Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Pastor explains how God created evil to show His grace


One of my favorite questions for Christian fundamentalists is: Why did your Lord create evil? See Isaiah 45:7 (KJV): I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Here is an unedited response I received to this question from fundamentalist Christian author Mike Cleveland, pastor of the Ohio Valley Church:

This is a good question. The answer is, in order to display His grace. "32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." Romans 11:32
Before sin entered the world all the angels and all created beings knew of God's righteousness, His holiness, His unchanging law. But they knew nothing of His grace.

And so sin entered the world, and death through sin, "so that God might have mercy on all."

As you are clearly reading the Bible, are you discovering all the places where God shows grace to those who do not deserve it, and has mercy on people who do wrong? Thank you for reading and asking.

Mike is a genuinely nice guy and was kind enough to send me a Bible recently. However, he doesn't seem to have given much thought to the alarming implications of his interpretation. If what he is saying is true (i.e. God exists and created evil for the sole purpose of showing his grace), then his lordy is one sick puppy. However, I'm still lost as to how grace is displayed by tsunamies snatching babies from their mother's arms, sexual abuse of children or the creation of the Australian redback spider (pictured above) which is one of the rare species where the female consumes the male while mating.
Posted by The Atheist Missionary at 10:51 PM
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42 comments:

  1. If a parent did something like that, "I can't cuddle you until AFTER I have beaten you, otherwise the cuddle means nothing", would have their children removed from them and put up for adoption. 'God' inventing evil so he can show what a nice guy he is, is essentially the same thing. Sick puppy indeed.

    As for the spider, nothing wrong with a spider who eats her mate during copulation. Prevents him cheating!
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  2. Oh what a life the male redback lives. Talk about going out in style.

    No surprise that God created evil. You have to create something if you are going to lay in the weeds and try to murder Moses.
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  3. Such a superficial treatment of a what is for many a sincere subject of inquiry! Though a masterful scriptorian you may be in "quote mining" (see Monday's chart) a reference to evil, you are, predicatably, unnuanced in lumping the willful acts of humans (child abuse) as evil along with Tsunami and pinning them all to the actions of God.

    God endowed all with free will; you must do better than to say that that act of creation is sick if you refuse to unpack the potential for significant nuance in cosmic vicarious liability.

    An example of nuance, in your pet quote-mined passage (aka willfully taken out of context) God proclaims that He created light. Even if you choose to read that as meaning that he creates all light everytime it exists, does that make him responsible in any meaningful sense for when I turned on my office light-switch this morning.

    By the same token, when my State legislature creates a law declaring it wrongful to commit some act, say, shoot a police-officer. They created that evil. The shooter cannot meaningfully blame the legislature for his act simply because the legislature created that evil.
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  4. To speak to the point, then, what is the role of evil in God's plan? I know from a previous post that TAM finds ridiculous my analogy that mortal life is like a going away to college, but I find it helpful so I'll dip back into that metaphor.

    If earth life would be like heaven, then why did we need to leave? What would we learn if we stayed at home and never went away to college and stood on our own feet without the Mom and Dad right there? God's mercy is that when we leave here, we will be tried and forged by the opposition of life, and yes the evil inflicted upon us by improper exercise of free will by others.

    Mind you, Christians know that as incomprehensible as allowing the innocent to suffer is, God had his Son go through it too. Jesus bore not only a share of poverty and torture in the ordinary course, but the sufferings of all of the results of the Fall (of Adam) (i.e. including the consequences of there being evil in the world). He knows perfectly what evil in the world costs us.
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  5. quandmeme, oh where shall I begin?

    My superficial treatment of Isaiah 45:7 was simply intended to present Pastor Cleveland's explanation. Do you agree that God created evil in order to display his grace? If yes, humanity is his Sims game. If not, please explain your interpretation.

    How is this reference quote mining? If I have quoted this passsage out of context, please let me know. If there are other passages from the Bible which shed light on the reason why your lordy created evil (which I will define as unnecessary suffering unless you have a better definition), please share them with us.

