The Christian God cannot be omnibenevolent? (see below)?

Question

(I don't believe in the Christian God, this is for arguments sake)

If God is all-powerful why wouldn't he stop the worst evils from happening, such as the development of disease causing bacteria, or viruses, or famine?

The free will argument just doesn't work. If God is all-good, and all knowing, there should be a point he'd know when to say "alright, I have to come in and put a stop to this".

Why would God put an evil person's free-will above the happiness of a lot of good people?

In these serious situations, if there's an all powerful all knowing being that doesn't do anything, doesn't that make them evil by lack of action?

Seriously, in the case of child rape, do you think God just sits there, like "oops, can't take away that guy's freewill, even though I make the rules. I guess I'll just have to let him rape that poor kid."

Hey Old Guy, isn't it a little scary that a slightly gifted 23 year old could in fact, do better?

Answer 1

While Christians affirm unequivocally that God is essentially good and loving, it must be emphasized that complementary to these attributes is the characteristic of justice. A loving being that ignored evil or that treated bad acts and good acts equally would not be good. Hence, if God is good, then God is also just - he must treat evil as evil. So, if any creatures merited the existence of hell, then God could remain essentially good and loving by giving them justice, even if that means sending some creatures to hell.

The Scriptures also make it plain that God did not create the world in the state in which it is now, but evil came as a result of the selfishness of man. The Bible says that God is a God of love and He desired to create a person and eventually a race that would love Him. But genuine love cannot exist unless freely given through free choice and will and thus man was given the choice to accept God’s love or to reject it ... choose 'good' or 'evil.' "War, rape, starvation, and more," is the result of this.

And You're right, Having a disease, being raped, or murdered, are not choices. But they are the resullt of others choices. Certainly, God is capable of destroying evil and suffering--but not without destroying human freedom, or a world in which free creatures can function. How do we as Christians respond to the problem of evil? With sorrow. With sadness. With revulsion. With perplexity. With questions that have no answers ... Each of us has had wrong thoughts, evil thoughts. Each of us has done something wrong — something evil. Why does God allow evil within us? None of us deserves to escape punishment, and yet God allows escape, too. If we ask why there is evil, we should also ask why there is mercy. Let us fight against evil and needless suffering, starting with ourselves.

Answer 2

I am sure christians do think that god is benevolent, look at all the prayers asking for things, they then get upset when those things do not materialize, despite all evidence in their bible that god is in fact jealous and wrathful, there is nothing benevolent about this deity, some may say that this deity is in fact an evil god. I think it is a little harsh to put Cheryl Cole along side Ebola as a horror of the world, surely she only rates as high as common cold on that scale, infects a lot more people but is mostly harmless. Good luck on your path xx

Answer 3

If God is all-good, and all knowing, there should be a point he'd know when to say "alright, I have to come in and put a stop to this".-------Are you supposed to be the individual who determines when and where these interventions should take place? We know Who God is by what His Word says about Him. He is just and righteous. That never changes. So, it would not be just or righteous for Him to remove the freewill of someone who chooses evil over good when God has provided ALL with freewill. Your definition of "the worst evils" may not be the same as mine or someone else's. If freewill is removed then we have mindless robots in place of God's human creation.
Our freewill is what helps to mature and develop as individuals. When we are young, our parents don't provide us with total freewill--we are told what to do and how to behave and as we grow we are given more and more "freedom" to make our own choices. Like our earthly parents, God has given us a set of standards and expectations that will provide us with a good consequences for self and community IF we choose to follow those guidelines. Sadly, many of us miss the mark all too frequently and evil abounds.

Answer 4

I have the answer. But you have not acknowledge me once in the past, so why should I bother. I will give you a hint to where you are off a little by using a certain tool to try to figure God out, which the tool doesn't work. I am so happy that I do not want to share my God with others and others do not ask me about my God... makes so happy. Happy kid, with all the darn tiresome questions you ask, are you at loss with your loss of God or are you mocking people for having their God? Or better yet, instead of guessing which it might be... I ask you to which is it or is it something else. RICHARD

Answer 5

Read the scriptures someday he will put an end to all suffering but he won't take our free will away or the people who do evil won't ripe enough in evil so they can be punished.
We aren't puppets on a string. We are intelligences that can make decisions on our own. God can help when you pray to him if he chooses the time is right, but we all die some day all of us. If we live good for him and our fellow human beings we will be rewarded.

