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Question of the Week 5 - Then why does a good God allow the consequences of evil to continue? Why doesn't he simply wipe out evil as soon as it appears on the scene?

Breakpoint Parents Guide 1

The answer provided for this question is very confusing since it does not even provide an answer. The attempt at an answer begins with: The only possible answer is that God can't wipe it out without violating his own nature. God's character is the standard of goodness and justice, and once evil and injustice exist, he must set it right again. Once the scales of justice have been tipped, they must be balanced.

The BreakPoint answer concludes with: The Creator entered the creation and became a human being in order to bear the punishment for human sin. . . .  [God] met the demands of divine justice by submitting to judgment as a criminal and a sinner even though he had never sinned. So the Christian answer to suffering is not an idea, an argument, a philosophy. It's an event that happened.

The question as to why doesn't the all-powerful God wipe out evil is answered by God becoming a human being for a short time and suffering on the cross.

Evil exists because it must exist for good to exist. There cannot be one without the other, just as there cannot be up without down or light without dark. However that logical response is not even considered here. Instead the reader is asked to believe that the crucifixion of Jesus somehow righted the scales of justice.

This rationale is not adequately explained in the answer above. This answer must assume the reader knows that mankind was cursed after the fall from grace by Adam and that only the death of Jesus, the son of God, could reverse that curse. Unfortunately, this story never describes how this death of Jesus (who was born to be king of the Jews and was crucified by the Romans for such treason but in the answer above the body of Jesus is inhabited by God) has anything to do with the consequences of evil - the question of the week.

The topic of evil was described elsewhere (first question and question 4). If evil is assumed to be suffering in people caused by poor decisions made by man when that person was given a choice of good or evil then that condition remains to this day. Evil is always a possibility if man has a choice between good and evil. To lessen the suffering caused by such poor decisions, man must realize the consequences of his actions and rationally decide for good not evil.

The original link in case the article ever returns to Breakpoint:

(http://www.pfm.org/Content/ContentGroups/BreakPoint/Columns/ Worldview_for_Parents/200311/Question_of_the_Week5.htm)


created - Dec. 2004
last change - 12/30/2004
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