Hi Forum,
Sometimes, while perusing the Forum and reading the various Posts and seeing: " What's a going on," I often look to see what Guests are viewing, sometimes looking for Gems, older Threads that seemed informative & helpful from the Past and decided to comment on this one by copying & pasting the fine points gleaned from Members responses, thinking maybe this might help some of Our New ones & even New Guests. Read Below these beneficial responses & add or ask questions, if You desire.
FROM DAYWALKER: God ultimately causes everything to happen.That doesn't mean that He 'directly' does everything, but He is the cause of everything, because He is the Creator, Author and Originator of everything that exists--including things like darkness, evil, Satan, flowers, light, Jesus...
FROM MARKY MARK: An Email He supplied of Ray's; Dear Dean: Regarding the Forum's question as to whether God has a free will or not:
"Free will" is not a topic of Scripture. Humanity absolutely does not have a free will/free choice disposition. All thoughts and actions have a cause. God, however, is the First Cause. God answers to no one and no one dictates or causes God to think or do anything--all Protestant and Catholic prayers to the contrary included. However, we are told in the Scriptures who "God cannot lie," for example or why God never "changes his mind." This is a governing factor to God's disposition, but it is not an outside force. Here is how God thinks and operates everything in the universe:
"In Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him Who works [operates] ALL THINGS AFTER THE C-O-U-N-S-E-L OF H-I-S O-W-N W-I-L-L" (Eph. 1:11).
God be with you,
Ray
FROM KAT: Some Points From A Bunch Of Emails she Supplied Of Rays; But if you or anyone does not even believe these Scriptures, why go further? God made man is testerone. His natural inclination is to have sex with pretty women--OFTEN. Then God turns around and tells man to not have sex with pretty women AT ALL--only in marriage. God doesn't MAKE OR FORCE man to desire sex with women. Man desires that all on his own. Some men desire sex with children. God doesn't MAKE OR FORCED men to have sex with children. Some men do it naturally. Are you following me?
God could stop all men from having sex with children. But He doesn't. That's because God has a plan for the human race that involves humans doing things so horrible, that they will eventually learn to never trust their own heart and mind again. They must have faith and trust in God through His Holy Spirit. All men would have sex with little children, if they grew up under the same circumstances as the men who do have sex with little children. This is a sobbering thought that few theologians alive have ever contemplated for more than 2 and one half seconds. And women have their particular natural inclination to commit horrible sins. This is God's creation, not mine. This is God's plan with humans, not mine. I can justify God in all His ways. Most can't. God will rectify and reconcile all things that has ever been committed.
Evil serves many noble purposes. One of which is a back drop for good. Good cannot be understood or certainly not appreciated without a backdrop of evil. Evil makes good appear even better and is certainly much more appreciated.
Evil is necessary for the production or development of good. You cannot name one virtue that is not in some way produced by the resistance to some form of evil.
All knowledge is matter of contrast and relativity. One cannot know what light is unless he has been acquainted with darkness. One has no conception of large unless he also knows of things that are small. Up is only up in relation to down. Life is the opposite of death, etc. To understand and fully appreciate all of these things, there are many necessary experiences to go through. God creates and puts us through these many things in the development of godly character.
All of these evils can be likened to the creation of a beautiful building. Ugly scaffolding is necessary in the construction of this building. It is ugly and serves no purpose other than in the actual construction of the building. When the building is completed, the scaffolding is torn down and discarded. It serves no further purpose. All evil will be discarded one day. And the last enemy, DEATH, will likewise be ABOLISHED FOR EVER (I Cor. 15:26) and God will "ALL in All"!!!
FROM MARQUES HARRELL: I think I understand what you are saying George...the only thing is, God does 'cause' men to sin. But He does not 'force' them to.
Rom 8:20-21 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Here, Paul tells us that God made humanity subject to vanity (futility...in other words sin). The Lord purposely created mankind too weak to resist sin. This is a cause which has a direct effect in the lives of every human being.