Answer 6

Free will is not a argument it is a fact, God does not interfere with the free will of people that is why people do these evil things and God doesn't interfere otherwise we would not have free will. Disease is because of the condition men have brought themselves to ,same with famine, bacteria and viruses as well as germs are just words doctors made up to try to explain that which they cannot explain.
Because you do not know God you make false assumptions and want to have things your own way hence free will argument. You only make yourself appear ignorant talking of things in which you have no knowledge.

Answer 7

You can't expect God to take everything bad that is going to happen and stop it. Part of growing is having the bitter with the sweet. The miracle of Gods love is not that he allows bad things to happen its his promise that he will be there for us when they do. Besides how boring would life be if only good things happened. Those people who are doing evil things will get there just do in the end don't worry.

Answer 8

We are not in a good position to assess the probability of whether God has morally sufficient reasons for the evils that occur. As finite persons, we are limited in time, space, intelligence, and insight. But the transcendent and sovereign God sees the end from the beginning and providentially orders history so that His purposes are ultimately achieved through human free decisions. In order to achieve His ends, God may have to put up with certain evils along the way. Evils which appear pointless to us within our limited framework may be seen to have been justly permitted within God’s wider framework. To borrow an illustration from a developing field of science, Chaos Theory, scientists have discovered that certain macroscopic systems, for example, weather systems or insect populations, are extraordinarily sensitive to the tiniest perturbations. A butterfly fluttering on a branch in West Africa may set in motion forces which would eventually issue in a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean. Yet it is impossible in principle for anyone observing that butterfly palpitating on a branch to predict such an outcome. The brutal murder of an innocent man or a child’s dying of leukemia could produce a sort of ripple effect through history such that God’s morally sufficient reason for permitting it might not emerge until centuries later and perhaps in another land. When you think of God’s providence over the whole of history, I think you can see how hopeless it is for limited observers to speculate on the probability that God could have a morally sufficient reason for permitting a certain evil. We’re just not in a good position to assess such probabilities.

EDIT: to "eelai000"

God did not create evil but adversity.
Isaiah 45:7
In the passage the word "evil" is 'ra'. This word does indicate moral evil elsewhere. But there are meanings offered in Strong's for this word like "adversity" and words of similar nature. 'Ra' can therefore be used in both senses - and is more correctly translated as adversity.

Answer 9

Really you are saying that a person's view is one sided. An example; Osama Bin Laden, most of the Western world sees him as an evil man, that doesn't mean other people (i.e. in the east) see him as an evil man. There's two sides for every story. In the traditional sense of belief in God, we as mere mortals are not supposed to be able to comprehend his reasons for doing what he does, it is simply supposed to be beyond us (or so we are told).

For arguments sake let's say God exists. Why would God intervene though? He created man with free will. That means freedom of choice. If God was intervening, that would mean, you were doing something that he or she does not want you to do. Which would defeat the purpose of creating life with free will.

How do you know what we consider evil is what God would also consider evil? How can we as mere humans comprehend the reasons and thoughts of God? You also have to think too, 60 to 80 years is a damn long time to a human, it is an entire life time. To God it is nothing.

To an eternal being the concept of time is meaningless. Therefore the events of the world in 500 or even 1000 or 2000 years are seemingly insignificant if you consider that perhaps God is planning for an event in the distant future, or in the grand scheme of things. What I am trying to say is 500 years of misery is a short time in comparison to billions and billions and billions of years.

Okay, I'm ranting. Basically we are mere mortals and we can't comprehgend it, Lol.

Answer 10

God COULD remove all the sins and evils in the world. In fact, the day will come when He WILL. He would do so by removing every single person who's living ultimately a self-centered selfish lifestyle (because THAT is what sin, ultimately is.)

My question for you is, will YOU still be here?

Don't be too quick to answer that - you need to ask yourself, "WHY do you do the things that you do, and WHO do you REALLY do them for?"

God DID eliminate all wicked sinners one time, and scoffers and skeptics and mockers just whine because He flooded the earth and left no survivors! (Except for one family).

That's what you're REALLY asking God to do, because where do you draw the line? Who gets to judge how bad sin has to be before it is stopped? God says that sin is evil, because it is the source and cause of every bad thing! It's all rebellion against God's rightful authority, tantamount to high treason!

So, do you REALLY want God to intervene? Are YOU willing to give up YOUR rights? Or do you think the world would be better off if we were all just robots?

Finally, I must ask, are you part of the solution (ie serving God and not in a state of rebellion against Him), or are you still part of the problem (adding to the evil in this world by rebelling against God and not submitting to Him)?