Natural Evil
When using evil to justify these claims, it is not a problem of evaluating the misfortunes that occur on a daily basis incorrectly, but rather an incorrect understanding of these qualities that God possesses. Even in a world of a Judeo-Christian God, there will always be evil, and humans must accept that and learn to adjust to the circumstances given. Also, because we are not omniscient like God, we are unable to completely solve the problem of evil, but we are rather able to justify why evil exists in the world of God. Original sin is the barrier that separates God and humans, and therefore establishes the distinction between God and man. This difference is shown symbolically through the story of Adam and Eve in the second and third chapters of Genesis. It depicts the story of what could happen if God manifested himself to humanity directly, and why humans fall short of God’s abilities to always act morally. The Garden of Eden symbolizes the grand amount of good that God provides to us, with the
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amazing rivers and a land of gold. He creates the ideal place for Adam and Eve to forever inhabit without any price. The only flaw with this land is the fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This shows how little evil God intends there to be in the world, the fruit on one tree in the entire Garden of Eden. The serpent, or snake based on your choice of Bible, does not represent the Devil as many believe, but instead shows the inherent appeal of the evil to humans. This is because people are so accustomed to the good, that the evil intrigues them. Adam and Eve had to be tempted by the serpent in order to commit the evil, and they never considered eating from the tree on their own. Their newfound knowledge of their nakedness shows that even though they gained knowledge from the fruit, the punishment for the evil allocated onto them provided terrible consequences. Only God coming down to earth for the last judgement can relieve humanity of their original sin, humanity itself cannot fix this major flaw.. The story of Adam and Eve also symbolizes how humans constantly learn more about themselves and surroundings due to God. As previously analyzed, Adam and Eve realizing their nakedness is a pivotal part of the story with many implications. This removes the blissful ignorance held earlier in the story, and forces the humans to recognize their flaws. Their indulgence changes humanity from a species without stress to a species with a great concern of self-image. The writer also suggests how humans increase their knowledge over time in order to become more complete beings. Even at the time Genesis was written using fig leaves as clothing was extremely dated and foreign. This underscores how far humanity comes in the light of God, despite their disobedience. Instead of not having to care about those aspects of life like when based in Eden, humanity must conform and learn once banished. These barriers in knowledge act as walls that hold us imprisoned in human nature and its weaknesses. Everyday through trial and error humans break these walls, and learn more about God’s will for us. This shows throughout history, and displays how God, while not giving us the answers directly, helps us understand right and wrong to become more complete beings. For example, looking back on the Crusades now, they seem primal and barbaric. While evil, they provided a groundwork on how not to deal with religious problems with the blemish it holds on the history of Christianity. The Papal Schism that plagued the Church from 1378 to 1417 exemplified the result of questionable Church leaders become too power hungry and lose sight of the true reason of Catholicism and Christianity, loving and spreading the word of God. Despite this, these ordeals were necessary in the progression of the human race towards the end goal of eternal life with God. More recently, Pope Francis’s apology for the mistreatment of homosexuals shows this ever-changing view as humanity continues to learn. God’s omnibenevolence generates the lapse in free will humans have compared to himself to keep in line with his morals. In the context of God in a Judeo-Christian sense, omnibenevolent does not imply an all-kind, fully humane, or even an all-generous God. Instead, the word implies a morally perfect God. With our lack of omniscience, it is impossible to know these specific morals, but with God revealing himself throughout history and using his disciples through divine inspiration we know enough to assume a general sense of God’s will. His goal is to produce the best world possible with a miniscule amount of direct influence. Along with this, God created humans in the image and likeness of himself, so humans must in some way strive to do good in order to satisfy this image. To accomplish this, when God created the world and humans, he instilled a small but inherent and meaningful devotion to the good. He did not inject a requirement to take the virtuous route, which maintains a mostly free soul and therefore permits evil to exist in the world. This difference also reveals itself through remorse. When humans