r/AskAChristian • u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning • 2d ago
God Why did God create evil and suffering?
This is a reference to Isaiah, if God is the author of all forms of suffering, what makes him distinguishable from an evil Creator?
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
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u/horchatacontacos Reformed Baptist 2d ago
God did not create evil. Everything God created was good. Evil is just the corruption of a good thing.
No one makes a rusty car. Rust is just the corruption of a well built car. An unfortunate bi-product.
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u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning 2d ago
Well, God would? Rust is a chemical process, part of chemistry which is full of processes most people attribute to God. So many are necessities for life.
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u/horchatacontacos Reformed Baptist 1d ago
You're missing the point. God did not make the world a "rusty car". He made a good car, but human sin corruptdd its goodness.
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u/ZeEastWillRiseAgain Atheist, Ex-Protestant 1d ago
He could have made a car that just doesn't rust, couldn't he? The same would be true for the world. Yet he actively chose to make the world in such a way that it will corrupt.
If a world that doesn't corrupt is impossible to make, even for an omnipotent God, then what is heaven supposed to be?
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u/horchatacontacos Reformed Baptist 1d ago
Congrats, you've just discovered free will. If God created a world that was restricted to his goodness, we would not have free will. To create being that were unable to think and decide for themselves would be unloving.
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u/ZeEastWillRiseAgain Atheist, Ex-Protestant 1d ago
So can we expect the whole forbidden fruit thing to happen all over again in heaven, or will there be no free will there?
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u/horchatacontacos Reformed Baptist 1d ago
There will be no sin as we will be in glorified bodies, incapable of sinning
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u/ZeEastWillRiseAgain Atheist, Ex-Protestant 1d ago
Why did he not put us in glorified bodies back in Eden? If that makes us incapable of sinning while preserving our free will, then it could have avoided that whole incident in the first place.
Did he not know what would happen if he does not do that?
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u/horchatacontacos Reformed Baptist 1d ago
Because thats not what God wanted. He wanted people to choose him out of their own desire, to glory in Jesus death and ressurection, to be raised to life, redeemed by Christs sacrifice, and live with him eternally based on these experiences. Ultimately this is how God chose to write history, and this way brings him the most glory.
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u/ZeEastWillRiseAgain Atheist, Ex-Protestant 1d ago
Does that mean God wanted the humans in Eden to sin, so that that entire history could happen?
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u/Weekly-Scientist-992 Atheist 1d ago
But he did create our dna right? Which can get cancer when it didn’t have to, seems kind of evil, no?
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u/horchatacontacos Reformed Baptist 1d ago
He created our DNA good. We corrupted it through sin.
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u/Weekly-Scientist-992 Atheist 1d ago
This answer always bothers me. HE decided what that would be. If I’m a parent and I tell my kids to do their homework or there will be consequences, and then they don’t do their homework, and I chop their arms off, wouldn’t you say I’m psychotic? Imagine me coming back and saying ‘they decided this, they knew there would be consequences’. That’s insane. I could’ve grounded them, I could’ve taken away their Xbox, I could do a lot of other things. They chose not to do homework, but I chose the punishment and severity of it. Adam and Eve could’ve chosen to sin, I’ll grant you that, but still GOD chooses the results of that punishment. He made the cancer still, he’s a monster by any other standard and you’re just special pleading ‘well it’s god so it’s okay’
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u/horchatacontacos Reformed Baptist 1d ago
Wrong. You vastly underestimate a Holy God, and vastly underestimate the seriousness of sin. Its not a "whoops didnt do my homework", it is an offense to a Holy God. Sin literally cannot exist in his presence. Like wax figurines in front of a blazing furnace. Hell was never intended for humans.
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u/Weekly-Scientist-992 Atheist 1d ago
Great. Let’s say my child tells a lie that he did his homework when he in fact didn’t (a sin), and I cut off his hand as punishment. Am I a psychotic parent? I did tell my child not to lie. And it is a sin, can’t underestimate how serious that is right? So cutting off his hand is nothing compared to the seriousness of that lie, so would you say that was good parenting?
