Did God create Evil?

[JohnCU]

This is only for people who believe in God, please don't reply unless you have something intelligent to input.

Do you believe God created Evil? When he created this Universe, and this World, it seems only possible that he HAD to know that all this would happen. I mean, if he can do everything else, then he can see into the future, and he would have seen all of this mess that we have today.

What do you think?

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

God created man, man created evil. You figure it out.

 

[Azraele]

To maintain the balance. Without evil, there can be no good, since there would be nothing to compare it to.

 

[Hanpan]

Evil is not a thing in teh regular matter. That is it is not classified as something as snow is something. Rather it is the lack of good. Much like darkness is the lack of light and not something in and of itself. Therefore evil was not created. It is simply the lack of good.

 

[1967mustangman]

God did not create evil. God created his angles and he created man. Lucifer decided he wanted to be as powerfull as God. Because of this Lucifer was kicked from heaven and sent to live in Hell. Lucifer decived man and man chose to follow him. Therefore God created man with the chance to folloq him or to sin and he sined bringing all the curses of evil upon himself.

 

[littleprince]

man definitely didn not create evil.

if you think we chose to follow lucifer and he is evil, pls clarify who created lucifer?

 

[Azraele]

1967mustangman: Yes but surely since God is all-knowing, he knew that when he created angels, Lucifer in particular, he knew that Lucifer would turn on him, and hence, in creating Lucifer, he created evil. The fact that He knew what would happen, yet still did it anyway, imho, leaves him responsible for at least part of the blame.

 

[johneetrash]

you can go on all day about these

can god create a rock heavier than he can lift?
can god create a hole so small he couldnt fit in?

balh balhbalb abhalb lbahb alhbb blah blah

all those other ones were supposed to be blah too woops

 

[PorsheBoxer]

You tell them jonheetrash if god created the world he had to creat evil

 

[notfred]

There isn't a way that you can beleive god is omnipotent and omniscient and the creator of the universe without beleiving he created evil.

If God didn't create evil, then who did?
Man most certainly didn't create evil, or the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" would have been called something different BEFORE the fall of man.

You can't really say that lucifer created evil, because he rebelled against God based on jealousy. For this to occur, he had to be created with the capacity to experience jealousy, and he obviously ddin't create himself.

This really only leaves 2 options:
1) God did, in fact, create evil.

2) Evil has existed as a force unto itself, regardless of God, since the beginning of time.

of course, this only applies if you're a christian/jew/moslim, and happen to believe the old testament of the Bible.

 

[chainbolt]

maybe the other way around: the Evil created God?

 

[Rage187]

God created matter

Evil is just a state of matter..

 

[Law]

I agree with mustang here, God didn't create man to be perfect, and thus men and women, u and I can make mistakes and do evil things...its called free will. God then judges us when we die and sends us to heaven or hell. He's all-knowing in a sense that He watches our every move but He can't see into the future b/c of free will. Thus, God created "evil" by creating the world.

 

[Optimus]

For God to exist, there must also be an opposite, an abscence of Him if you will. God and therefore good are defined as being of the nature of God, and Evil is the opposite of God - everything He isn't.

Evil is simply the opposite, or abscence, of good (God).

Evil exists as the definition of what God isn't.

 

[Kadesh]

Evil is the absence of God's love. Hell is being in a place where God's love has been rejected forever. God indirectly created evil when he gave man the free will to choose evil.

 

[RossGr]

I have heard over and over again here, that god is everything. Therefore god is evil.

don't you just love the consistancy of it all.

 

[FreeFrag]

What is evil? Is it me Neffing the AT Forums? Or is it me plotting a massacre in a basketball stadium? What would the world be like without Evil? Does evil make life interesting?

Did the Devil create good? Without Evil, how can you have good? If there was no Evil, good was just normal.

Hehehe...more questions Dismal, and you wanted answers

EDIT: Nice one Kadesh

 

[Time2Kill]

<< He watches our every move but He can't see into the future b/c of free will >>



Someone correct me if I am wrong, but since when can God not know the future...if He is all knowing, then doesnt He know the future also?

 

[Hanpan]

<< For God to exist, there must also be an opposite, an abscence of Him if you will. God and therefore good are defined as being of the nature of God, and Evil is the opposite of God - everything He isn't.

Evil is simply the opposite, or abscence, of good (God).

Evil exists as the definition of what God isn't. >>



Pretty much what i said.

 

[bandXtrb]

Ahh yes, The Problem of Evil.. this is a big one. Stephen Davis has an interesting article about it.

The problem is that:
God is all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful, yet evil exists. One has to be wrong. If he is all good, then he doesn't want evil to happen. If he is all knowing, he knows where and when the evil is gonna happen, and if he's all powerful he can stop it. If one of these were not true, God can escape the problem... but religion would not want one of these to be denied.

Basically, Davis says that moral evil can be explain due to the free will of humans (as stated earlier in this thread). Natural evil MIGHT be the cause of Lucifer. This at least solves the problem logically, though an 'emotional' problem still exists because it seems odd that such a good and powerful God would put us in a world with widespread evil.

Also, its not clear that evil is neccessary for good to be appreciated.

It's stated that God didn't want to create beings that only did good(moral automatons), because then they wouldn't really be people, they wouldn't really CHOOSE goodness, it woudl be fake..

Fine...

But WHY did God have to create people? Why did he have to create Lucifer? He DID know what was going to happen (he is all knowing and exists outside of time), so he KNEW Lucifer would rebel and become evil. Why did he have to create a world to begin with? Was it absolutely necessary? If it WAS necessary for him to create a world, wouldn't the fact of evil arising put him sort of in a catch22 'damned if you do, damned if you dont' position?

 

[brxndxn]

There are just some things we humans are not meant to know or understand.
There are some things we cannot comprehend.

As far as I've read and studied, long before the time of Earth, there were God and his angels. One angel, Lucifer, decided to be as powerful as God and split from him. God banished Lucifer to hell along with all those who followed Lucifer. That created evil.

 

[SOONER]

No, God did not create evil. God created the angels and man with a choice. They have a choice to love him and worship him OR to disobey him. Why do they have to have this choice? Because without it we would be like robots that do only as they are programed and therefore it would not be true love and worship. So, while he knew that some would choose not to love him he still allowed them the choice. As a result some chose not to follow him and instead chose to disobey and evil resulted.

 

[Slappy5]

Morailty reflects an aspect of the infinite process that is existance/creation. If there were no conflict in the universe it would simply not exist.

 

[Banana]

&quot;Without evil, there can be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometimes.&quot;

Satan,
in &quot;South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut&quot;

1YP

 

[Amused]

An entity (in this case a deity) cannot be perfect, and create an imperfect thing. It's a logical impossibility. For if the supposed perfect deity created an imperfect thing, that deity would no longer be perfect.

If the supposed deity created everything, nothing can exist that it didn't create, or intend to create.

If a deity is omnipotent it is therefore omniscient... it knows the future. If it knows the future, it cannot give &quot;free will&quot; to it's creations, because it knows what that creation will do before it creates it.

What does this tell us? If the Christian god is omnipotent, it had to have created this thing called &quot;evil.&quot; If Lucifer is evil, this god had to know Lucifer would be evil before he created him.

And lastly, because we are imperfect, this god, if it exists, must be imperfect.

Well, those are my thoughts on the matter.