    Your reference "the Fall" interests me because I can find no reference to original sin in Genesis 1 or 2. This concept is the creation of Augustine of Hippo. If you are interested, philosopher John Hyman has written an article (which will appear in the next Issue #25 of the Cambridge journal Think: Philosophy for Everyone) in which he argues that the story of the Fall was never intended as a cautionary tale about disobeying God, but rather as a Prometheus-like tale in which the snake actually liberates humanity by providing us with knowledge, thereby pissing off the god(s). It was Augustine who turned it into a celebration of ignorance and deference to divine authority. Hyman notes in passing that (of course) Adam and Eve could not have morally sinned by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, because before eating the fruit they knew nothing about good and evil.
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  6. Thanks to Prometheus' gift, we now blossom at the root of the tree of knowledge. Please let me know when the article is published. I have always been interested in the mythological parallel between the Snake and Prometheus. It's always been so obvious to me, I am glad others are taking notice.

    In the story, if one reads it properly, it is not God who gave humanity free will, it is the Snake. The Snake is the liberator. God is the oppressor. No longer is mankind a slave race condemned into a life of mindless servitude. We have to fend for ourselves and assume the consequences of our choices. But knowledge has set us free.

    At least that's what the story says.
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  8. We have a problem, because if “unnecessary suffering” = evil, then I can’t really engage. That is so fluid, that it let’s you say that rain on your wedding day is evil. I don’t think that meaning gives the broad point you are trying to make any wings. Maybe try this:

    “In the Old Testament, the term is translated from the Hebrew term, ra', and its cognates, whose applications range widely from (1) what tastes nasty or is ugly, displeasing, or sad, through (2) moral wickedness and the distress, misery, and tragedy that ensue from it, to (3) willful disobedience of God and his intentions for human beings.”

    On the strength of your pet Isaiah verse, it makes more sense to say that God created evil in the way that a legislature creates law.

    ****

    I tried to explain why it was so out of context, by comparing the limits to creation of light and the creation of evil. I propose that one meaning of creating evil is that by creating a world where we can exercise our free will and placing us in it, we are able to choose evil or peace.

    ****

    My reference to the Fall was supposed to be a little more relevant to the thread, and does not draw on the distracting notion of original sin. Given that, because of the fall, we have knowledge of good and evil and that many choose evil, we live in a world whereby we are affected by the evil choices of others. Jesus Christ not only lived himself in this world, but he atoned for the effects of this in a transcendent way for all of us. Thus, say a child is raised in a household where he grows up with some unfortunate isms, say moral relativism or hedonism, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ redeems from the fall so that the consequences of living in a fallen world can not be imputed that individual. He is responsible for his _choices_; not his circumstances.

    ****

    So, finally, we’re back off to college. The Promethean gift of agency is absolutely transformative. Without that gift, the ability to choose good or evil, what purpose is coming to Earth?
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  9. one meaning of creating evil is that by creating a world where we can exercise our free will and placing us in it. OK, lordy gives mankind free will and that results in us choosing to do good or bad. That gets lordy off the hook for incest, murder and larceny. But that doesn't get him off the hook for tsunamis, childhood cancer and AIDS. What does Jeezus and the concept of substitutional atonement have to do with those "natural" but also supposedly God-given evils?
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  10. If there was nothing wrong then there'd be nothing right.

    If there was no darkness, there would be no light, because nothing could be seen.

    There has to be darkness with light, good with bad, evil with righteousness, it's the way everything is.

    How I believe it, God created all that is good. I'm currently studying neuroscience and biochemistry at one of the top US universities for behavioral and brain sciences, and would like to say that nothing so far has steered me away from God.

    I have asked myself this question many times.

    My answer: this is the way it MUST be. There can be no good when there is no evil. If nothing were bad, nothing would be good, and everything would be the same, and there would be nothing.
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  11. James wrote: If there was nothing wrong then there'd be nothing right. That's the Yin-Yang my friend - Zen Buddhism at its core. Why do you need to add God to the equation? You sound like a smart guy. What do rely on to conclude "God created all that is good" as opposed to an infinite number of fairies (all named Ned)?
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  12. I don't know that an infinite number of fairies created the world. I don't know anything for sure. And yes, it's the whole "Yin-Yang" argument.