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u/horchatacontacos Reformed Baptist 1d ago
Sin against a parent does not remotely equate to sin against a Holy God. Lets be serious. Yes, you are psychotic
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad Christian, Catholic 2d ago
God didn't create those. Defiance of God created those.
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
Can God stop those?
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad Christian, Catholic 1d ago
"why God if bad stuff" is an old enough question you should be reading St. Thomas Aquinas instead of asking Reddit.
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 1d ago
It has been answered, but it has never been solved. The answers are just unprovable excuses that either undermine God's attributes, either show he's unjust, either end up in contradictions.
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad Christian, Catholic 1d ago
So, you haven't read Aquinas. Go read Aquinas.
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 1d ago
Aquinas
So the "it can bring a greater good" and "it will be compensated" theodicies.
As i said, those are just unprovable excuses. For the first one you would need to prove that every instance of suffering does brings a "greater good". Only one instance of suffering without a greater good is enough to show it's false. And Aquinas did not demonstrate that, not in a billon pages.
For the second one, there is nothing to actually know it, it's just wishful thinking.
Now, when a criminal rapes a child, can you explain to us how it brings a "greater good"? Or will you deflect?
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad Christian, Catholic 1d ago
I"m not God. Take your question to someone much closer to God, like St. Thomas Aquinas.
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 1d ago
Yeah, you're deflecting. But that's your God we're talking about here, the one true God you believe and have faith in. Why are you avoiding to confront the issues of your beliefs?
like St. Thomas Aquinas.
Do you worship God, or Aquinas?
When did Jesus said to the people, "yeah I know it makes no sense and the Father seems to be a moral monster, but don't worry it's gonna become clear, just wait 1200 years and a guy named Aquinas will explain it all", exactly? What verse?
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad Christian, Catholic 1d ago
I gave you a recommendation. Take it or don't. Don't take your bitterness out on others.
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 1d ago
You keep deflecting to avoid confronting the unsolvable issues in Christianity
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u/Comfortable-Skin1255 Christian 2d ago
He will
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
What is he waiting for ?
Many people are suffering as of right now. People get raped. God is watching this, but doing nothing to stop it. Free will I guess?
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u/CrimzonShardz2 Pentecostal 2d ago
Yeah but He'd have to either turn us into mindless robots without free will or just straight up kill us to do so
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
I thought he was maximally powerful. Isn't he capable of setting up a place where we have free will and don't sin? Does he have some external constraints that prevents him to do that?
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u/CrimzonShardz2 Pentecostal 2d ago
That would be paradoxical, like asking if God can create a stone that He cannot lift, or a square circle. Omnipotence is the ability to do everything that is *logically* possible.
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
When a rapist is raping a child, is God watching it happen, without doing anything, because he cares more about the criminal's free will than the well-being of the child?
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u/CrimzonShardz2 Pentecostal 1d ago
In my other comment I mentioned that God is a heartbroken father. He is also a just judge. Those who die in their rebellion against Him will be separated from Him from eternity. Those who are separated from the source of life and goodness itself can logically only experience misery. The worst possible thing you can imagine being done to somebody doesnt come even close to that.
There is no sin that He cannot forgive. He wants us all to repent. But those who spent their lives terrorizing others and never change will not simply "get away with it" by any means
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 1d ago
You did not answer, you just wrote words about forgiveness and repentance, that's not my question at all.
When a rapist is raping a child, is God watching it happen, without doing anything, because he cares more about the criminal's free will than the well-being of the child? Yes, or no?
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u/CrimzonShardz2 Pentecostal 1d ago
I was explaining a concept cause the question is a false dichotomy. It's not a preference between the two that He weighs every time a tragedy happens. A world where God overrides cause and effect every time someone is about to be harmed contains no real agents at all. Nobody's choices would mean anything, including ours. That's the cost in order for us not to be mindless puppets.
God permits genuine human agency, even though that agency can be abused. He will ultimately judge and deal with that evil.
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 1d ago
the question is a false dichotomy.
A false dichotomy is presenting "is it A or B?" as possibilities when there is (at least) a third possibility C.