FROM DAVE FROM TENNESSEE: IN REGARDS TO DEFINING EVIL; Darren...just talking 'language' here, not Theology. The term "Evil" in English does not always have a moral connotation. This verse is a good example of that. "...the sword, and the famine, and the destroying beast, and the plague..." are 'evils' in that sense. You could name more. Death, headaches, poverty, etc. These things are not necessarily morally 'evil' like murder or other gross sins. So, yes, I think you may be putting too fine a point on it. Remember where sin comes from.
AN EMAIL OF RAY'S PROVIDED BY MARQUES REGARDING RESPONSIBILITY/ACCOUNTABILITY: There are a couple of reasons why God holds one accountable (not responsible--God takes the responsibility) for his sins even if he couldn't have done otherwise.
1.
People who sin and have no desire to please God, do not believe in the first place that they do not have a free will regarding their sins. They believe that they ARE in control of their own destiny. See the example of that I use of the Assyrian king in the latter part of my letter to James Kennedy. The king took credit for conquering all the nations around him. He though HE was the mighty one. He thought HE planned and did these mighty acts by HIMSELF. God informs us that the king was merely a pawn (or an ax) in God's own hand doing the conquering. Our pride and vanity will be conquered by God.
2.
We actually DO commit the sins that we commit. Whether we could have done otherwise is immaterial in as much as committing the sin makes us SINNERS. Think of sin as DIRT. It matters not HOW we got dirty--God is going to give EVERYONE A BATH LIKE IT OR NOT. God is God and He can and will do as HE pleases. And God pleases to put us through an experience of sin and death before He glorifies us with all the powers of the universe.
FROM KAT: As you know God is the creator and sustains all there is and this automatically makes Him responsible for whatever happens. So He has a plan and in this plan He determined that human beings that He created required an experience in evil as a backdrop. Now that was so that when He would eventually show us righteousness we would have this backdrop of evil to compare it to and therefore understand it's goodness better. But what we do is indeed caused by our weak carnal nature and His creating us this way was not a sin in and of itself. But He does take responsibility for creating us this way and will rectify this completely. But it is our own weak nature created within us that desires for and is actually carrying out our own lusts... I guess that would be the rotten board. But the rotten board is not evil in and of itself, it did not start out as a rotten board, it's the nature of things that it became that way. Just like a piece of wood cannot remain perfect, all physical things must come to an end, so it will rot away. Because God made it so that all physical things will not last, is not evil. But He's accountable for that.
FROM DAYWALKER(CHRISTOPHER): Both "darkness" and "evil" are creations of God...
From the Concordant Literal Version:
Isaiah 45:5 I am Yahweh Elohim, and there is none else. There is no Elohim except Me. I am belting you, yet you do not know Me."
6 That they may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is a limit apart from Me. I am Yahweh Elohim, and there is none else."
7 Former of light and Creator of darkness, Maker of good and Creator of evil. I, Yahweh Elohim, made all of these things." ...If there were "evil" IN God, then He would not have needed to "create" it.
AN EMAIL OF RAY'S PROVIDED BY MARKY MARK REGARDING THE WORLDS WISDOM OR LACK THEREOF; It only seems confusing for you now, Mary. It is a GIANT revelation to come to realize that God is sovereign. If one thinks about, however, it is even a GREATER quantum leap into total foolishness to believe that GOD is NOT SOVEREIGN!!!
If God is NOT sovereign, then we have a god who isn't GOD AT ALL! How could someone be "God" and NOT know what humans are going to do? (I know what my thirteen year old daughter is going to do MOST of the time, and I'm not a god)!
How could God NOT have foreseen the absolute MESS this world is in? Why does He allow it to continue? If man thinks there is a better way to do things, why doesn't God think that way? As Mark Twain mused, why did God CREATE DISEASES? Weren't things bad ENOUGH?
