Surely this shows that God can be held responsible for evil and suffering?

Question

Either the world was created perfect and God let it go wrong, or the world was created imperfect and evil and suffering already existed.

conclusion:

god is impotent

therefore god does not exist (proof by contradiction)

the conceit of Lazarus is breathtaking

false religion? backward?

mirror

Answer 1

I think

That it is what you make it

He gave us the tools and he wants us to succeed but it is up to us to have faith and hope.

I used to be a Non believer
Because "HE" done me so wrong
-crazy mom on drugs
- crazy family members-
-early death for family members
-my birth defect
- my weaknesses
- poverty
-etc
-etc

But it is His will that I found truth, death is the final answer so make it as you will/

I am humble, as a blade of grass
I am thankful for what little I have.

And when it gets really really bad death is always there for us/
so buck up and grin at death and accept responsibility.

Who am I to question, remember me? I am but a blade of grass

Thank you God for all.

Answer 2

God is ultimately sovereign and nothing happens without his allowance. However this is not to say that God directly contributes to a theologically evil act. For instance, the scriptures you use are most often prophesies about the judgment that is about to come down on his people when they break his covenant with him. To their perspective it would be evil but in reality it is justice. Also if God is sovereign he would still have control over the fallen angels and hence could send a lying spirit and still not be the direct perpetrator of evil. One instance is when God considered judgment and decided against it. The examples you have listed, taken in proper context do not show the conclusion you have drawn.

Answer 3

The earth was created perfect and the people in it chose and still choose to do wrong. This proves nothing about God being held responsible for evil and suffering. There is evil because people choose to be that way.

Answer 4

Brother, do your homework. If you are sincere in your question, read "The Case for Faith" by Lee Stroebel. If God gave us free will, many choose evil over good. Without free will, we would just be robots, but God wanted us to be given a choice to love Him, not have it be mandatory. As a result of those choosing evil or false religion over God, there is evil and suffering in the world. Why do you think the Islamic nations are the most backward alive (apart from what they have learned from the West and our oil money)?
People like you who don't even research their erroneous views, by reading the book of the very person you are criticizing (GOD) are sad to me.

Answer 5

The world was created perfect and, in fact, is still running perfectly.
The only exception is man.
Man is an exception because he chose to become such.
True, God has tolerated, even permitted, suffering, but He cannot be held responsible.
The responsible ones are you, me and Adam.

Answer 6

Dr. Peas! I'll presume that perhaps U have only studied small round green vegtables as U surely haven't studied Scripture! The World was created to settle the Angelic Conflict at the "Appeals Trial of Satan" who whined to God after he sinned with his "Arrogant Thinking" that he could be Better than God!!! So his contention was that if he had a World to Rule over with Beings possessing "Free Will" (as the Angels) on it, they would NOT Revolt against him because he wouldn't treat them as God treats the Angels. So, God created a "Perfect World" & populated it with everything we see today and then some! God allowed Satan to have control over this World and allowed Us to Choose whom we will serve through the exercise of our "Free Will"!!! From our beginnings in the "Garden", we have made Bad Decisions which have "Corrupted" the World & its' Inhabitants. So please give credit where credit is due, as U just don't know how terribly it upsets Satan to not get the "Kudos" for all the wars, destruction, famine etc.. John

Answer 7

This old saw, again?

Sooner or later I must face the question in plain language. What reason have we, except our own desperate wishes, to believe that God is, by any standard we can conceive, “good”? Doesn’t all the prima facie evidence suggest exactly the opposite? What have we to set against it?
We set Christ against it. But how if He were mistaken? Almost His last words have a perfectly clear meaning. He had found that the Being He called Father was horribly and infinitely different from what He had supposed. The trap, so long and carefully prepared and so subtly baited, was at last sprung, on the cross. The vile practical joke had succeeded.… Step-by-step we were “led up the garden path.” Time after time, when He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture.1
Those words did not come from an atheist or a skeptic attempting to shake anyone’s faith in God. They came from one of the great defenders of Christianity, C.S. Lewis. He wrote them while he was still grieving over the loss of his wife to cancer. Such a response points out the fact that sooner or later each of us must deal with the problem of pain—that is, the problem of evil.
If God did not claim to be good, then the problem would be simple; but He does. If He were not all-powerful, as the finite godists say, there would not be a problem. If evil were not real, we could escape the problem. But such is not the case. The problem is very real—especially to those in pain—and even if we can’t give an answer for each individual situation, we can find some general principles about evil. We can at least show that the idea of a good and powerful God is not irreconcilable to the existence of evil.

