God, Mankind, Failure, and Sin

Continuing the previous discussion... 

The argument tendered in response to the previous blog argued as follows.  Since God is "all knowing" or "omniscient" He knew Adam and Eve would disobey and thus He  creates them knowing ahead of time exactly what its they would do. Therefore, God is either directly or indirectly responsible for the existence of evil.  That must mean that God is evil.  To compound the issue He then punished the very ones He knew would sin.  (Adapted from a recent facebook posting in response to the previous blog.)

Following that notion forward, one might conclude then that God is responsible for all of the evil in today's world.  Thus mankind individually and corporately should be divested of all responsibility for his evil actions.  The idea being that because God is the responsible for the inception of evil, thus He is responsible for the outgrowth of that evil in the intervening years between then and now. 

While those ideas seem to follow logically, they only do so when founded upon certain assumptions.  Of course, assumptions by their very nature and existence require examination.  So let us consider some questions (most certainly there are more).

First question:  How can one be certain that God has foreknowledge?  Some schools of thought hold that God has chosen to limit His foreknowledge.  If such were so then the matter of His culpability would seem to be invalid. 

Second question:  How can one be certain that the entrance of sin into Garden was the time at which sin entering the whole world?  There is among some theologians the belief that the Garden was a utopian paradise created in the midst of a world that was already in the ravages of evil and corruption.  If such were so then the matter of God's responsibility may lay elsewhere.

Third question:  How can one be certain that God did not have a much more encompassing plan?  Such a plan that would be in effect either way, knowing that man would obey or would not obey.  If such is so it would be well beyond what man can rationally understand.  The most commonly cited example is that there is no evidence that Job ever understood what was going on in the Heavenlies. 

The outcome is the same no matter how these things are viewed.  The world contains corruption, evil, and wickedness.  In the midst of that darkness, a light shines and that is the light of truth and that truth is the standard that allows for one to label evil and wickedness, and corruption for what they are.  If there had not been the positive there would be no way by which to know negatives.  Therefore, any fundamental disagreement with what is herein must treat the question:  Where did truth originate?

The question that overshadows these and other beliefs is that of the benevolence of God. Is God a good God?  If God is viewed as evil, from where did the standard originate that allow one to make that assertion.  Either way one answers the question, the accompanying question is this.  Just who is it that one allows to define good?

It seems that if we allow man to define "good" then the outcome is a very self-oriented, short sighted, and immediate notion of what comprises "good."  If conversely, we allow God to define "good" then something, which appears to be evil on the human plain can in reality be divinely, eternally, and purely "good."

What might one take away from the discussion?  First, God is under no obligation to explain Himself to man.  In other words, what happened in the Garden of Eden and how God intervened is as explained but only in so far as man needs to know.  To take it beyond the text or even what the text allows is to court danger.  What is there is there, nothing more and nothing less.

Second, God does protect man from that which would defeat him.  This is offered in the form of another question.  What if any such explanation that God would give would be more than man could bear?  What is required is trust, truth in the goodness of God.  A goodness as provided above.

 

Third, God allows mysteries such as this in order for man to develop faith.  However, it must be said that such faith is a decision one makes, a volitional decision to trust in God despite such circumstances as may present themselves along the pathway of life.