Theodicy - God and an Evil World

Another thought:

God might be allowing evil to continue in order to prove a point...

From the moment of Adam's rebellion against God, a new order of events began happening which continues to this day. That new order, through the effects of sin, altered the course of both man and creation. Both were affected by sin. Creation was no longer a paradise,(Gen. 3:17-18; Rom. 8:22) and people's very nature changed (Rom. 5:12;Eph. 2:3, Rom. 3:19-12) to go against God. Earth could never be confused with Heaven. There is no permanency of existence here on Earth - death is inevitable. There are no pain-free lives - everyone has a bull's eye on their back.

Why? We see that evil is a global force and it brings about suffering, reminding people that rebellion against God - from Adam's to ours - brings about pain, suffering and death.

The latest

This is the first time I've been able to have time to sit down and have a snatch of time to make an entry into the Journal. The last few weeks have been almost manic, to say the least. I've been out of speaking and teaching assignments almost daily, while taking on more writing assignments. The Christian Writer's Workshops went well, and the Zockoll Chronicles site (www.zockollchronicles.com) was bought out by Guzo International Spots Management for the purpose of announcing new tournaments and events as well as up-and-coming basketball players around the nation. I have taken on three new ghost-writing contracts along with daily web page maintenance.

Plus, I caught the flu for a second time, and this one took me to the brink of pneumonia. In fact, I'm still having a rough time - and it's been over a week ago that I caught it.

But the Lord has been especially manifest in His watchcare over the family. Peter will be finishing up his schoolwork at the Home Life Academy and is still getting details on his college choices and decisions. Jill is finishing up paperwork so that we might apply for assistance due to her fibro myalgia (tons of paperwork). Julianne is the five-year-old nurse and musician about the household, either singing to us or else making poultices to apply to our feet and knees, whether we need them or not.

I sincerely enjoy the calming words of Philippians 4:9:

"Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me-put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."

"God of Peace" = theos eirene... the God who brings tranquility and harmony

So many of us fight to bring peace into our lives and households on our own terms. It's good to know that the very Author of Peace invites us to open His Book and see how we can apply the very definition to our walk on Earth. And let me tell you, with all of the mania slamming into our lives day by day, I find it essential to sit with this Author and see what His definitions can do for me.

Praise to the Lord the Almighty

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!

O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!

All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;

Praise Him in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him!

All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him.

Let the Amen sound from His people again,

Gladly for aye we adore Him.

In all things, in every day, He is good and worthy of praise.

More on Theodicy

It's not an easy subject when we deal with the fact that we see suffering all through the world constantly. As Christians we believe God is capable of preventing evil, and God wants to rid the universe of evil. Right?

After all, we know God is just (Deuteronomy 32:4), and we know by His sovereignty He can do anything He wishes (Daniel 4:17-25).

Then why does God allow evil? If He has the power to prevent evil, and wants to prevent evil, why doesn't He do it?

As we dig deeper into this subject let's realize that we are talking about the ways and workings of God, not another human. This is God-thinking, not human-thinking, and at that point it immediately puts rationality into another plane.

Let me explain.

Let's put down some of the reasons that humans might suggest as alternatives:

1) God should have created the race of people that so that they could not sin. Realize, though, that free will just went out the window; people then become “programmed” and robotic - only able to do right. God could have created Adam and Eve with no response but only good, but then the relationship wold be wooden and unfeeling; there is no choice in the matter. In their innocence - in an incredibly positive environment, no less - they were given the ability to choose good or evil. This made it a special decision to react to to His love and rely on Him ... or go in the other direction... which they did.

And so do we. We make our decisions (not necessarily the consequences) and often the decision is selfish. However, the joy I see whenever a person comes to me and has decided to follow Christ is priceless. They've made a choice to embrace Him and He is responding in love to their decision. There is nothing robotic about it.

So, God forcing us to do good, or forcing us to love Him doesn't make sense.

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