The truth is that it takes more than just knowledge to understand God's strange doings; it also takes a bit of wisdom. Now if the GREATEST wisdom of this world (including the wisdom of the two BILLION Christians), is, according to God Himself, FOOLISHNESS AND STUPIDITY,why would we expect anything else, but darkness and blindness regarding God and His revelation to us?
Christ was great with metaphors. He said, "If the light that is in you is DARKNESS; how GREAT IS THAT DARKNESS"?
I have asked "great minds" and "great scholars" to tell me what these great "wisdom's" of the world are that God calls "foolishness and stupidity." And they usually will give as an answer something that most people THEMSELVES consider "foolish and stupid." No, I don't want to know what even the world itself considers foolish and stupid, I want to know what the world considers "WISE", but that GOD considers "STUPID".
Now I have mediated on this grand theme for at least a few thousand hours. And I will tell you what is the most universally held philosophy of ALL MANKIND, including Christians AND heathens and non-believers. And that is that man possesses a "FREE WILL" (or "free moral agency" as some would call it). This bit of human wisdom is taught in ALL SCHOOLS of the world! But, amazingly, there is NO SUCH THING--it is TOTAL FOOLISHNESS AND TOTAL STUPIDITY!! And it is because of this foolish wisdom of the world that Christendom has adopted the theory that God is NOT sovereign. They SAY that He is, but they prove by their teachings that they don't really believe it. And so they blame SATAN for all the uncontrollable evil in the world that can't be directly attributed to "man's free will". And the result is a God Who is no god at all. In fact, a very MEAN AND VINDICTIVE AND HATE-FILLED god that will supposedly TORTURE WITH REAL FIRE most of his creatures without water and without mercy for ALL ETERNITY!!!!!!!
These humanly devised unscriptural heresies are stupid, foolish, and evil. But God wants it to be taught anyway. Why? To ultimately show mankind just how stupid, and foolish, and evil, he really is. Mankind NEEDS a Saviour. God Himself IS both the Creator of the mess, and the SAVIOUR of it ALL!!! Either that, or SATAN IS GOD!
So why get upset and angry over stupid and evil things that God INTENDED TO BE IN THE FIRST PLACE? Because God also gave us EMOTIONS, and brains, etc. He WANTS us to hate evil and love righteousness even though it was God Himself Who created them BOTH. It was GOD who invented, created, and planted the tree of the knowledge of both "good AND EVIL". God wants there to be men like Dr. Kennedy and Pastor Hagee who do not understand God's simple truths, and then He WANTS people like me to EXPOSE their foolishness and unscriptural heresy.
There is a great PURPOSE in it all. And all will turn out just great in the end. We need a spirit of wisdom to trust God that He knows EXACTLY WHAT HE IS DOING DOWN TO THE VIBRATION OF THE LAST ELECTRON.
The Roman saints asked Paul this same rhetorical question, only they, unlike most people, did realize that no one COULD go against God's intention. But they wanted to know, since this is true, the fact that all that happens is according to God's intention (not necessarily is "will"--that is another subject. "Intention"--what DOES happen, is different from "will"--which is the end result after all the bad things that DID happen, NO LONGER happen).
Why does God blame people for things that He INTENDED that they do in the first place? Listen: "You will be protesting to me, then, 'Why, then, is He [God] still blaming [for us sinning]? for who has withstood His [God's] INTENTION? O man! who are you, to be sure, who are answering again to God? That which is molded [that's us] WILL NOT PROTEST TO THE MOLDER [that's GOD], 'Why do you make me thus?'" (See Romans 9:12-25).
Paul then goes on to say that God has the RIGHT to do things as He pleases. Even making vessels of DISHONOR for a period of time to be used in exalting the vessels of HONOR.
Well, I think that gives a pretty good overview, notice that Ray's comments are in Blue, I always give Him the color Blue, that's My favorite color.
Kind Regards, Samson.