A couple of years ago, I had begun a conversation with a very good friend of mine. He is a devout believer in Christ and leads a very fruitful, productive life. He is one of the most intelligent people I know, very rational and analytical by nature. While hanging out at his house we began to discuss his religion and my irreligion. The debate was entertaining and educational and like all good conversations, it spilled over into an email conversation. Below are the back and forth emails I had with him relating to ideas such as did God create evil, did he send evil angels down upon man, can freewill and predestination coexist and lastly, is the bible real history or legend? His emails/replies are in blue italics.
Hey Mike,
Here is what I was referring to when we spoke about God sending evil spirits (1 Samuel 16:14-16:23). From the writing, it is quite clear that this spirit came from God and it was evil. You can make your own judgment of course. I included the texts before and after the verses so that we have the context in which they were used. **It is no wonder that Jesus had powers over evil spirits (he cast them into pigs on one occassion) since God was the one sending them. Interesting to think about since traditionally we are all led to believe that God is not capable of evil.
1 Samuel 16
13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. Samuel then went to Ramah.
14 Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil [b] spirit from the LORD tormented him.
15 Saul's attendants said to him, "See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the harp. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes upon you, and you will feel better."
17 So Saul said to his attendants, "Find someone who plays well and bring him to me."
18 One of the servants answered, "I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the LORD is with him."
19 Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, "Send me your son David, who is with the sheep." 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.
21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, "Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him."
23 Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
Excellent question – really I am glad you asked. But before I answer, I hope that you did not get to frustrated the other night at my house. I really did enjoy our conversation and I think you ask great questions, and I always enjoy an intellectually challenging debate. I realize it is not personal – two people should be able to be friends and disagree. Keep in mind being an engineer and very analytical myself I have asked many of the same questions. I hope we can have more talks but not with the crowd around to jump in J I honestly did not know how to answer your question when you asked it so I had to do some research. When I read the below it made total sense to me – take a look I am curious what your feedback is. It really comes back to freewill and that God could make us do what he wants, but he does not. In this case he departed Saul and then allowed Satan to control him. Finally I do believe that God is not capable of Evil, but he does allow evil for his ultimate purpose – which in my little mind I can not possible understand.
Take care,
Mike
But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him (1Sa 16:14).
What does that mean "an evil spirit from the Lord?" Well, I guess it means an evil spirit from the Lord, but that is difficult for us to reconcile in our minds.
Now I don't want you all to get up and leave in a huff because I say something that may sound very radical. But I am convinced that in a unique and unusual kind of a way, Satan is actually serving God. He is serving purposes of God. If it were not for Satan then we would have no power of choice. If we had no power of choice, then God wouldn't know if you really loved Him or not.
Satan could not exist unless God allowed him to exist, and the very fact that God allows him to exist means that he must be serving a purpose for God, otherwise there would be no reason of having Satan around at all. If he were not serving a purpose of God then God surely wouldn't allow him his freedom today. But because he is serving a purpose of God, in order that you might be tested, in order that your love for God might indeed be a love of free choice, God has allowed Satan the liberty for he serves a purpose of God.
So in a broad sense all of creation is still serving the purposes of God. Even Satan, in his rebellion, for God has a purpose in that. You see, to give us the power of choice, and yet if there is no choice to make, what value is it to have a power of choice? "Here choose what book you want out of my hand."
"Well there is no choice."
In order to exercise choice there has to be the opposing side. So God has allowed Satan's rebellion, has allowed Satan to go on, has allowed Satan the freedom, has allowed Satan the freedom to come and to tempt you and to hassle you, and to work on you, and to make it difficult for you to serve God. So that as you serve God, it is because of choice of serving God in spite of the obstacles, in spite of the difficulties. "God, I do love You." My love for God is more or less proved by my choice to love Him in spite of the difficulty and obstacles that are placed in my way. Thus, God is assured that my love is genuine and my love for Him is true.
If I would say to my son, "Stay in the backyard while I go downtown." and I go out and chain him to the big tree. When I get home, I go in the backyard and unlock him and say, "Aha, I'm proud of my boy; he's obedient to his dad. Stayed right there in the backyard. Good boy." Proud father.
My neighbors say, "You should've heard him cursing and screaming trying to get free." He had no choice. There has to be the open door, the possibility, the opportunity to disobey in order that obedience is meaningful.
God wants from you meaningful love. Therefore, the choice must be given. Thus "an evil spirit from the Lord" or God allowed, perhaps, if that fits you better, an evil spirit to come, the spirit of the Lord.
Now I am convinced when the Spirit of God departs from your life, the door is open for evil spirits to really come. So an evil spirit allowed by the Lord, at least, came and began to harass Saul. The Spirit of God departed from him. What a sad time in a person's life when God's Spirit departs from his life. "And an evil spirit began to move in, and it troubled him."
