Is EVIL a thing?

[Roldan]

I am debating some calvinist who claim that evil is a thing and since God created everyTHING that He created evil and is the author of it.

What do ye say?

I hold to Augustines view and have presented and defended it so far and now they want me to have a formal written message board debate with this cat and have accepted, just wanted some puritan board alumni insight :bigsmile:

Grace and Peace

 

[panta dokimazete]

evil is "not of God" - it is a corruption of good ("of God") - introduced into Creation by Satan and us.

evil is a condition, not a thing

-JD

 

[Roldan]

Originally posted by jdlongmire
evil is "not of God" - it is a corruption of good ("of God") - introduced into Creation by Satan and us.

evil is a condition, not a thing

-JD

right thats Augustine's view as well, thanx

 

[panta dokimazete]

so - did I guess your thesis?

Cool!

-pax-

JD

 

[caddy]

Evil is not a "thing". Its source is outside of God. We were given reason and choice and we corrupted both. I do believe that Augustine was right in saying that "by the evil use of his free-will man destroyed both it and himself." Evil found existence initially in the Angels fall, to which man followed.

Evil is the absense of righteousness. You can't create evil. It does not exist as a created entity. It did not exist as a created reality until we chose to disobey. Evil is a negative--the total opposite of Good, the absense of perfection. It's negative would be holiness--as God is Holy, the Devil is NOT, as God is Good, the Devil is NOT.

 

[caddy]

Excellent ! I love that passage of Isaiah. Even foreign kings ( Cyrus ) yesterday and today are in His hands. Absolutely, the Lord raised up Cyrus to accomplish his purposes in redemptive history.

At this point I would invoke the Belgic Confession 13 which does a much better job at explaining than I do:

Article 13: The Doctrine of God's Providence:

We believe that this good God, after he created all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement.
Yet God is not the author of, nor can he be charged with, the sin that occurs. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that he arranges and does his work very well and justly even when the devils and wicked men act unjustly.

We do not wish to inquire with undue curiosity into what he does that surpasses human understanding and is beyond our ability to comprehend. But in all humility and reverence we adore the just judgments of God, which are hidden from us, being content to be Christ's disciples, so as to learn only what he shows us in his Word, without going beyond those limits.

This doctrine gives us unspeakable comfort since it teaches us that nothing can happen to us by chance but only by the arrangement of our gracious heavenly Father. He watches over us with fatherly care, keeping all creatures under his control, so that not one of the hairs on our heads (for they are all numbered) nor even a little bird can fall to the ground^20 without the will of our Father.

In this thought we rest, knowing that he holds in check the devils and all our enemies, who cannot hurt us without his permission and will.

For that reason we reject the damnable error of the Epicureans, who say that God involves himself in nothing and leaves everything to chance.

^20 Matt. 10:29-30

http://www.reformed.org/documents/i....reformed.org/documents/BelgicConfession.html





[Edited on 6-10-2006 by caddy]

 

[panta dokimazete]

Originally posted by Paul manata
Isa.45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."

No, I'm afraid that God ordains evil and it did not come into existence on its own, or from another source.

light and darkness

peace and evil

It seems as if the Lord was communicating His sovereignty over all through contrast.

darkness is contrasted to light - polar opposites, yes?

evil is contrasted to peace - if evil is the polar opposite of good in most contexts - couldn't this usage be more analogous to calamity or turmoil?

The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these. (Isaiah 45:7)

(Isaiah 45:7)

from the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS)

........................................

The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these. (Isaiah 45:7)

(Isaiah 45:7)

from the Septuagint (LXX)

........................................

The abscence of light is darkness so the abscence of peace is ?

The abscence of light is darkness so the abscence of good is ?

What is the condition of Man with the abscence of the Holy Spirit?

Just throwing it out there...

-pax-

-JD

[Edited on 6-10-2006 by jdlongmire]

 

[py3ak]

One point that I have found helpful is that where does the definition of evil come from?

 

[R. Scott Clark]

Paul is correct.

Augustine took a neo-Platonic view by turning evil into a question of "being" or non-being.

Evil and sin are never considered, in Scripture, as "things" or "not things." They are considered to be actions and consequences.