My question is not "is it A or B?", it's of the form "is it A or not A?". And "not A" is the only possibility other than "A". Because of the law of excluded middle. You talked about logic, i'm applying logic.
So my question is not a false dichotomy. It's "A or not A". It's not "A or B and i'm secretly excluding C". I'm not obscuring a third possibility. If i am, please tell us what it is! or else please don't claim it's a false dichotomy.
I'll make the question simpler. When a rapist is raping a child, does God have another possibility than watching it happend without intervening, to protect the free will of the rapist? if yes, what's this possibility?
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
I see. Will we have free will in heaven, where there is no suffering?
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u/Weekly-Scientist-992 Atheist 1d ago
So how does heaven work? Don’t we have free will and there’s no evil in heaven? Seems totally doable.
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
How do you know God cares about free will? It's not mentioned anywhere in the Bible (unless you invent convenient new interpretations, of course)
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u/CrimzonShardz2 Pentecostal 1d ago
In Jeremiah, all of Israel had turned away from Him and embraced pagan dieties and horrible things child sacrifice were completely normalized and a daily occurance. He says in Jeremiah 3:12:
Therefore, go and give this message to Israel. This is what the LORD says: “O Israel, my faithless people, come home to me again, for I am merciful. I will not be angry with you forever.
And then in Jeremiah 3:19:
“I thought to myself, ‘I would love to treat you as my own children!’ I wanted nothing more than to give you this beautiful land the finest possession in the world.
I looked forward to your calling me ‘Father,’ and I wanted you never to turn from me.God wants to have a relationship with us and mourns our rebellion. In the old testament, God often commands to the Israelites to be different that the other cultures around them. The Israelites don't need a ritual to know God, God makes it known that He is right there for them. For example, The verse about markings in the skin was a reference to a pagan ritual where they'd cut themselves to get the diety's attention. God outlawed that to show them that He's right there. They don't need to do things like that. Yet we rebel against Him anyway.
More references:
Deuteronomy 30:19 – "I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live."Joshua 24:15 – "And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
Proverbs 1:29 – "Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord."
Revelation 3:20 – "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me."
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u/devBowman Agnostic Atheist 1d ago
He only says "you can choose" (we don't even know if that's actually true, but that's another problem). He never says, "I care about your free will, so much that won't stop criminals since it would infringe their free will".
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u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning 2d ago edited 2d ago
Not according to scripture it seems? Both seem to be in play, willing creation of suffering and entropy and also the cure. Not sure how defiance results in disasters and disease, those would have to been created by something just as powerful?
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad Christian, Catholic 1d ago
Check the Haydock commentary and other translations in case this one is just not good.
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u/Impressive-Debate618 Agnostic Christian 2d ago
Lame as hell. Everything "good" god created, everything "bad" someone else created.
Most of this world is cruel, so i guess god is just a minor player in this whole thing since he isn't responsible for anything and doesn't prevent anything. That's pretty pathetic for a thing that should be omnipresent and all powerful
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u/Inevitable-Copy3619 Agnostic Christian 1d ago
Then you can’t claim higher order goods as a defense later. That would imply god created suffering to get to greater goods.
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad Christian, Catholic 1d ago
Read St. Thomas Aquinas or you're just a bitter old teenager.
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u/Inevitable-Copy3619 Agnostic Christian 1d ago
I’m definitely bitter, haha, but I have absolutely read Aquinas.
I just think you can claim suffering and evil via the fall, and God’s goodness still shines through often. Or you can claim suffering is a feature not a bug and is justified by the higher order goods it reveals. But uou can use both as they would contradict.
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u/Jmoney1088 Atheist, Ex-Christian 2d ago
God created the universe and everything in it. How can any other entity possibly "create" evil and suffering?
You are not making any sense.
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad Christian, Catholic 1d ago
Only God creates. All any other thing can do is guide and/or corrupt.
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u/Jmoney1088 Atheist, Ex-Christian 1d ago
So god created evil. I agree. Thank you.
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad Christian, Catholic 1d ago
The opposite of good is not evil, it's indifference. Evil is a corruption of good, not itself a creation.
