Happy Riches, answers request by anonymous.
Religious people are variously defined as people who worship idols, attend football, are devoted to their belief in atheism—depending upon who is doing the defining, of course. Many people think that there is no need to use faith when it comes to reason, but they have faith in many people for all sorts of reasons, even if they lie. What this means is much misconception exists and we have to work out what is true and what is false.
Calvinists are religious people who believe God created evil. They even wrongfully quote a verse from Isaiah to justify their accusation that the Creator is really like the Devil, using the King James Version of the Bible that incorrectly states:
- I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things (Isaiah 45:7) KJV
The Bible would not warn against saying that what God created as good is evil, if He created evil.
- Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)
What the verse in Isaiah 45.7 should really read in the King James Version ought to be along the lines of what is found in the ESV, which speaks of God bringing calamity upon those who do evil. For God has not created evil (moral evil) but he will oversee the punishment of the wicked, which is really what Isaiah is talking about when contrasting the word shalowm (shawlome) with ra` (rah), [1] which is better interpreted as per the following:
- I form light and create darkness; I make [shawlown] well-being and create [ ra`] calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)
When the Lord God creator of Heaven and Earth had finished creating everything, He looked upon it and declared it good, not evil.
- And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31)
The whole of Creation was declared GOOD after the Creator (of the Universe and everything in it) had appraised what He had done.
Unfortunately, people think that because God created man in His own image, He ought not to have given them the same option that He had to commit evil, if so desired. Even though God has not committed evil, this does not mean that He does not know what is evil. Being omniscient, God knows what the consequence of evil would mean, and the first man was warned of this consequence, too.
To put this another way: one does not have to decapitate one’s own head to understand what the consequence will mean.
God had knowledge of evil. The evil that is being spoken of here is moral evil, not calamity as humans know it, when a category five hurricane strikes and raises buildings on an island to the ground, or when a towering inferno burns alive occupants of a high-rise apartment building.
Moral evil is what people do to each other when they bear false witness, cheat, steal, hate, etc. When God created Adam and Eve, those things were unknown.
Adam and Eve had the knowledge that such evil existed by virtue of the fact they were given an option not to disobey their Creator and distrust Him. Trust is very important if we are to have faith within a relationship and remain faithful. (Morons do not understand this, but they will scoff at those who explain these matters and demonstrate their ignorance frequently as they hinder the truth being stated—anarchy is their preference.)
The reality is God did not create evil. Religionists are usually people who are puffed up with false conceptions and think they are knowledgeable about what the Bible states, or about God, when they have no relationship with Him. If they did have a relationship with God, they would know that He is not evil.
Those who quote Isaiah 47:7 or even Proverbs 16:4 to justify their belief that the Creator delights in evil, are actually exalting the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). They do so because they are still influenced by the god of this world and have not been made alive to the truth. Those who have been made alive understand the difference.
- And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:1-2)
A correct understanding regarding what happened in the Garden of Eden is God, having created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, did not create evil, but made man aware of its existence.
Actually, the mere fact that Adam was told not to eat of the tree’s fruit was sufficient to provide him with the knowledge of evil. For upon rejecting the advice of His Creator, he broke faith with Him.
What happened in the Garden of Eden can be compared to two people avowing eternal commitment to each other during the afternoon wedding ceremony, only to be heading for divorce, the morning after they made their vows, because the other was unfaithful the night before.
Only a materialist, who is looking for an atom that creates thoughts, believes that an apple contains evil. But after tasting a rotten apple, there are questions still to be answered?
Footnotes
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