I just finished reading a rather interesting article presented in the Christian Research Journal. The article deals with the perennial challenge of a “good God” and the existence of evil.
I must warn you now that, if you find philosophical articles that are heavy on cerebral discussion, your eyes will probably glaze over just trying to follow the arguments on both sides.
The issue has been debated for centuries. How could I think that I could add anything else to the discussion?
I don’t, to be honest.
I would, though, like to offer a simpler, saner view of the whole argument.
Consider †his: God is God, and we are not!
Nobody sane should even begin to think that we can see things from God’s perspective. Isaiah 55:8 says that God’s thoughts are higher than our own. God is omniscient, as the article states and the Bible supports. How can measly man ever hope to see things from an omniscient perspective?
God is considered to be “outside of time.” He also never changes. That implies that He sees me as I am typing this at the “same time” as He sees Christ being nailed to a cross for my sins. How can He do that? I don’t have a clue, and don’t think I ever will as long as my perspective is stuck on Earth, stuck in time. How can my writing this be “predestined” and foreknown, and still be the result of my free will? I don’t have a clue.
Let me get even more gutsy: nobody has a clue. Calvin didn’t. Arminius didn’t. Neither did Luther, Wesley, or anybody else. They probably do “now,” but only because they are in Heaven, and can see things as God does. (At least I assume that’s the case.)
So why did God create evil, or create Satan who became evil? Why does God allow evil? I would be interested in the opinions of others, because I have no idea.