Hi Mike,
I appreciate the feedback. I really was not in any way frustrated. I know, as I have had numerous experiences with it, that any talk of religion is going to invoke deep rooted emotions. Kathy is a riot! Spirituality is a very powerful thing. So, I agree, just because you don’t see eye to eye on something, doesn’t mean you have to stop being friends or even stop discussing it. Dialogue usually results in more understanding…and besides, it’s fun. So really, I enjoyed the “debate” and we should talk more often. I think we all could learn a lot from each other. Anyway…I examined your reply and just as with anything worth talking about, the answers created more questions (for me). Here are my thoughts:
You said-in rebuttal to my observation about God sending evil spirits-that “In this case he (God) departed Saul and then allowed Satan to control him”. So in other words, God did not “really” send the evil spirit, he just allowed it to enter Saul. Now, I appreciate the stance on this, however, the passage simply does not state this. If God created this Bible as a roadmap for his teachings, why encode the meanings? If he meant for us to think that he withdrew his spirit from Saul, would he not have told us that? Keep in mind the lowest common denominator: the layman-which encompasses a large part of God’s audience. God is reaching out to all of us (allegedly) and for him to not really mean what he says becomes very confusing. Now, I am not disputing that there may be other instances in the bible where God did withdraw his spirit, but in the passages I “copied” from the bible and presented, this was not the case ( I am a bit confused to which verse you mean here, in 1samuel 16:14 below id does say that God’s spirit departed him from your copy- let me know what verse you mean) . Which then leads me to other passages-in the Bible- that are even more clear-cut that God creates evil.
Here are few:
Psalms 78:49 He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels [among them]. (Evil angels? Interesting.) Actually yes Satan once was an Angel that turned his back on God because of his arrogance and led about 1/3 of the angels in rebellion against God. So demons, devils are really angels gone bad J - that whole free will thing. In order for us to have free will we have to be capable of choosing between right and wrong (or good and evil) – Could God have created a perfect world with no Evil, yep but we would not have free will – What he chose to do is create beings with free will – let them use that free will – ultimately God will create the perfect world for those that chose him of their own free will.
Now this leads into one of the greatest theological debates among Christians. Free will versus Predestination. How can the bible say that we have free will and that God chose us before the creation of the world Now the logically mind can not comprehend that both of these are true. If he chose us then we can not choose him and do not have free will, if we have free will then he did not choose us. (This is one of my personal favorites and love to argue both sides of the argument, but ultimately believe both to be true – How you ask? Next time we talk lets discuss this lets just say that while in College going to engineering school, I learned some things about Electricity that made it all clear to me – you will like this one!
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things]. (No confusion here.) Yep this makes the point I made earlier that God is in control of everything and created everything – but by giving the angels Free will and Man free will he allows Evil In Gods unlimited Wisdom he uses evil for good. Let me give you a real world example – Disciplining your kids (not sure where you stand on this, but I assume you do some kind of discipline) From the kids perspective it is bad and mean of you, but you are doing it for their greater good. Similar to God Most of the bad things that have happened in my life have in the end turned out to be good things and made me a better person. In fact I now thank God that he let me have those difficult times because I appreciate the good so much more. Now of course this does not answer the larger “evil” things like killing women and children. Again let me flip this into a question, if a murderer was found guilty of killing your family, is it wrong / evil to have them punished? If you say yes to that then I think this is a hopeless conversation, but somehow I do not think you would object to punishing them. That said All people are guilty of sin and the punishment for sin is death. So if God chooses to kill some people, he is giving them their just punishment. Now of course this assumes that you believe in Sin and that there is punishment for it. But the point being that God is Being justified in his actions, but the actions from our point of view may be viewed as evil. – I can already think of 5 or 6 counter arguments to these statements, so write them down so we can discuss them not via email, because this is hurting my fingers J
Jeremiah 18:8 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. (God was about to do evil.) Again this is discipline and punishment from above ( I am on a plane and will do some word study on the use of evil here. The one thing I have learned in studying the bible that words in English are not always as intended – I have 1000’s of examples but let me give you a famous one. The word Love – in English has all kinds of definitions (I love Pizza, I love my wife……) But in Greek there were 3 different words for love. Hopefully I get them right from memory. You have Agape – which is like unconditional Love, Philos – which is love like a brother, close friend, and then there is one more can’t remember that is Love for your wife (intimate Love). All 3 are translated Love, but very different meaning is meant. The other thing is cultural context, like the eye of the needle thing.