The argument looks like this:
1. God is the author of everything.
2. Evil is something.
3. Therefore, God is the author of evil.

The first premise is true. So it appears that in order to deny the conclusion we have to deny the reality of evil (as the pantheists do). But we can deny that evil is a thing, or substance, without saying that it isn’t real. It is a lack in things. When good that should be there is missing from something, that is evil. After all, if I am missing a wart on my nose, that is not evil because the wart should not have been there in the first place. However, if a man lacks the ability to see, that is evil. Likewise, if a person lacks the kindness in his heart and respect for human life that should be there, then he may commit murder. Evil is, in reality, a parasite that cannot exist except as a hole in something that should be solid.

Adam and Eve were perfect, how did they fall? Don’t blame it on the snake because that just backs the question up one step; didn’t God make the snake perfect too? Some have concluded that there must be some force that is equal with God or beyond His control. Or maybe God just isn’t good after all. But maybe the answer lies in the idea of perfection itself.
1. God made everything perfect.
2. One of the perfect things God made was free creatures.
3. Free will is the cause of evil.
4. So, imperfection (evil) can arise from perfection (not directly, but indirectly through freedom).

Because we are free, we make free choices, some of which are not what God would want, and thus evil.

Where did the freedom come from?
The Bible says that we are created in the image of God. Not that we are God, but that we are LIKE Him.

For instance,
God is omniscient: He knows everything there is to know, and every varaiation of every permutation of what could have happened.
We are not omniscient, but in His image we have amazing knowledge.
God is omnipotent: He is able to do anything that is consistant with his nature and with the logic of His created system. There are a few excluded things, however: square triangles, and rocks too heavy to be lifted.
We are not all powerful, but our power is truely amazing, we use power for either good or evil, as we chose.
God is omnipresent: He is everywhere equally at the same time; we perceive Him more at one time over another when we are receptive to Him, like when we see a beautiful sunset, or a beautiful work of art.
We (obviously) are limited to being only one place at a time, yet our presence is also in his image.

The last way (but there are others too) that we are like Him is in His sovereignty. God does what God does, because He is God and we are not. We are incapable of understanding His ways, because his ways are higher than our ways.
Isaiah 55:8-9
8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. 9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

But because we are made in the image of God, we also have His characteristic of soveriegnty. His soveriegnty is infinate, our soveriegnty though, like our other characteristics is limited: we cannot do as we wish when we wish.

But because God has granted to us soveriegnty, God permits us to do things of which God does not approve. We know this as sin, some call it evil.

When Adam and Eve sinned, it brought unspeakable and unknowable evil into the world; how did evil originate? We did it to ourselves. If you think you are free of this plague, just remember the last time someone cut you off in traffic; or the clerk at the store gave you the wrong change; or your children disobeyed you. Yes, that's exactly what I thought, you sinned.

Evil from God?
Malachi 2:17
17 You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, "How have we wearied Him?" In that you say, "Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them," or, "Where is the God of justice?"

James 1:13-15 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.

3 John 1:11
11 Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.

Answer 8

So, oh, omniscient one, those are the only two options? How about a third? God created the world perfect, and man messed it up because man didn't like God's method of keeping it up! And God said, "Okay. But you get what you pay for."

Answer 9

Which could also lead to the following conclusion.
a) God has no power and can do nothing to aid the helpless suffering from starvation and illness.
b)God is all powerful but refuses to do anything to aid the helpless suffering from starvation and illness.
c)God does not exist.

I'll go with c).

Answer 10

So does this:

Isaiah 45:7 - I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.