    I merely state what I believe, and that is, that a God (who I view as the Judeo-Christian God) created the universe and everything in it. Nothing couldn't have come without something.

    For me it all boils down to my belief that SOMETHING CANNOT COME FROM NOTHING. THERE HAS TO BE A CREATOR. And I found my answers to life in the Bible.

    Anyway, (I've been up for about 20 hours right now, so mind my rambling) what I rely on for "God created all that is good" argument is what I have felt in my heart. I'm not saying you've felt it. I'm not saying you'll ever experience it. I'm not saying you haven't felt it. I'm just saying I HAVE felt it, and I believe it to be God.

    "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23

    Those are the things I believe in, and so far those are the things that are blossoming in me from my faith.

    But that's just me.
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  13. As for me, I'm sick and tired of all the hate spewed on Christian, Atheist, Muslim, Antitheist, Jewish, and all other relgion's boards on the internet.

    I'm sick and tired of hate. It needs to be washed away from our lives. I advocate that my religion, my faith, is a peaceful one, and that the bad apples who ruin the bunch should not speak for the many. Yet they do. And they have spoiled much. They have planted seeds of hate, bigotry, and prejudice everywhere. I'm prejudiced. It's the way I was raised. And it's a crippling force on my life.

    I know it sounds fruity, but I dream of a world where we all love, not one that is necessarily free of religion. I want one free of hate, free of hateful words, hateful feelings, spite, destruction, war, and all these terrible things.
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  14. Sorry to keep going and keep going, but ONE MORE THING haha. All this actually started yesterday after a few hardcore hate filled attacks at my faith.

    I have since then been researching the underlying causes of hate and love, and found that love is in our nature, and hate is learned. I will not teach my kids to hate, in any form. I refuse to commit such a barbaric act.
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  15. To clarify, I'm not saying your posts are hateful, I just thought this was a nice open forum to talk about stuff kthx :)
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  16. I keep going on and on and on. I wouldn't be doing this if I had gotten sleep last night.

    Just to let you know, the yin-yang idea is from Chinese philosophy, which lines much more up to my beliefs than Buddhism does (just sayin' thought you should know)
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  17. James, I'm sure you have more than enough to read in your studies. However, if you get the chance, please read Sam Harris' The End of Faith - it provides a rivetting description of how moderate religious beliefs enable extremism.

    You write: I merely state what I believe, and that is, that a God (who I view as the Judeo-Christian God) created the universe and everything in it. Nothing couldn't have come without something. If you want to stare at the sky and believe that there must be a first cause - that's fine. But why do you feel the Judeo-Christian god is any more likely to be that first cause than the infinite number of fairy Neds? ... and why do you insist that everything must have a first cause but not your God?

    Saying that you find all your answers in the Bible is as meaningless as me saying that I find all the answers in the Torah, Koran, Book of Mormon, etc. I have no doubt that you were born into a Christian family - you also might like to read The God Virus by Darrel Ray
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  18. One that is infinite and perfect must not have a creation/cause because it is infinite and perfect. Either something is infinite, or had to be created, simple as that. If God is infinite, then he did not need creation, or a first cause, because he is the cause, always was be, always will be, etc.

    Yeah, I was born into a Christian family, and my views are quite different from my parents'. I have many many times questioned the existence of God/god/Neds/everything.

    You don't need to find meaning in what I say. If you say that you found your answers in the Torah, Koran, Book of Mormom, or "Philosophy for Dummies", then more power to you. (Running off of about 2 hours of sleep so bear with me) I'm just saying is that what I found to be true for me, is the Bible. It doesn't have to hold any meaning in your life, but I view it should be respected that it holds meaning in my life. I have put my religious beliefs out on the line. I would like to hear yours. (It's funny... I keep typing the same sentence after itself if I get distracted)

    I don't like organized religion. I don't like the hate that it spreads. I don't like the people trying to spread lies and false rumors about anybody's religion either.