wrong others, this remorse helps them realize their actions were wrong, and hopefully rectify them. Once someone commits a certain crime against someone enough, they lose the remorse associated with the action. This does mean they are minimally more free, but they also stray from the light of God by choice, invoking dire consequences. This leads to insanity and other mental ailments if the crimes are severe enough. God does not directly give these people the conditions, but instead it is a choice made by the person committing the infraction of God’s will. The person can always repent and return to the kingdom of God, but it requires much repenting and self-reflection, as God always welcomes his children back if they are truly sorry. Even if they do not, God still does not harm them, directly in line with his omnibenevolence. God does not enjoy evil, or revel in the lessons it teaches, it just applies to his omnibenevolence. It would be less moral of God to restrict evil and heavily combat free will than to slightly resist complete free will and allow a minimal amount of evil than what is possible in a world with full free will. God’s omnipotence manifests itself through the massive influence of Jesus and the prophets. As of 2005, Christianity was the largest religion in the world by twelve percent. Along with this, in only about thirty-three years Jesus amassed a following that would grow to become this massive group of people. Before the time of Jesus though, God led his people toward Judaism, which was also a prominent religion of its time, and is the only prominent surviving monotheist religion from the time before Christ. As time goes on God’s kingdom continues to grow. This happens because humans are subconsciously attracted to God along with goodness as established earlier. Humans’ small divergence from complete free will causes this interest in the Judeo-Christian God. One are completely able to believe in other religions and hold other beliefs, but the gut reaction is to follow the prominent Jewish figures in the B.C. era and Christian figures in the A.D. era. This passion to follow the word of God acts comes as a result of the divine inspiration every human possesses from birth.
Christians pray for an afterlife, and while the specifics of it are completely unknown, using the development of humanity and our understanding of God we can form one that is plausible. Rather than immediately being judged after death, God judges all humans at the end of time. In the time between when people die and their ultimate judgement, nothing happens, but this transition from death to judgement is instant as there is no sense of time outside of Earth. This judgement will come when God feels humanity has reached its peak, which humans can never calculate. Once judged, people granted an eternal life to live in harmony with God will live in eternal euphoria. They will gain two qualities that God possesses, omnibenevolence and omniscience. These will allow those living eternally with God to foster to greatest relationship possible with him. Those who God relinquishes those who he believes did not earn eternal life with him to hell where they experience pain and suffering forever.
Hell is a concept extremely foreign and trivial to many Christians as they believe they deserve eternal life with God, and therefore look forward to that. Also, it is hard to imagine what eternal pain and suffering can entail. One great description of hell comes in a late nineteenth century sermon to high school aged boys in James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. After describing the eternal nature of hell, the preacher describes hell in scenarios of never and ever. For example, he says, “ever to be shut off from the presence of God… ever to be eaten with flames, gnawed by vermin, goaded with burning pikes, never to be free from those pains” along with other dark and terrible circumstances. When humans discuss hell on the rare occasion, people would rather expand on other aspects of hell, like the torture, rather than trying to comprehend the true severity of an eternity of hell. Joyce addresses this in the novel using a bird taking a single grain off of a mountain of sand each year to describe eternity. He also asserts, “At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun.” In hell there is also a creature that humans generally know as the Devil or Satan, and he is a fallen angel who disobeyed God and suffers with others in hell. As an ungrateful angel, he was the first and only to disobey God in heaven and forced God to give his fellow dwellers omnibenevolence. He does rule over the realm, though, as the only one who had experienced the ideal afterlife, and therefore acts with omnimalevolence instead of omnibenevolence. He does not hold any power outside of hell, and endures the worst pains of anyone in hell. As a morally perfect God, hell is necessary to exist. It would be completely unjust to pair those who lived in accordance to God’s will at the time of their existence with the ones who chose not to follow God.
As for natural evil, it causes harm as a result of unluckiness and God’s commitment to his omnibenevolent nature.
