I have a dog, and I'd like to say that she's good, but she's not. She's not very good at all.

dermdoc said:

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And to be honest, I think you can find Scriptural interpretation that supports ECT, annilationism, or universal reconciliation.

And I do not care if someone believes in ECT. The problem is that if I tell them I do not they basically assume I am going to hell. And that is not Scriptural.

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The hyper-critics won't necessarily say you are going to hell, but they will drop the false teacher line on you if you disagree with anything in their theology.

Macarthur said:

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dermdoc said:

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The way I look at it, for whatever reason evil exists and death is always going to happen. But I believe God can make good out of tragedy if one has faith and perseveres.

I know that is what has happened with my family tragedies.

Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose.

Without that, there is no hope.

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I guess I see your point if one person reads that Kobe went to church the day he died and that motivates someone to go to church and ultimately turns to God...okay, good for that person.

But what 'beautiful' thing can come about for Kobe's family?

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It must be that there is opposition in everything.
If there was no evil there could be no righteousness. Righteousness is following the law. Evil is eschewing the law. But a law by definition can be broken and thus we are led to evil. This is just one example of the duality of our mortal existence.

Do you believe God is good? Do you believe God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient? If you do then you cannot possibly believe that the Fall did not have a divine purpose. If God is good, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient and he placed the Tree of Knowledge in the midst of the Garden he put it there for a purpose. If God is omniscient he knew that by placing the tree in the garden he was creating a circumstance from which the fall would happen, otherwise he would not be Omniscient. Not only that but because He is Omnipresent he knew Satan/the serpent was in the Garden and if God was good and the fall was bad he would have not allowed Satan in the Garden to tempt Eve. God is omnipotent and expelled satan from heaven so no doubt he could expel the serpent from the garden. As an omniscient being, God knew the serpent was there and what his intentions were. So thus being a Good God, an Omnipresent God, an Omniscient God, and an Omnipotent God, He created the circumstances not only allowing but encouraging the fall. Therefore there must have been a good and divine purpose behind the Fall, otherwise God would not have creates the circumstances which led to it.

If God is good and created the circumstances which brought about the fall which resulted in all the struggles we have in mortality then there must be a purpose for these struggles. Otherwise there was no purpose for the Fall. Or Otherwise God is not good because no good benevolent being could create circumstances which resulted directly in so much suffering unless there is a higher purpose for such suffering, purpose and good which vastly outweighs the ills of such suffering or good which can only be achieved because such suffering exists.

Therefore the duality of our existence has divine purpose. Otherwise God would not have created the circumstances which led to the fall and then Adam and Eve would have lived forever in a state of innocence knowing neither good from evil nor dying but never truly living as we know it, because life as we know it consists of the duality of our mortality: to know pleasure, one must know pain. to know joy, one must know sorrow, to have wisdom one must gain experience through failure and trial, to know light one must also experience darkness, and on and on.

For if God created the Garden and created the circumstances for the fall but did not intend for the Fall to happen then God created something without purpose and where is the wisdom in that? For by our very Judeo Christian definition of God, God is wise. And only God is good. The fall gave Adam and Eve and all of their descendants mortality, both life in the duality that we know it to be and death for all are compound in one experience that we call the mortal condition. Therefore there must be a purpose in the duality of life, the duality including the opposition to that which we call good as well as all that we call good.


From a Judeo Christian perspective you have 3 basic choices:
1) Believe God is good, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. If this is so then there must be a divine purpose for the Fall and everything that has proceeded from it including human misery, mortality, pain, sickness, and death.
2) Believe that God is not good, or not omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. In this case all of our assumptions about God collapse and we cannot have faith in anything the Bible tells us because the entire basis of the Biblical definition of God and His Law and belief in Christ centers around the basic tenants that only He is good, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. In this case then there is no point in following the law or having faith because we cannot trust God that Jesus' grace is sufficient to save us from death.
3) Believe there is no God because a good god would not allow the duality including the suffering that we experience on earth. In this case then there is no law. There is no sin. In this case I am free to act as I choose, free from the concern of what eternal repercussions may befall me. There is no right, there is no wrong except for that which I personally give meaning to. And then what is that? Why should I say that any of my whims are evil? Then I have no constraints and anarchy reigns and I am free to be the animalistic man, guided only by my impulses and moment to moment drives for physical pleasure.

In this case option 1 seems to me the best option- to always seek out the divine purpose in my mortal struggles, ask myself what God is trying to teach me, what I must learn from them. Sometimes the divine lesson which must be learned is that there is a divine plan, set in motion from the beginning which will bring all of us back to His presence, that the pain of this existence is a neccessary part of the duality from which we can learn righteousness as well as evil, experience death as well as life, learn by faith because without the blindness if our mortal separation from God we could not develop it fully, or achieve salvation because without the risk of death salvation and the resurrection would not be necessary.

You asked what "beautiful" thing came out of Kobe's death and my answer is his life.

Life cannot exist without death. It is part of the duality of our mortal experience. Learning to appreciate the divine plan of life, the duality of it is integral to the development of our faith and gaining understanding into the purpose of Christ's life and sacrifice so that you can truly know him and gain salvation.

Good post and thanks.

Quote:

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It must be that there is opposition in everything.

If there was no evil there could be no righteousness

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This seems absurd to me and it is akin to saying that good cannot exist without evil, which is pure paganism. It's also absurd logically. To borrow from St. Maximos, if the good cannot exist without evil then the good is not good by nature, requiring the existence of some other to give it this nature.

The way I read it was that it would be hard to appreciate good if there was no evil. All I know is I do not completely understand it and rely on Romans 8:28

All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.