    What if we did away with race? Wouldn't that solve so so many of our problems? Imagine a world without race, we'd never have to be like "Those damn blacks stole stuff from my grocery store" or "GOOD GRIEF! Those Indians smell so bad! (college thing haha)" Would you be opposed to me setting out to peacefully (no war, war is bad, and killing people is bad, and I will not do it) eradicate race from the world, so everyone has the same skin color and speaks the same? Think of how much we could do in a world with no racism.
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  19. (new paragraphs indicate different tangential points)
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  20. James, I agree that racism is silly. Almost all evolutionary biologists now agree (based on tracing mitochondrial DNA) that every human on earth is an descendant of African hominids. Quite frankly, my hope is that a better understanding of this fact will do much to eradicate racial prejudices.

    It will come as no surprise to you to hear that I have no religious beliefs. I accept the possibility of non-spatial dimensions but that doesn't give me any warm and fuzzy spiritual feeling. I am a skeptic to the core which means that the only thing I take for certain is the Cogito. The rest of my life is based on the bext evidence available. I am fairly certain that I'm not living in a matrix, that I'm not a brain in a vat, that you're not just a figment of my imagination .. but I appreciate that I could turn out to be wrong. In a nutshell, that is what I dislike about most religious adherents - their refusal to admit that their beliefs could be mistaken.
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  21. My beliefs could definitely be mistaken.

    So we all agree that racism is wrong! Good. However, I view racist oppression as the same as religious oppression, either way it goes. Abolition of religion to me is just as dangerous as abolition of race.
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  22. And sorry for not posting much right now, but I have to go out now (blarg! Family is in town) I will post more when I return.

    Have yourself a great day sir. I respect you, and this site that you have created. It has given me many wonderful insights onto the nature(s) of God.

    Trust me, that in the future, I will be posting more.

    Peace!
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  23. James wrote: My beliefs could definitely be mistaken You just made my day. Just keep an open mind. That's all I ask.
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  24. To Tam - When James wrote his beliefs could be mistaken he just made your day, if only you were as honest as him.But it just came to me i thought these were discussions with perhaps an effort to find the truth of the matter regarding life death and everthing in between but then it came to me this web site has no interest in truth its dedicated to the peaceful eradication of religion so Tam your mind is already made up and is as closed as those religous fanatics and bigots you hate so much
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  25. @Martin

    I assume you are a Christian as well.

    To say something of the nature you have posted is against the Christian nature. To call someone out, and tell them smack in their faith about how bad and closed minded they are is incredibly hypocritical. God calls us to call out our brothers when something like this happens, but does nowhere tell us to post comments such as yours.

    I HONESTLY believe that TAM (I could be wrong, of course) is trying to find truth. He is closed minded. Qualifying this, even I am closed minded. You are closed minded. EVERYBODY is closed minded. There has to be some sort of closed mindedness or the human race would not be where it is today. We would be nothing still. However, we must be willing to hear everyone out and see things from their perspective. I believe TAM is doing this. Martin, I have read many of your comments, and you are not doing this.

    --------------------

    @TAM, thank you for creating this site, and thank you for allowing an open forum that we can discuss upon. I hope to bring light to the argument, so no side becomes bigoted and dis-understanding of the other. When we see things from our opponents perspectives, oftentimes our perspectives change. Honestly, much of the material on your site has made me question the existence of God. I still have not found anything, though, that tells me "no, there is no god." Not everything I see, but everything that I have felt inside me over the years(over the past few days even, I've made some radical changes in my life) tells me there is a God. That's my piece for now.
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  26. To James -you are dead right we are all somewhat closed minded and thats the point i was making you were being applauded for your
    open mindedness by someone who wants to eradicate religion which I think is very closed minded.Its also funny you critised me a little for being somewhat hard on Tam and calling him closed minded and then you accuse me of being hard and closed minded I hope you can see the contradiction.In the bible did jesus tell the people what they need to hear or did he pussyfoot , and i think Tam is big enough to lookafter himself and can give as good as he gets without taking offence
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  27. James wrote: "I still have not found anything, though, that tells me "no, there is no god." ... and you never will. But the same goes for Santa and the Tooth Fairy. I look forward to hearing the best evidence you rely on to support your belief in god.