Natural evil one of the hardest evils to explain in the context of a traditional Judeo-Christian God due to its spontaneity and the destruction it causes. When God in his omniscient nature created the world, he knew there would be natural disasters and that people would suffer consequently. Assuming a morally perfect God, these disasters are necessary to keep the earth itself regulated. They also do not intend harm, people simply find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. A slight positive is that it does help cities and societies evolve, and provides a gift of the Holy Spirit, fear of God. Because he is omnipotent, God could destroy these evils, but as previously discussed this would not be morally correct from his viewpoint. He is not restricted by this because it is his choice, and God’s omniscience allows him to know the truly correct
route.
amazing rivers and a land of gold. He creates the ideal place for Adam and Eve to forever inhabit without any price. The only flaw with this land is the fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This shows how little evil God intends there to be in the world, the fruit on one tree in the entire Garden of Eden. The serpent, or snake based on your choice of Bible, does not represent the Devil as many believe, but instead shows the inherent appeal of the evil to humans. This is because people are so accustomed to the good, that the evil intrigues them. Adam and Eve had to be tempted by the serpent in order to commit the evil, and they never considered eating from the tree on their own. Their newfound knowledge of their nakedness shows that even though they gained knowledge from the fruit, the punishment for the evil allocated onto them provided terrible consequences. Only God coming down to earth for the last judgement can relieve humanity of their original sin, humanity itself cannot fix this major flaw.. The story of Adam and Eve also symbolizes how humans constantly learn more about themselves and surroundings due to God. As previously analyzed, Adam and Eve realizing their nakedness is a pivotal part of the story with many implications. This removes the blissful ignorance held earlier in the story, and forces the humans to recognize their flaws. Their indulgence changes humanity from a species without stress to a species with a great concern of self-image. The writer also suggests how humans increase their knowledge over time in order to become more complete beings. Even at the time Genesis was written using fig leaves as clothing was extremely dated and foreign. This underscores how far humanity comes in the light of God, despite their disobedience. Instead of not having to care about those aspects of life like when based in Eden, humanity must conform and learn once banished. These barriers in knowledge act as walls that hold us imprisoned in human nature and its weaknesses. Everyday through trial and error humans break these walls, and learn more about God’s will for us. This shows throughout history, and displays how God, while not giving us the answers directly, helps us understand right and wrong to become more complete beings. For example, looking back on the Crusades now, they seem primal and barbaric. While evil, they provided a groundwork on how not to deal with religious problems with the blemish it holds on the history of Christianity. The Papal Schism that plagued the Church from 1378 to 1417 exemplified the result of questionable Church leaders become too power hungry and lose sight of the true reason of Catholicism and Christianity, loving and spreading the word of God. Despite this, these ordeals were necessary in the progression of the human race towards the end goal of eternal life with God. More recently, Pope Francis’s apology for the mistreatment of homosexuals shows this ever-changing view as humanity continues to learn. God’s omnibenevolence generates the lapse in free will humans have compared to himself to keep in line with his morals. In the context of God in a Judeo-Christian sense, omnibenevolent does not imply an all-kind, fully humane, or even an all-generous God. Instead, the word implies a morally perfect God. With our lack of omniscience, it is impossible to know these specific morals, but with God revealing himself throughout history and using his disciples through divine inspiration we know enough to assume a general sense of God’s will. His goal is to produce the best world possible with a miniscule amount of direct influence. Along with this, God created humans in the image and likeness of himself, so humans must in some way strive to do good in order to satisfy this image. To accomplish this, when God created the world and humans, he instilled a small but inherent and meaningful devotion to the good. He did not inject a requirement to take the virtuous route, which maintains a mostly free soul and therefore permits evil to exist in the world. This difference also reveals itself through remorse. When humans wrong others, this remorse helps them realize their actions were wrong, and hopefully rectify them. Once someone commits a certain crime against someone enough, they lose the remorse associated with the action. This does mean they are minimally more free, but they also stray from the light of God by choice, invoking dire consequences. This leads to insanity and other mental ailments if the crimes are severe enough. God does not directly give these people the conditions, but instead it is a choice made by the person committing the infraction of God’s will. The person can always repent and return to the kingdom of God, but it requires much repenting and self-reflection, as God always welcomes his children back if they are truly sorry. Even if they do not, God still does not harm them, directly in line with his omnibenevolence. God does not enjoy evil, or revel in the lessons it teaches, it just applies to his omnibenevolence. It would be less moral of God to restrict evil and heavily combat free will than to slightly resist complete free will and allow a minimal amount of evil than what is possible in a world with full free will. God’s omnipotence manifests itself through the massive influence of Jesus and the prophets. As of 2005, Christianity was the largest religion in the world by twelve percent. Along with this, in only about thirty-three years Jesus amassed a following that would grow to become this massive group of people. Before the time of Jesus though, God led his people toward Judaism, which was also a prominent religion of its time, and is the only prominent surviving monotheist religion from the time before Christ. As time goes on God’s kingdom continues to grow. This happens because humans are subconsciously attracted to God along with goodness as established earlier. Humans’ small divergence from complete free will causes this interest in the Judeo-Christian God. One are completely able to believe in other religions and hold other beliefs, but the gut reaction is to follow the prominent Jewish figures in the B.C. era and Christian figures in the A.D. era. This passion to follow the word of God acts comes as a result of the divine inspiration every human possesses from birth.