Now I don’t presume to know everything about Biblical scripture, but in Isaiah 45:7, GOD himself declares he creates evil. So, if God creates evil, what does Satan do? In all my readings, I do not recall passages about Satan destroying cities or killing millions of men, women and children. That is the work of God. (before you think it, I am NOT a Satan worshipper). Intriguing isn’t it? There are a lot of questions here I will try to answer them one at a time.What Satan does is try to keep us from knowing God hence incurring his wrath and punishment – he is the one that deceived Adam and Eve and influenced the first sin – Free will again. If it were not for Satan then we would all follow God and there would be no evil, but then there would not be free will again. So in order for free will to exist Satan must be allowed to tempt us and trick us. Now from your perspective the worst thing ( or close to the worst thing – torture and such may be worse) anyone can do to someone is kill them. But from my perspective the absolute worst thing bar none that can be done to anyone is to keep a person from a relationship with God. Hence why your Christian friends get so emotional about this, because while death sucks – eternal separation from God is 100000 times worse. For the record I have no doubt you are not a Satan worshiper – you do not worship anything except maybe logic and reason.
Anyway, I read something that the speaker said and found it quite peculiar. He says, in his explanation of why God needs Satan, that “If we had no power of choice, then God wouldn't know if you really loved Him or not.” Now, I don’t know if you caught this the first time around or not, but doesn't it just jump out at you now? As you already know, God is (allegedly) all knowing. So why wouldn’t he know if we truly love him or not? What this man is saying is that God is either NOT all knowing OR he is not who he says he is. Ultimately this sounds to me like a desperate argument for an issue that Christians have been unable to explain away (no disrespect intended). – Actually you have made my point to a degree about freewill and predestination. God knew before the creation of the world who would be saved and who would not, but he also gave us free will so we can choose. Makes no sense huh, but this again was a huge question for me until I was in College and began to stud the theory of Relativity. Now this is probably the single most difficult thing to understand I have ever studied and I took a whole semester worth of advanced physics classes on this subject. But in essence time is relative. It is not linear – this by the way is not logical. But it is very true. So what can seem like 1 day to me could be 1Million years to someone else depending on their relative position in the time space continuum. That said what is 65 billion years to us could be 1 billionth of a second to God or even faster. In fact if you take the theory of relativity to its maximum and there is something that exists outside of the space time continuum then time does not exist for that person and the past – present and future are all the same. Since God created time he exists outside of it and there fore Predestination and freewill are both true. I hope this makes sense, I am happy to spend time just discussing relativity with you if need be. Now most Christians do not have the ability or desire to even comprehend this so they just accept that both are true and admit they can not comprehend it. I feel like I have a vague understanding of it but by no means can I say I master the concept. So in answer to your question God Says Both He is all knowing and he gives us free will to choose and he knew before we were created how we would choose, but does not make us choose him. It is a paradox I admit – but by the way there are at least 2 things in the measurable world that exist but are not possible J electricity again - we will talk.
Additionally, I find his arguments very intriguing about the value of choice. He says “So in a broad sense all of creation is still serving the purposes of God. Even Satan, in his rebellion, for God has a purpose in that. You see, to give us the power of choice, and yet if there is no choice to make, what value is it to have a power of choice? Here choose what book you want out of my hand. Well there is no choice. In order to exercise choice there has to be the opposing side.” In my experience, making a choice does not require an opposing side, but rather a different choice. Who’s to say that there can’t be two choices that are equally good? For instance, I have $5000 that I want to give to charity. I have thousands of charities to pick from. Does this mean that there is one good charity and the rest are bad? Or even that a few of the charities are “bad” choices? I presume not. Again, he is reaching and using arguments that don’t apply to logic. Having the freedom of choice does not require you to always choose between good and evil. Oh I agree that having freedom of choice does not always force you to choose between good and evil. For instance I can choose to eat Oatmeal or French toast. That is not what we are talking about. He does say all creation is serving God’s purposes, but that does not mean 100% of the time. I do not see any flaw in the logic, do you not agree that if you have only one charity to give to you have no choice as to who to give it to? That is the point. In order to have choice there must be at least 2 options. So we have a choice follow God or Not – by the way this is a daily / hourly / by minute thing all humans make. Do I choose to follow God every time, No way – I wish I did but I can’t nor can any person and when we chose to not follow him we sin. Don’t get to literal on this – I am not talking about choosing clothes or choosing charity. In Ephesians it talks about putting off the old self and putting on the new self – choosing to stop being who I am in my nature and choosing to submit to God and be a better person. Now this is where the personal experience of Faith comes in. You say it is a person deciding to be better so they are. From my point of view it is me deciding to stop being who I am and submitting to God and letting him change me. Let me be the first to say This is the major difference – let me give you an interesting stat – drug rehab – these %’s are close but not exact, again going from memory – the average drug rehab success rate is 1 in 8 – one person in 8 gets off drugs, and this is programs that are voluntary. Did you know that there is a Christian drug rehab program that gets no government funding because they use the bible. The success rate is 7 in 8. Why because The Holy Spirit (God) changes them when they let him. I believe people can change their lives by sheer force of will, but I know God can change People in amazing ways when they submit to him, In my personal life he changed me in ways I never wanted to be changed, but now I am glad!