    To martin, like James, I am willing to admit that I could be wrong. That is not being close-minded. Close-minded is refusing to admit that you could be wrong. You are close-minded. Not even Richard Dawkins is close-minded - even Dawkins admits that it is possible that the Judeo-Christian god exists although he (like me) believes it is very unlikely.
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  28. The Bible tells us to hold our Christian brethren to a... "higher" standard than we hold the world. We are not to judge. We do NOT judge(not supposed to). We are, however, to expose wrong teachings, wrong practices, and wrongfulness in eachothers lives. We are to hold eachother accountable. We do not have to hold non-Christians accountable, as they do not actually believe what we believe.

    TAM: I'm going to pose a hypothetical really quickly. This is skirting the question, though believe you me, we will get back to the question.

    What if I can't see the sun?
    Literally, I am blind, I cannot see. I cannot feel its warmth on my skin. I do not have evidence that the sun is here in any way, because my world doesn't need sunlight to live. It's darkness all the time. To me, the sun is just a delusion held by all the ignorant people of the world, who rely on this "light" to see.

    Just because I physically CANNOT see evidence of this, and FIRMLY believe that it does not exist, does that mean it is still wrong?

    You may say "This is foolish, of course he will believe in the sun, because everyone else told him" or whatever.

    My fellow Christians have told me (and I have felt) that they have felt God working within them. They have told me that prayer really does work, and I am only now beginning to see what the Bible teaches about prayer, so I cannot speak from my experience.

    If prayer does not work for me, I will no longer be a Christian.
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  29. I'm back (Walked out of class, I'm too tired)

    Lemme redo my analogy here.

    My eyes are currently sewn shut. I cannot see. One person says that the warmth I feel on my skin is coming from this totally awesome giant ball of fire in the sky. Another tells me that it's just coming from lights on the streets, and he's never seen any evidence that the great ball of fire in the sky gives off warmth. According to him, it's all the street lights. Who should I believe? Both people say there are lights on the street. Both say there is a ball of fire in the sky. How will I know for sure until my eyes are opened. I am opening my eyes, and am going to see this for myself.
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  30. James, re: your sun example - you should irrefutably believe (i.e. take a faith position) neither. You should make up your own mind based on the best evidence - favoring the most reasonable explanation and keeping in mkind Occam's razor.

    As far as prayer is concerned, please see proof #'s 1, 2 and 48 at http://godisimaginary.com/
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  31. "SOMETHING CANNOT COME FROM NOTHING. THERE HAS TO BE A CREATOR."

    First of all: you don't know that. It seems sensible, but so did the flat earth. Anytime I see this sentiment I simply must link to this talk by Lawrence Krauss entitled "A Universe from Nothing."

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

    Turns out, not only COULD it happen, but might HAVE to happen, at the quantum level.
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  32. To GentleSkeptic- you are saying somthing can come from nothing what rubbish! we can only deal with what we do know which are the fundamental laws of science the first and second laws of thermodynamics matter can neither be created or destroyed , and in all interaction entropy increases. please demonstrate in reality in a lab something coming from nothing, in theory all things are possible but in reality its a different story
    See if your happy when you buy something and the person gives you nothing and tells you dont worry in time you will have something , if you believe that I have a plot of land on mars for sale.
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  33. Well, like I said, it wouldn't be the first counter-intuitive hypothesis that turned out to have validity. "You are saying the earth revolves around the sun — what rubbish!"

    The Laws of Thermodynamics don't speak to dark matter and dark energy, which are, of course, only placeholder terms for phenomona we don't understand yet. The lab in this case may turn out to be the Large Hadron Collider.

