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philologos
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Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

Quote:

freecd wrote:
Did not God create moral beings with the ability to make a FREE choice? If so, they have the ability to create their own moral character.


But does a single transgression create a character? If so will your next sin change your character? Adam's transgression was unique because by it' The Sin' entered the world ,and The Death by The Sin. No other man's sin could have had this consequence. Eve's sin did not have this consequence. Sin entered through one 'man'.


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Ron Bailey

 2005/3/28 14:59Profile
dohzman
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Joined: 2004/10/13
Posts: 2132


 Re: here's my thoughts

As I was taught the angels and lucifer in many ways mirror the creation of man.Now as I understand lucifer fell when violence was discovered in him and he said...... pride.....I will be like God,basically. How can a being created in the image of God without knowledge of evil fall? After he fell I can understand how he became the instrument of introducing sin into the human race.But would man have fallen just like 1third of the angels did in the heavenly revolt had not man had a tempter? And if so in what way and in what limitations is it to be understood that man was created in the image of God? Was it just for communion or was there virtues like holiness that came as a byproduct with that image? Were we basically flawed from creation God knowing we would sin but that He could through the redemption process make us what he couldn't creat us to be? Bro. Daryl


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D.Miller

 2005/3/28 20:37Profile
jeremyhulsey
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Joined: 2003/4/18
Posts: 777


 Re:

Hi Ron (and everyone else),

I can now say that my brain is officially smoking.

Quote:
The difference between 'decreeing' and 'allowing', incidentally is the difference between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism! See Infralapsarianism for Dummies. And, Jeremy, for a self-confessed Arminian, you are putting yourself in strange company in the Supralapsarian camp!!



That's awesome... :-D! I guess I should have explained it differently. My best answer right now to this whole thing is I DON'T KNOW :-D .

In Christ,
Jeremy Hulsey


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Jeremy Hulsey

 2005/3/29 0:10Profile
philologos
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Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

Quote:
That's awesome... ! I guess I should have explained it differently. My best answer right now to this whole thing is I DON'T KNOW

This is why I love Paul's phrase 'we know it part'. and I still like Rumsfeld's comment's about the nature of our ignorance. There are some things we know, and there are some things we don't know. There are somethings we know we don't know, but there are things we don't know and we don't know we don't know them. (how's your brain doing, Jeremy?) It is the latter category which should keep us humble; there are things we don't know and we don't even know that we don't know them.

We could know nothing of spiritual import without revelation. It is when we start to feel the need to feel the gaps that we need to remind ourselves that 'there are things we don't know and we don't even know that we don't know them'. Our ignorance is massive.

And the origin of sin, not in the human race, but before Adam's transgression is a graph with two or three points on it. The man or woman that extrapolates that curve is likely to end up anywhere.

Of course, we like order. This is part of our temptation 'to be like God' and have everything under our control. But it remains that there are, even for us, things that we cannot bear yet. In kindness God has kept much veiled. God still reveals things to us on a 'need to know' basis, to part-quote John... there are many things "'which are not written in this book: but these are written that ye might believe..." When we take our stand on things 'not written' we often use the words 'I believe' (it is interesting to see how often evolutionists use it!) but faith that is not based on revelation is not biblical faith, but something of a different order.

WKIP!


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Ron Bailey

 2005/3/29 1:32Profile
nimble
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Joined: 2005/2/2
Posts: 12


 Re:


philologos wrote:

Quote:
In kindness God has kept much veiled. God still reveals things to us on a 'need to know' basis,



I think that's the greatest blessing in all this - that we are to be "simple concerning evil"... I for one wouldn't know where to start in order to be complex!

However, this thread has brought many questions to mind...

The first is in the title, although this one has already been answered in part. The thread title reads "did God [i]Create[/i] evil". And we ask: was evil actually [i]created[/i]? Surely "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" does made = created? What does the word acutually mean in John 1, Isaiah 45 and the (two, i think?) words in Genesis 1? What are the differences?

The second question is where does the commonly held understanding of the whole Lucifer became Satan, got cast down to hell with a third of the angels etc etc come from? I know the verses in Isaiah, Ezekiel and Revelation.. but they seem a little enigmatic at best - why does everyone seem to be agreed on the interpretation? It doesn't seem that clear.

 2005/3/29 5:40Profile
philologos
Member



Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

Quote:
The first is in the title, although this one has already been answered in part. The thread title reads "did God Create evil". And we ask: was evil actually created? Surely "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" does made = created? What does the word acutually mean in John 1, Isaiah 45 and the (two, i think?) words in Genesis 1? What are the differences?


hmmm? interesting stuff here...
I suppose the earliest (chronological) statement about sin would be Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. (Eze 28:15 KJV)Personally I think this verses long pre-date the earthly Eden. The word 'iniquity' is just a general word for 'evil' or 'unrighteousness', and this passage refers to time when this was 'found' in the 'prince of Tyre'. So in that sense I think this thread title may have been a misnomer; I'm not sure that evil was 'created' in the normal sense.

