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| May 3 |
Rolf Hille (2004) notes that the issue with theodicy is not only how God can allow suffering in the world, but on a different turn, why do evil persons prosper in God’s creation? Hille (2004: 21).
Hille explains that these considerations on evil and the existence of God led to a criticism of Christianity and religion in Europe in the Eighteenth century and to some degree earlier. Hille (2004: 21). He reasons that a satisfactory self-coherent answer to the question of the justice of God cannot be found in theology or philosophy. Hille (2004: 26).
HILLE, ROLF (2004) ‘A Biblical-Theological Response to the Problem of Theodicy in the Context of the Modern Criticism of Religion’, in Evangelical Review of Theology, Volume 28, Number 1, pp. 21-37. Carlisle, UK, Evangelical Review of Theology.
Sunday
On Sunday the kind host at an event by her own admission ‘sparred’ with me on the topic of free will; she being an Alvin C. Plantinga free will devotee.
I asked her if God was infinite and had more freedom than any of his finite creatures.
She stated, yes.
I stated that by his infinite good nature, God did not require the option to commit evil to either be significantly free or to love.
God was infinite goodness by nature and was immutable.
God cannot violate his own nature although he can will evil for good purposes. If he willed evil for bad purposes this would make him a contradictory, illogical being.
It should also be stated that the finite angels that did not fall by nature are deduced to be perfectly finitely good with significant freedom and yet have never chosen to do evil, although some angels did choose to do evil and sin. But the point still stands, even though all angels may have had an option to choose evil and sin.
Jesus Christ as a man was finitely good, in his humanity, not his divinity where he would have infinite goodness, and also never chose to do evil and sin, and I believe would not, although he did face true human temptation.
Therefore, significantly free creatures do not have to have the option to commit evil and sin by nature and choice, nor do they have to choose to commit evil and sin. Neither are these required to love.
The atoning work of Christ and the resurrection (the Gospels, Ephesians 1-2, Romans 1-3) explains that those in Christ are delivered from sin and the problem of evil into the Kingdom of God, ultimately culminated in a new realm described in Revelation 21-22.
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| May 3 |
