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We need to remember that God has many attributes, and we can get into trouble when we elevate certain ones above others. As Jad pointed out, God is also all-just and all-knowing. God ultimately wants all to come to a saving knowledge of Himself and thus He knows how to best work that out so that every person has the greatest and fairest opportunity to come to that point. I don’t think that we, as finite created beings, are in the best position to question or judge how an omnipotent, all-powerful God should go about achieving that end. I think one of the reasons God allows temporary evil and suffering is because He is actually merciful in delaying His justice. In reality, an all-righteous and all-just being does not have to tolerate any wickedness or evil. God in His desire to create us as free moral agents, allows us to make our own moral choices; this unfortunately results in acts of evil against both Him and others. However because God is all-just, He has also promised a day in which He will judge all the world in righteousness (Heb 9:27.) He promises that every person who has ever lived will stand before Him and give an account for every thought, word and deed. Not just murderers and rapists; but all liars, thieves, fornicators etc will also be judged. On that day perfect, eternal justice will be executed. However God in His grace delays this appointment because it is His will that none would perish but that all would come to repentance. In His mercy He gives each of us time to turn from our ways of wickedness and towards Him that we may be found innocent on that day through the atoning work of His son on the cross. Every new day the sun rises and each new breath we take are another expression of this kindness, patience and delayed justice.
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God is not only all-loving and all-powerful, but He is also all-knowing and all-just. Being that He is all-knowing I think He would have a better idea then what you and I would have about the suffering and the wickedness that goes on in this world. I for one would be too lenient on some and too harsh to others. So I am much more comfortable leaving these kinds of decisions up to a being that is all-loving, all-knowing and all-just. I think that kind of being would have a better idea of how to deal with such matters than I would? What do you think? Presuming this being exists of course.
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I should also add that the whole notion and concept of “evil” is actually irrelevant without the existence of a supreme being such as God. Without a transcendent standard, what is “good” or “evil” merely becomes arbitrary to an individual or to a given society (we only have to look at the abhorrent Nazi regime of Hitler’s Germany for evidence of this.) Evil in fact, could be defined as merely an absence of that which is good.
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The same rule applies. God did not intend to create a man in His image who was pre-programmed to love Him back. He created man with a free will of his own, so that if he freely chose to love God back, he could. That is true love. You guy doesn’t force a girl to love him back, she has to fall in love with him of her own free will. He can woo her and stuff like that, but ultimately she is the one making the choice in how she is going to respond. In like manner, God is not a cosmic rapist. He is not going to force His love on us, He desires us to love him back and respond to His love, His wooing, of our own free will. But the price to pay in God giving us this free will, it gives us the opportunity to reject Him. Even the opportunity to deny Him. God knew that from the very beginning. But free will is greater. It is worth the price, for without it, we cannot truly love God or one another. We would just be robots and fembots.
Whatever is but might not be is dependent on what is and cannot not be. -
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