The words you are referring to in John and Isaiah might to be able to be applied to 'evil' in quite the same sense. The 'creator' in the other sense is surely only ever God. The Hebrew word 'created' in Gen 1:1 is bara which is almost, but not quite always, used of God as Creator. One of the verses that has figured in this thread has been I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isa 45:7 KJV) but as others have pointed out the NASB gets the sense more accurately here;The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these. (Isa 45:7 NASB) We see the sense of 'evil' here by its contrast with 'peace' (shalom) So I'm not sure that pursuing the meanings of 'create' will further this exploration much.

does the commonly held understanding of the whole Lucifer became Satan, got cast down to hell with a third of the angels etc etc come from? I know the verses in Isaiah, Ezekiel and Revelation.. but they seem a little enigmatic at best - why does everyone seem to be agreed on the interpretation? It doesn't seem that clear. In fact, not everyone is agreed on the interpretation. Most commentaries will discount the identification with Satan on the Isaiah 14 and Ezek 28 sections. The link was first made my the early church fathers, but many evangelicals would be suprised to hear any other interpretation of these sections.

I am personally comfortable with the interpretation of these verses as pertaining to something much greater than earthly kings. The language would seem extravagant in the extreme if only a human being were in view. The third part of the angels, as you say, is a quote from the Revelation and to build on a single verse from a book which is based on signs and symbols is a bit dicey to say the least.

If you 'ban' Isaiah and Ezekiel from this conversation, and question the identification of numbers from the Revelation you are right in implying that we don't know much about this subject. This has been my plea throughout this theme. Adam Clarke has a quote regarding the phrase 'the angels that sinned' (2 Pet 2:4) For if God spared not the angels - The angels were originally placed in a state of probation; some having fallen and some having stood proves this. How long that probation was to last to them, and what was the particular test of their fidelity, we know not; nor indeed do we know what was their sin; nor when nor how they fell. St. Jude says they kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation; which seems to indicate that they got discontented with their lot, and aspired to higher honors, or perhaps to celestial domination. The tradition of their fall is in all countries and in all religions, but the accounts given are various and contradictory; and no wonder, for we have no direct revelation on the subject. They kept not their first estate, and they sinned, is the sum of what we know on the subject; and here curiosity and conjecture are useless. Useless but fascinating!


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Ron Bailey

 2005/3/29 9:44Profile
Nasher
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Joined: 2003/7/28
Posts: 404
Watford, UK

 Re:

I may have missed this somewhere in this long thread, but has "evil" been defined yet?

Should we replace "evil" with "Sin"?

Then when we ask the question "did God create Sin?" the answer must surely be "no!"

Why?

Because God is Holy, Holy, Holy (evidence for the trinity? ;-) )

If God were to create Sin then Sin would have to come from God, which would mean that God wouldn't be Holy, Holy, Holy.

God will only create good (Genesis 1), but the good things he creates still have the ability to make choices, therefore they can choose to obey God or to Sin.


Question - will we be able to make choices in Heaven?

Could someone then choose to disobey God?

Or will we see a deeper revelation of his Holy character that we will be awe-struck for eternity!


P.S. I'm thinking out loud here!


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Mark Nash

 2005/3/29 12:40Profile
jeremyhulsey
Member



Joined: 2003/4/18
Posts: 777


 Thinking Out Loud Myself

Hi Nasher,

Quote:
Question - will we be able to make choices in Heaven?

Could someone then choose to disobey God?

Or will we see a deeper revelation of his Holy character that we will be awe-struck for eternity!


P.S. I'm thinking out loud here!



In some way I don't think we will be able to disobey God when this age is over but not because we don't have a choice, but rather, our choice is now and the one we make is an eternal one.


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Jeremy Hulsey

 2005/3/29 12:43Profile









 Re: Thinking Out Loud Myself

Two of my favorite quotes on good and evil are:

Everything is plural and balanced, but good and bad are human inventions: we walk right foot, left foot, not right foot, wrong foot. Ignorance and greed are part of the evolutionary process, which is to say that mistakes are part of learning. There is nothing bad about behaviors or perceptions that do not work, they simply have to be replaced by behaviors and perceptions that do work. – R. Buckminster Fuller.

Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow from thee turn not away. . . that ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven; for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

 2005/3/29 13:38









 Re: Thinking Out Loud Myself

The one great advantage that we have over the Angels is that Christ is recreating Himself in us. The finish work of Calvary is the death buriel and resurrection of Jesus Christ, how that we (and the Angels can't do this) died with Christ, that we were buried with Him and [we should] we arose with Him in His resurrection.

Realize yourself to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God. And believe me, we are still trying to realize that we are dead, and when that day comes that we realize that fact, there will be a resurrection.

Karl

 2005/3/29 17:07





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