Christians, I need an explanation?

Question

Wise words by a wise man:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able, and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God.

~Epicurus

So take your pick, evil god, not omnipotent god, or both?

Answer 1

God "restrains" evil. If God didn't restrain evil then this world would have already been destroyed by selfish and violent human beings. God will eliminate evil at the end of this age, but for right now He is letting humanity go through a process so that on the day of judgment those who halted their rebellion against the Creator and surrendered to the Lord Jesus will be with Him while those who continued in their rebellion will not.

2 Peter 3:9  The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

Revelation 21:1  Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.  2  Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  

3  And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.  4  And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

5  Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful."  6  And He said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.

7  He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.  8  But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

Answer 2

Ge:1:26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Ge:1:28: And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Answer 3

After God created man, he gave dominion of the earth to man, the state of the world today is mans responsibility. As a member of the human race what have you done to address the situations you mentioned?

Answer 4

If God is willing to prevent evil, but chooses not to;

Then He is Still Omnipotent.

If God is able, and still chooses not to,

Then He is not malevolent.

If God is both able and still willing, but chooses not to,

Then evil is part of God's Divine Plan. (And it is for you too master it. Genesis: 4. 7.)

If therefore, God is able and willing, but still chooses not to.

Then rejoice in calling Him God.

For who are you to question His Will; His Power and His Love?

Now you see how easy it is to turn words around.

So remember this:

Satan uses rational argument, not to clarify, but as a trap, to foster confusion and to nurture it as a major weapon against one. Confusion, it would seem, is a prime weapon of evil.

Answer 5

Your 'question' glosses over a few rather important points.  YAHOSHUA does everything perfectly, and at the right time.  Evil exists because YHVH gave mankind freedom to choose.  It still exists because YOU are being given an opportunity to turn from your evil ways, and be saved.  Soon all sin and sinners will be destroyed in the lake of fire, and YAHOSHUA will make all things new, and very good.

Answer 6

I give that and a lot more much thought. It could be anything or something else. Why call Him God? Because He is the creator of the universe, hence our creator too. Does He have to be omnipotent to be God? Probably not. Except for all those who need a huge, angry, all powerful father/stepfather (because they say Jesus is His only son, so what are we? Not the sons and daughters of our creator?). One thing is for sure: God, whoever/whatever He is is certainly much bigger than we could ever understand and far beyond our possible understanding. So, perhaps our general big mistake is to think of Him as "human" when He's not at all human.

Answer 7

So he hasn't learned the meaning of cause and effect! about consequences of action.

He isn't worth reading as he has nothing to say, if he can't figure out these simple equations.

Answer 8

God is Able to prevent evil and most definitely able but in his time.

why is there evil? to prove that there is God.

Answer 9

No, Thanks. I won't pick.

Epicurus might be wise; but he wasn't even a god. He just couldn't figure it out for himself how God works. And even Christians would be at a loss for answers -- like Epicurus.

But I have my opinion: God is willing and able; Epicurus just don't understand. So do I. The only difference is that Epicurus needs to understand before he believes; while I believe in order to understand.

So take your pick: Epicurus who doesn't understand; or he who believes?

Answer 10

how do expect them to know the answer to that? most haven't even read the bible. lol.  

Answer 11

Think like a parent who uses "tough love". God has put us here to experience and learn what we couldn't any where else. Every thing that happens affects us. We learn from the mistakes we make and the disasters we survive. God promises (in the bible) that he won't load us any more than we are capable of handling. The more we prepare ourselves to handle the difficult circumstances that we are enrolled into experiencing, the better we fare in our advancement of our souls.

Answer 12

It is neither of those.

Consider Isiah 46 v 10 "‘My own counsel will stand, and everything that is my delight I shall do’. Here and in other scriptures, god himself refers to the fact that he can accomplish anyhthing to suit his purposes. He is omnipotent.When you contemplate the complex universe and everything that sustains life we see the power and the wisdom he has to the superlative degree.

Also there is no evilness with god.  Take deuteronomy 32 v 4 "The Rock, perfect is his activity,For all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness, with whom there is no injustice;righteous and upright is he.

It is easy to think "why doesn't a god who cares stop evil". He only permits evil temporarily because of the issue raised by satan and the first disobedient human couple. In effect they chose to rule themselves as satan claimed that they should be able to direct their own paths. If god had destroyed them all, then this wouldn't have proved his sovereignty. In stead he permitted them to do as they wished. However now sufficient time has passed to prove that only god can rule humans successfully. Our very lives depend upon him.

Also god created everything, the physical creatures, as well as spirit ones. He certanly has the power to one day end wickedness everywhere. This will fullfil psalm 37 v10 "And just a little while longer, and the wicked one will be no more".

Answer 13

By omnipotent or all powerful, most theists mean that God can do anything that isn't contradictory.One cannot have love with freewill to choose it. He's still all powerful in any useful sense of the term.

God could eliminate all evil. However 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.'

Evil ultimately is rebelling against God. And if God didn't give us the choice to rebel against Him, we wouldn't have much in the way of free will. We'd be able to take our pick of Good (and, therefore, we'd be following God's will (which is, be Good), which is what He wants us to do). Ooh. Big whoop. No real choice there. It's like saying, "You're gonna get executed. But take your pick as to how you wish it done!" It doesn't matter what you do, you still end up dying. The same applies here. If all of your options are good, (in accordance with God's will), then it doesn't matter what you choose.

God knew the consequences of giving us free will, and He obviously found them acceptable, probably because love due to free will is a far greater thing than love on command. To rob humanity of mind, the source of all human dignity, would be an evil which makes the sum total of all the atrocities humanity has ever committed look positively benevolent by comparison. Simply going back to retcon the decision has the same basic effect.

So the only way for God to eradicate all evil (at least, in the quick-fix manner which most people who make this argument seem to want to happen), now that the proverbial genie is out of the bottle, would be to do something far, far more evil than anything which has ever been done: the mass dehumanization of some six billion people, plus all their descendants. If God is truly omnibenevolent, then this is not acceptable.

Answer 14

He is able to do anything He wishes. He is omnipotent.

Answer 15

God and logic do not mix. Learn that and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble in life.

Answer 16

No, For the passage in the Bible I always read that God permits the evil to roam into the world to test the faith of the people, in the Revelation: Christ will be born again to permanently defeat the devil. He is indeed omnipotent for he is the only one who knows how to defeat the evil and he lay this down to us by baptism, surely no one can give such power to us. He is able, but do not question the Lord for he knows the right time to do his actions. As I said a while ago, he is just testing the faith of the mankind and all the time, God is good. He is able and willing, but he must first test us if we are trustful and worthy enough for the salvation . Evil is not God intention but a part of his graceful salvation and eternal happiness laid for us in the future. For the 4th question the texts that I presented to you surely prove that your doubts are all wrong. God is the father of all of us and he is the one who created us, and he will not harm the one he created. He gave all the things the Universe itself for us and only for us, surely and undoubtedly: God is truely a powerful, almighty and caring father.

Answer 17

Epicurus's statements are moronic.  He speaks about something about which he is totally ignorant.  If he had any background knowledge of what he was speaking he would have known his statements to be balderdash.

If you don't know better come and get an education by asking those of us who can answer this nonsense.  However, if you already have made up your mind with preconceptions then don't bother.