Is God Powerless to Prevent Evil?
Author: Allen Roy Subject: Philosophy Date: 1/6/2000 |
A question came up in an e-mail discussion that I would like to share with everyone:
> Surely you don’t say that Satan created these evils, and the all-loving Father is powerless to prevent them?
There are some very important things about the God of the Bible of which you are very, very, very ignorant!
- God is Love.
- God wants to love – and be loved by – his created beings.
- Love is only real when freely offered without coercion.
- Love is only real when everyone has the complete freedom to love or not to love.
- All have freedom of choice (AKA a free will) keep or reject a loving relationship with God.
- All created beings can only exist because God created and sustains them.
- No created being is immortal aside from God’s sustaining power.
- When a being chooses to no longer have a love relationship with God, they not only isolate themselves from God, they cut themselves off from their only source of life.So, they die – cease to exist – come to an end.
- Because God is love, He does not want anyone to die, therefore, he still sustains until disease or violence kills them, while he tries to convince them (without coercion) to return to a loving relationship with him and so find life abundantly again.
- Satan chose to not love God.He thought he could usurp God’s place and take over himself.
- He began a slander campaign — His word against God’s — among the angels.
- The inhabitants of heaven were faced with something never before encountered.
- God was saying one thing, Satan another, who is telling the truth?
- God would not force anyone (including Satan) to believe He is telling the truth.He could do so, but chooses not to out of love for freedom of the will.
- The only foolproof way to show who is telling the truth is to allow everyone to see just exactly how a universe run by Satan would be.
- This earth is the stage where that experiment is being played out.
- That is why so many of the horrible things you mentioned (and so much more) is going on here.
- God can and sometimes does intervene, but usually He does not because He has willfully chosen to allow Satan’s plans to mature to show his true character.
- So, Hurricanes are not ‘Acts of God’ but simply the natural results of a world cursed with evil.
- Massacres and ethnic cleanings are simply the natural results of Satan’s philosophy of life (actually, death).
- God is not powerless but has chosen, out of love and total respect for freedom of choice, to allow Satan to show his hand.
But this is not the end of the story!!
All sin, evil, and horror will be eradicated! All those who have ever lived that choose a love relationship with God will live forever, even though they may have died or been killed at sometime or another on this cursed planet. All those who choose to reject the love of God will get what they want, forever separation from God in eternal non-existence. This is what Jesus did when he died and was resurrected. This horror will end when Jesus comes the second time. The perpetrators of evil and horror will be punished. Then the earth and the universe will be at peace again. And sin and evil can never, ever occur again because everyone will know Good-and-Evil and know that the only thing that really works is GOOD!!! Period!!!
> I agree with you that evolution is almost impossible to believe – but the notion of a loving Creator designing leukemia for children, or callously allowing it to happen, isn’t any easier for me to accept.
These all happen because of Satan and not the Creator.