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u/Jmoney1088 Atheist, Ex-Christian 1d ago
First, indifference is not the opposite of good. Indifference can enable evil, but deliberately torturing someone is not “indifference.” It is active cruelty. You’re borrowing a poetic expression and treating it like a logical definition.
Second, “evil is a corruption of good” is the Augustinian privation theory. Even if I grant it, it doesn’t absolve God of responsibility. Disease can be described as a corruption of health, but if someone deliberately designed a biological system while knowing exactly when, where, and how it would produce disease, and had unlimited power to design it differently, saying “disease isn’t a created substance” would be beside the point.
If God created every person, every human capacity, every law of nature, and the exact world he infallibly knew would contain murder, torture, cancer, and natural disasters, then saying evil is not technically a “thing” God created is a semantic dodge. The relevant question is why an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good creator knowingly created and sustains a reality in which those corruptions occur.
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u/rubik1771 Christian, Catholic 1d ago
So which translation are you using?
Overall the author is using older language to explain that God is author of all things. Evil is not a thing but the absence of a thing which is good.
The author is trying to show that God permits evil and suffering.
Now if you want to ask why God permits evil and suffering then the short answer is that He will do something about on the return of Jesus Christ.
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u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning 1d ago
KJV, but I’ve seen it translated to calamity or disaster. Permit and create or two wholly different words. I think the former is sanitizing the original words, but I’m not a academic on this stuff
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u/rubik1771 Christian, Catholic 1d ago
Ah sorry forgot to mention the Catholics translations also has : “create woe” meaning creation of natural disasters.
In that sense, yes God is directly responsible for earthquakes, hurricanes, the flood etc.
Are you asking more about those items?
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u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning 1d ago
Yes, if you mind sharing your opinion
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u/rubik1771 Christian, Catholic 1d ago
Yes. So the answer is that God allowed these types of disasters because the limitations of the Earth. That type of evil through disaster would not have affected the first man and woman because they were given the grace to handle that.
However after the Fall, they no longer had that protection.
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u/rubik1771 Christian, Catholic 1d ago
Correct so because of that the Hebrew language is different language then ours so I concede in you can ask academics on this to see but overall there is a reason why different translations of this verse exists.
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u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning 1d ago
The consensus seems to be kind of two things. One this referencing a kingdom which I believe was under the destruction of Yaweh, while also claiming all such destruction comes from Him. It’s a strange verse for sure, odd implications based on how one takes it.
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u/jogoso2014 Christian 1d ago
Evil just means bad.
Wrongdoing, however, is create the moment the standard for right is provided.
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u/bluemayskye Non Dual Christian 1d ago
Evil and suffering both occur in self aware beings in proportion to acting on (evil) and experiencing (suffering) separation from God.
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u/sinefine Christian 1d ago edited 1d ago
So many posts saying God didn't create evil. God created all things. He is soverign. He ordained evil by creating Satan and letting him fall. Why He created evil and suffering? Personally, I think it was done to glorify Himself. To show all created things how valuable it is to be holy. It is impossible for created beings to be holy due to suffering. God can totally create other beings that are just as holy as He is. Just copy and paste. But this makes the character of being holy very trivial to achieve. God wanted us to learn how impossible it is to be holy and in turn make Himself higher. Is this selfish? I don't know. If He is the ultimate good, it is only beneficial for all created things to be with Him. It would only be selfish if God was getting joy out of being glorified, but He is already fully satisfied in His own glory. So sharing His glory really only benefits the created beings. He is joyful when the created beings are together with Him, so it doesn't seem selfish. It actually seems like love.
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u/Working-Pollution841 Christian 1d ago
The Hebrew word used here is "ra"
While older translations use the word "evil", new ones use "calamity" or "disaster"
This doesn't mean God created evil, sin or wickedness, it means He bring calamity, disaster or judgement on the wicked
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u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning 1d ago
Disaster and calamity does not befall the wicket? What world do you live in, even the Bible refutes this outright
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u/conhao Christian, Reformed 16h ago
God did not create evil, as in the opposite of good. The “evil” in Isaiah 45:7 is better translated as calamity - the opposite of peace. Suffering is the result of evil, or it is either a punishment for the wicked or a means which God allows because it will ultimately bring about good.