    Perhaps you can watch the presentation by LK and then comment?
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  34. To the GentleSkeptic- I am the one saying the earth revolves around the sun because it has been shown and demonstrated that the earth revolves around the sun , you are the one trying to claim otherwise. Up to this point with demonstration and the laws of science, laws not theories ,it is always, always the case that you cannot get something from nothing
    i can go and prove that to you , now you please prove otherwise, not speculate , guess, theorize, do computer model but prove please.
    If it was a court case which side would you prefer to be on the one with the proof or the one with the speculation, no matter how wishful.
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  35. GentleSkeptic, I have already encouraged martin to read up on quantum mechanics which, as you likely know, is a hundredfold freakier than the theory of evolution. What martin fails to appreciate is that the funadamental laws of science are not a closed set. He prefers the dumbing down approach of stopping further scientific inquiry into the origin of life (and the origin of the universe) and conclude that lordy did it.
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  36. To Tam I have no problem with as much scientific enquiry as you want but when in the real world you dont throw out what you know to be fact, true, and laws of science and replace them with speculation. when NASA were planning its moon missions did they say you cant go on the information we know to be fact on gravity, physics,required escape velocities,etc but instead lets base our calculationas on speculation, dark matter, or some or other as yet unknowable qualities of the physical world.
    once again gimme a break
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  37. To TAM- I have in the last 5 minutes read up on quantum mechanics and I will obviously have to read a lot more to try understand it but just because somthing seems logical in theory its not always so in reality. for instance for you to pick up any item a tennis raquet a cup etc your hand has to travel half the distance from where it starts to the item then it must travel half the distance between halfway and the item and so on and so forth so if you are constantly travelling half way you never actually reach the item is this true?
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  38. Well, the germ theory of disease was hypothesized long before we could see germs. Atoms were hypothesized long before we could test and observe their interactions. All I'm saying is that Lawrence Krauss makes a strong case for the plausibility of something that admittedly seems, on the face of it, highly implausible, like germ theory at the time.

    I do find it telling that Martin would frame the conundrum as a trial, rather than an honest and rigorous inquiry…
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  39. Also (hi) - Just to respond quickly to the Zeno's Paradox canard, let me just… well, resolve it.

    It's not so much a mathematical theory or 'reality' as it is a mental word game. It hinges on relative scales, and our ability to imagine things, to imagine distances, to imagine cutting those distances in half, and to continue doing so, in theory infinitely. In other words, it's only IMAGINARILY problematic. Empirically, it's not. You can't really pull it off with a candy bar or whatever. In other words, what breaks it, and shows it to be untrue, is a simple empirical test. (By contrast, LK's hypothesis is actually grounded in decades of empirical tests and observation, and involves establishing not only the shape of the universe, but its total energy as… zero.)

    So it's a poor example for the point you're trying to make, which I do understand.
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  40. To GentleSkeptic- I say you cannot get somthing from nothing you say you can.My baker say`s he can get loaves of bread from nothing this suprised me but on further inquiry
    he did admit he needed flour, salt, water,an oven, a power source , a plan, a designer but apart from all this he can get bread from nothing. In much the same way the hadron collider will prove you can get somthing from nothing and it only cost 20 billion dollars,thousands of tons of equipment , thousands of designers, a power source, and so on and so fourth. Now if those scientist got their 20 billion dollars bought a cardboard box put in in a room went away and bought themselves ferrari`s, lear jets , and then came back in 5 years and looked in the box and said still nothing we need to go away for another 5 years of ferrari`s and lear jets that might be a real test of somthing from nothing.By the way be prepared for loaves of bread apearing all over the universe from nothing, you see even scientist knows you need creators to get somthing from nothing.
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  41. James. You say: "There has to be darkness with light, good with bad, evil with righteousness, it's the way everything is."

    Are you saying that your god is so weak that he cannot create good without creating evil?
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  42. To GentleSkeptic - Still no response on how to get something from absoutley nothing
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