Evil is a broader category than sin. Sin creates and leads to evil. Cancer is a great evil that is the result of sin generally (not anyone's sin in particular save Adam's; John 9) but is not sin. All sin is evil, but not all evil is sin.

So sin is the "action" (lawlessness; 1 John 3:4) and evil is its consequence.

The orthodox used a revised Aristotelian scheme to speak of 1st and 2nd causes. The providence of God comprehends all things, though in different ways. As W. van Asselt shows in a recent WTJ essay, Maccovius discussed reprobation (see Donald Sinnema's dissertation available via UMI) in two ways, positively and negatively. There is too much to be said that cannot be said well here but this is a very difficult question that is not well addressed in an internet forum.

Scripture is quite clear in James and elsewhere that God is not to be called the author or made to be morally liable for evil. We do well to stick with James' explanation of the causal scheme and leave it at that.

Second, whatever we do, we must also not try to "rescue" (by false theodicy) God from the problem of evil. Everytime we try to make God's actions completely "reasonable" we run roughshod over the Book of Job and the cross. God is not morally liable for evil, but we cannot say EXACTLY what his relations are. In my view, it's beyond our capacity. There's a lot we can say via James and causality etc, but we can't give an exhaustive answer.

rsc

Originally posted by Paul manata
Augustine's view is false, In my humble opinion.

His view is based on his neo-platonic teacher, Plotinus.

This says that "being" is the ultimate good (cf. Plato) and as we move further away from the source of the good we move further down "the great chain of being." Thus evil is the absence of "being," it does not exist, then.

Also, I don't know what you mean by evil being a "thing." I would say that evil exists, hence the so called problem of evil. Why wouldn't the resolution to the problem just be, "well, evil doesn't exist, therefore I deny your premise."?

 

[panta dokimazete]

 

[C. Matthew McMahon]

They are considered to be actions and consequences.

Exactly. Evil is relational, not material.

 

[Peter]

"There is no good at all in sin. There is no good of entity or being. All things that have a being have some good in them, for God has a being, and everything that has some good in it because it is of God. But sin is a non-entity, a no being. It is rather the deprivation of a being than any being at all and here is a great mystery of iniquity. That which ios a non-entity in itself yet has such a migh efficacy to trouble heaven and earth. This is a great mystery."

Jeremiah Burroughs, Evil of Evil's p9

[Edited on 6-12-2006 by Peter]

 

[Roldan]

Thanx guys for your input.

So then we can all agree that Evil is not a thing?

Mananas,(haha remember that) I see what you saying but Augustines main point was that evil is a moral choice in not choosing the good hence the antithesis being the evil, right? despite the neo-platonic stuff.

Did not the devil have good in him before his rebellion? Did not God make everything good, evil not being good hence God not creating or being the author of evil?

[Edited on 6-17-2006 by Roldan]

[Edited on 6-17-2006 by Roldan]

[Edited on 6-17-2006 by Roldan]

 

[Pilgrim]

This month's Tabletalk is on the problem of evil.

 

[Roldan]

also would you guys agree with this response I posted to the one I was dicussing this with?

Evil then is the act of the one who is in action.

Evil=an action what action? The choice of not choosing the good as Augustine so geniously asserted.....

"For when the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil--not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked."
(Augustine, City of God, XII, CHAP. 6)

And

"Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil."
(Augustine, The City of God, XI, CHAP. 9.)

"All which is corrupted is deprived of good."
(Augustine, Confessions, VII: [XII] 18)

Augustine observed that evil could not be chosen because there is no evil thing to choose. One can only turn away from the good, that is from a greater good to a lesser good (in Augustine's hierarchy) since all things are good.

Evil, then, is the act itself of choosing the lesser good.



In response to the passages you used then is God evil? Since evil is4. Something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction

You actually answered that in your second post.

"Good point. What may seem evil to us short-sighted, finite minded creatures might actually be ordained for greater good in the wisdom of the all knowing infinite minded creator."

Exactly. Just because it seems evil humanly speaking does not mean that its is. Anthing God does is perfectly good therefore not evil. Evil to us but good to God. The Almighty is the only determiner to what evil is so that God is not evil by human standards but that humans are evil by God's Holy standards, feel me?

 

[Roldan]

bumped