Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] FW: origin of evil

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] FW: origin of evil
  • Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:35:09 -0500

Dear Liz,


Are not disasters evil??? What about the Tsunami, which killed over 300,000
men, women, children, babies? You say that God as only good must have some
ulterior good motive for killing all those people? If God has free will,
acts, is a moral agent, and commits disaster, then he also does evil, as he
is quoted as saying.




HH: Isaiah 45:7 says that God creates RA(, and that word can mean "disaster." We agree that God is responsible for disasters. But Abraham knew the following (Gen 18:25): "Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" God does what is right, and what is right is not morally evil. Moral evil concerns what is morally wrong. This is the distinction being made. God does not do what is morally wrong because he is holy. When Adam and Eve sinned, their sin brought a series of divine judgments, including pain in childbirth, multiplied conception, toil in work, an unproductive earth, and physical death. We believe other negative conditions came in the wake of these, such as disease, savageness in animals, and disordered climate patterns. The Lord altered the environemnt in which mankind would live as a result of its sin. This was a divine judgment, so we certainly cannot call it morally evil. All these agencies are ultimately under God's sovereignty, but they also operate according to various laws in a naturalistic way. We know the cause of the tsunami can be traced all the way back to the sin of Adam and Eve. While it may have been a disaster, it was a token of divine judgment on human sin, and was not ultimately a moral evil. However, these disorders in nature do not necessarily connect directly with particular sins or sinners. That is, there is a certain randomness about them so that they are a condition of human life, affecting the innocent as well as the guilty.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard


HH: God says that he creates evil, so of course you can say that. But
clearly moral evil is due to moral agents, and God as a moral agent does
not produce moral evil because he is holy. However, angels and men do
produce moral evil by contravening God's good will.





HH: Right, but I think Isa 45:7 is using the term "evil" in the sense of
"disaster." I understand what you are saying about moral evil being a
by-product of God's creation of the world. However, it was not a
necessary by-product, since it is due to the free will choices of moral
beings. He was not the direct Creator of moral evil, since it arose
through angels and human beings.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard


_______________________________________

________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew

_______________________________________
________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew

_______________________________________
________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew



_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew

.







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page