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  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] FW: origin of evil
  • Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2006 10:06:36 -0500

Dear Liz,

I agree that God is holy, but perhaps we also define holiness differently.




HH: Holiness is God's separation from anything that is defiling, particularly from sin.



I
don't define it to include "good."




HH: Whether you include that idea in the definition of holiness seems immaterial, because it is certainly an attribute of God. He is good, not bad:

Psa. 136:1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.

HH: The Lord can deal severely with those who sin, but he is not arbitrary in the exercise of his wrath. He is just, and his justice is another aspect of his goodness.



God exhibits his holiness through his
awesome power, as is said repeatedly.





HH: I don't deny that.




We could discuss the biblical flood as well. That too was evil and God
regretted it.




HH: I don't remember God saying that he regretted the Flood. He regretted that he made made man:

Gen. 6:6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.

HH: This is an anthropomorphic expression that communicates just what a disappointment human sin was to God, since he knew all things in advance and knew it would be so before he created the world.



It seems that if God regretted it, it couldn't have been good.




HH: If you give me a Bible verse saying this, then I will be able to think about what you're saying more carefully. We sometimes speak of regretting actions that are necessary. A father can say that he regrets that he has to spank his young son. That is, he tells his son that it is necessary for him to be spanked, but that it gives the father no pleasure to do so. He does it for his son's good. Perhaps he has repeatedly warned the son not to do something, so it regrettable that it has come to a spanking, especially when the spanking could have so easily been avoided by the son's obedience.



Unless you define good so that anything that happens in nature is good. If
cancer is good, a judgment for sin you'd say, why should we have doctors? If
polio was good, why should we have had doctors who eradicated it completely?
Should we not try to eradicate cancer as we did polio?
Should we not build earthquake-proof houses and better warning systems to
protect against the times when God's holiness bursts out?




HH: I have already made the necessary distinction between moral evil and other evil. Of course you can describe these things as evil, but God committed no moral evil in allowing them to happen. He is righteous and does no wrong. It is also proper to work to overcome human conditions that reflect the divine judgment on human sin. As I said, these things became part of the human environment and so they fall under the divine mandate to us to rule over the earth and subdue it. Since disease is now part of the earth, we are to rule over it.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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