I hope I don’t come off as disrespectful as that is not my intention . For me, I believe there are a lot of things to consider about the Bible and what it says before one begins to “believe” in it. There are a number of issues that the Bible presents that even I (a man without God driven morals) wouldn't consider good for public consumption. And as we spoke about before, the “historical” data the Bible presumes to contain is in most cases unreliable and more importantly (in my opinion) illogical. Read the story about Sampson and you will know what I mean.
No disrespect taken, as I said earlier I asked many of the same questions myself and have no bone to pick with people asking questions. I agree also you have every right to ask what the bible says before believing it – Just keep an open mind. I will respectfully disagree the bible is illogical – I think I am very logically and have met very few people that can analyze stuff like I do – by the way you are one of them. The more questions you ask the more answers I have to think of, which actually strengthens my faith. And if you think my answers illogical then lets talk about them, because I want to understand where my logic broke down, or where you are missing a step on my logical progression. I know the story of Sampson, I am curious what you are referring to, because so far every time you use the bible to make a point, I think I have been able to counter answer it – Honestly this was fun, my flight went supper fast – I want you to know I do not judge you other then to say you have a very good intellect and we will see where these conversations go. Maybe nothing, maybe something either way I am sure we will both benefit from them.
Hey Mike,
I agree- it is growing to a large size and perhaps these issues would be better left to conversation, but I do want to at least respond to your rebuttals and to elaborate on what I meant by the lack of historical evidence-using Sampson as an example.
First, I want you to know I do not think your thought process is illogical. I have been following your thought process and you have made some interesting arguments. That does not mean I agree with you, but I can at least see where you are coming from. Obviously you are a very intelligent guy and I would never consider you “illogical”.
The question of whether God created evil or not to me is a simple one. To break it down to its simplest form, I feel he HAD to have created evil because God created ALL things (according to the Bible). This means he also would have created things such as happiness, sadness, joy, pain, jealousy etc. All of which are human emotions conjured up as a result of choices. I realize these are intangible creations, but if there was nothing to begin with, then these are no less his doing than the creation of a tree, or a bug. God created emotions, and if it weren’t him that created it, then who?
Now going by the Bible which states God knows everything, we can agree that he knew his invention of evil (or the opposite of love as I have been told) would create major atrocities upon human kind. Take into consideration the wars, diseases, natural disasters this world has seen (of course my take on these events are purely objective and natural). A Christian might say that God didn’t perform this evil…it was a man/men who chose not to love God and therefore evil resulted. If that be the case, then we have another difficult issue to address: If He knew this would happen, why didn’t he stop it? He has stepped in and intervened with human history before (according to the miracles in the Bible). Why not do it again to stop these events? He allowed these things (Katrina, World Trade Center, Holocaust, etc) to happen much like an onlooker or witness to a crime that refuses to call for help. Perhaps he was trying to teach us a lesson. Or perhaps these horrible events are part of a much larger purpose and we may never know why they happened. This is where I tend to jump off the ship where as you as a Christian might stay on. For me, I need to fill in the blanks. I can’t accept that God, an all loving-all powerful being, has a larger purpose for the terrible things he “allows” to happen. If anything, he is only loving some of the time. For me there are better ways to get someone to genuinely love you than the way He is purportedly doing it. That is, God does not need to use death and destruction as his prime motivator, but he chooses to. How you can see this as love is extremely difficult for me to comprehend.
One thing that I will never accept is the notion that I would love God less if I had proof he existed. Do you think Tanya would have more love for God as opposed to me if I were to find out he truly existed? I don’t believe so. Beleive me when I say, if there was proof of the Christian God, I would be the first one in the pews everyday!
As for Samson, his legend is beyond the realm of reality. Samson was a very strong hero who gained his strength through the length of his long hair. Once his hair was cut, he lost his strength. He was then jailed, he had his eyes poked out and was made a slave of the Philistines. Following these torments, he was brought to a temple where he miraculously regained his strength and pulled down two towering pillars, killing multitudes of Philistines with him. This alone seems implausible, but let’s not discount the other feats of Samson: he killed 1000 Philistines at one time; he ripped off the doors of the city and carried it up a tall hill, and there were countless Hollywood movies made of his adventures (j/k). All in all, are we take this as real history? I think not.
Anyway, I must impart you with one last observation. We have had all this talk of good and evil and whether or not predestination can exist alongside freewill. But most striking is the conversation we had about God as his evil doing. You don't believe that he cast evil demons down on his creation, but rather he removed himself from their presence- allowing evil to come in. I am curious, if God truly can pull himself away from someone of someplace as you have suggested, then would he not cease to be omnipresent? Food for thought.
Until next time.
Chad
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