Christians pray for an afterlife, and while the specifics of it are completely unknown, using the development of humanity and our understanding of God we can form one that is plausible. Rather than immediately being judged after death, God judges all humans at the end of time. In the time between when people die and their ultimate judgement, nothing happens, but this transition from death to judgement is instant as there is no sense of time outside of Earth. This judgement will come when God feels humanity has reached its peak, which humans can never calculate. Once judged, people granted an eternal life to live in harmony with God will live in eternal euphoria. They will gain two qualities that God possesses, omnibenevolence and omniscience. These will allow those living eternally with God to foster to greatest relationship possible with him. Those who God relinquishes those who he believes did not earn eternal life with him to hell where they experience pain and suffering forever.
Hell is a concept extremely foreign and trivial to many Christians as they believe they deserve eternal life with God, and therefore look forward to that. Also, it is hard to imagine what eternal pain and suffering can entail. One great description of hell comes in a late nineteenth century sermon to high school aged boys in James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. After describing the eternal nature of hell, the preacher describes hell in scenarios of never and ever. For example, he says, “ever to be shut off from the presence of God… ever to be eaten with flames, gnawed by vermin, goaded with burning pikes, never to be free from those pains” along with other dark and terrible circumstances. When humans discuss hell on the rare occasion, people would rather expand on other aspects of hell, like the torture, rather than trying to comprehend the true severity of an eternity of hell. Joyce addresses this in the novel using a bird taking a single grain off of a mountain of sand each year to describe eternity. He also asserts, “At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun.” In hell there is also a creature that humans generally know as the Devil or Satan, and he is a fallen angel who disobeyed God and suffers with others in hell. As an ungrateful angel, he was the first and only to disobey God in heaven and forced God to give his fellow dwellers omnibenevolence. He does rule over the realm, though, as the only one who had experienced the ideal afterlife, and therefore acts with omnimalevolence instead of omnibenevolence. He does not hold any power outside of hell, and endures the worst pains of anyone in hell. As a morally perfect God, hell is necessary to exist. It would be completely unjust to pair those who lived in accordance to God’s will at the time of their existence with the ones who chose not to follow God.
As for natural evil, it causes harm as a result of unluckiness and God’s commitment to his omnibenevolent nature.
Natural evil one of the hardest evils to explain in the context of a traditional Judeo-Christian God due to its spontaneity and the destruction it causes. When God in his omniscient nature created the world, he knew there would be natural disasters and that people would suffer consequently. Assuming a morally perfect God, these disasters are necessary to keep the earth itself regulated. They also do not intend harm, people simply find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. A slight positive is that it does help cities and societies evolve, and provides a gift of the Holy Spirit, fear of God. Because he is omnipotent, God could destroy these evils, but as previously discussed this would not be morally correct from his viewpoint. He is not restricted by this because it is his choice, and God’s omniscience allows him to know the truly correct
route.