come in the next world if we choose God. On the other hand if we choose the devil then we can be unhappy, and live in hate, constant fear, Remember there is one thing God wont forgive us for and that is to NOT BELIEVE. And as long as we believe as much evil there is in this world he will protect us. And we have HIM and the Next World to look forward to, and thats the everlasting world. It makes this world a little easier to take. Because we know when it seems to go against us its okay, its not our world.

Good, very true… I would say though that the only thing God doesn’t forgive us for is not asking to be forgiven, that is in my mind, if there is a need to believing i am in trouble since i do not have enough faith even to not to do evil or not to deny Christ…

I think faith starts growing by Gods Grace when a person asks for God to forgive him and asks for forgiveness every time when knowingly has done evil and hopefully often even without knowing that one has done evil…

C S Lewis said well that Christ said: “I don’t want a little of your time or a little of your though, I want all”… We need to be killed that is a part of Gods plan… and we just have to trust Him that it is the right thing to do…

I really think he hasn’t dealt with the devil just because of us not so that if hid care us hid take care of evil and devil, rather that because He cares us He has not done so, evil and sin is so embedded in to our nature that taking it a way means in fact our death… but a death from which a new life comes

 

[Cattitude]

Imagine the following hypothetical scenario: you know that a bad, evil person wants to tempt your kid to become a drug addict, and you know that he will succeed, if allowed to continue. You have the power to prevent this, but you do not use your power in the name of non-interference with your kid’s free will. The evil person succeeds. How could you live with the result of your non-interference policy?

I know that this analogy is not perfect. No analogy is. The reality is much worse. You may attempt to justify your non-interference with the hope that “maybe” your kid will be able to kick his habit.

But hell is not supposed to be “reversible”. So God’s non-interference carries much more dire consequences for us, than the hypothetical parent’s non-interference with the process of his kid’s drug addiction.

My problem with this scenario is that you make the “parent” out to be a bystander who chooses never to do anything. However, a good parent, knowing that evil drug dealers do exist, gives their child rules to live by, which includes things like “Don’t do drugs” & “These are the consequences if you do drugs”.

God did not just drop us into this world with no guidance. He has told us the rules, given us His love, left is the Church to guide us, etc. We simply have to accept His love and follow His rules, which is difficult in the face of evil.

The other problem is how does one decide what evil to destroy? What if I know this drug dealer will go to rehab, come out clean and go on to start a rehab that will help thousands of other people who will go on to do good in the world. Is is justifiable to destroy the drug dealer just to save my child? The mother of the drug dealer might not think so!

 

[juhothenero]

If it is a truthful scenario according to human understanding and you have to invoke the “we don’t know why evil is tolerated”, then you appeal to faith. That is not a problem per se, but the faith you invoke here is called “blind faith”.

First “blessed are they who believe even though they have not seen”…

For God there can be no problems. That follows from omnipotence.

There is no real problem just the solution to the current situation is not what you think it should be… that is a human problem often we think God should work like we think is the most logical way but this is not true, we are inferior to God and hence we see a problem that is not a problem to God and doesn’t not need a solution we expect there to be…

There is a better way: change the rebels using convincing arguments which one can can refute and there will be no rebellion.

I have seen many who cannot be changed with convincing arguments, this is not true… Is not even true in the human world… and it is not true for someone who has actualized the sin of pride to a degree that we are talking about what comes to the devil… no argument is going to do it…

No one except for God is purely rational, you see, we all have our own faults in humility

No, no, no. The potentiality only allows actuality, it does not cause or create it. Without potentiality there can be no actuality, that is true. But the opposite is false.

Yes potentiality does not create it, but it for potentiality to be true there is a need for actuality… what is the use of potentiality to drop without dropping? Potentiality is actually a very human term for God i think it does not mean the same thing… When God is a creator he creates that is action, He is also infinite so what follows is that he creates something that is not infinite in itself. But he can create it in infinite numbers and that becomes a problem with potentiality, because when coming closer to infinite strange things start happening and potentiality becomes actuality…

That is not true either. As long as there is freedom to commit both good and evil, the potentiality exists.

Yes but you have to first think that God cannot restrict his creation to create a world of completely Good otherwise there is no potentiality… I mean that in infinite amount of time in a infinite number of created beings with potentiality becomes actuality… because somebody is going to make the choice and for there to be free will, there is a necessity to not to restrict potentiality… Understand?

This is actually close to the explanation of the multi-universe in which they try to explain that there is infinite amount of universes so one of them must have life in it, it gets rid of the problem of potentiality… although in science case there is not a shred of evidence for it

 

[juhothenero]

My problem with this scenario is that you make the “parent” out to be a bystander who chooses never to do anything. However, a good parent, knowing that evil drug dealers do exist, gives their child rules to live by, which includes things like “Don’t do drugs” & “These are the consequences if you do drugs”.

God did not just drop us into this world with no guidance. He has told us the rules, given us His love, left is the Church to guide us, etc. We simply have to accept His love and follow His rules, which is difficult in the face of evil.

The other problem is how does one decide what evil to destroy? What if I know this drug dealer will go to rehab, come out clean and go on to start a rehab that will help thousands of other people who will go on to do good in the world. Is is justifiable to destroy the drug dealer just to save my child? The mother of the drug dealer might not think so!

This is a very good post… that is why the scenario is false, since it is not complicated the problem with logic is the same, there is no way of mathematically calculating where one single raindrop falls while it is raining… i mean that when numbers come too great human logic fails and we must see a logic that is not from us…

 

[juhothenero]

No, no, no. The potentiality only allows actuality, it does not cause or create it. Without potentiality there can be no actuality, that is true. But the opposite is false.

That is not true either. As long as there is freedom to commit both good and evil, the potentiality exists.

Actually this is a problem with understanding what is potential and actual and how they relate, we usually do not say something is potential without there being an actual… actually i think we cannot think too many real potential situations without actual follow ups…

That is what i mean when i say potential is human term, it is a follow up term from actual… if there is A then there is a potential for A, but we cannot say think of potential for B without something that is closely similar to B

What i am saying is that you are right potentiality does not create actuality but rather other way around, actuality creates potentiality and without actuality there is no potential… since there are no natural examples of potential without there first being actual… take aliens for example, we think there is potential for Aliens to exist but we do not know if there is aliens, we think there is aliens because there is living things on our planet, so we derive the potentiality for aliens from actuality of things that happen in our planet… Potentiality was not there first…