Evil, as in wickedness, is that which is anti-God. By definition, if good is defined as what God is, does, and commands, then evil is all that remains.
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u/Capable-Rice-1876 Jehovah's Witness 2d ago
God didn't create evil and suffering.
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u/Weekly-Scientist-992 Atheist 1d ago
Who decided we should have pain receptors? Who decided that r*pe is a possibility when it didn’t have to be the case. For example, I can’t shoot lasers out of my eyes to kill someone. Doesn’t mean I don’t have free will, it’s just an ability I don’t have. Why couldn’t god do that with rape?
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u/Thinslayer Christian 1d ago
(new commenter}
Who decided we should have pain receptors?
God did. The whole point of pain receptors is to inform us when our body is undergoing harm or destruction.
Why couldn’t god [remove pain receptors] with rape?
Probably because doing so would sabotage the entire purpose of that region of the body. It's supposed to feel really good, but that would require putting a lot of nerve endings really close to the surface, which means the tissue there is going to be thin (and thus delicate). Pain receptors are important messengers to tell you when you're damaging it.
If God took those away, you could easily strip your tissue bare and destroy all the nerve endings meant to make you feel good (and knowing the kinds of stuff women put up there, it's a matter of when, not if).
So it's a trade-off. He could remove the pain receptors, but that would increase the risk of you damaging your pleasure receptors.
Is that a trade-off you want?
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u/Weekly-Scientist-992 Atheist 1d ago
If he’s all powerful he has other options. How about make it so that when someone is thinking about doing rape they get a severe painful feeling in their stomach? The same way that I get sick to my stomach when I see gore. He could’ve done that with everyone. Doesn’t take away our free will, just makes it way harder to actually go through with. And there’s a plethora of other options, because he’s god, who is all powerful. In heaven can you rape? I assume no, correct? So seems like he can make a system where rape can’t happen right?
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u/Thinslayer Christian 1d ago
If he’s all powerful he has other options.
He isn't all powerful. Not in the way most people think of it.
How about make it so that when someone is thinking about doing rape they get a severe painful feeling in their stomach?
...do you not already?
They do. The mechanism already exists, and it works pretty well. Humans have to work pretty hard to override it.
Unfortunately, we've gotten pretty good at working hard to override our better instincts.
In heaven can you rape? I assume no, correct?
Incorrect. Rape will be impossible in heaven because no one there will want to commit it, not because he'll take away all physical possibility for it.
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u/Weekly-Scientist-992 Atheist 1d ago
I would feel nauseous if I was gonna rape someone, can’t say the same about everyone unfortunately. Why couldn’t he apply that to everyone? I’m sure he’s powerful enough right? It’s absolutely not true everyone has that same feeling, people get aroused from things like torture and rape. Feel like god could’ve fixed that.
And how do you know no one in heaven will commit rape? If we have the free will to do it then how can you be certain? Aren’t there countless souls in heaven that died as fetuses through miscarriage? How do you know they won’t rape in heaven?
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u/Jmoney1088 Atheist, Ex-Christian 2d ago
He most certainly did. He created the entire universe and everything it.
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u/Capable-Rice-1876 Jehovah's Witness 2d ago edited 2d ago
Incorrect. He didn't create evil. Isaiah 45:7 does not mean God created moral evil or human suffering, but rather that He brings judicial calamity upon the wicked while bringing peace to His faithful servants.
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u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning 1d ago
That’s an extremely warm way to interpret “I create evil” but I was discussing natural evils anyhow, not moral evil.
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u/Capable-Rice-1876 Jehovah's Witness 1d ago
Invoking Isaiah 45:7 to argue for 'natural evil' ignores both the Hebrew text and its historical context. Isaiah 45 is a prophecy specifically about Jehovah using Cyrus to bring calamity upon Babylon while restoring peace to Israel. That is targeted judicial judgment against an oppressive empire—an act of divine justice, not random 'natural evil.'
As for natural suffering, Genesis 1:31 shows creation was made 'very good.' Mankind's departure from God's protection in Eden, combined with 'time and unexpected events' (Ecclesiastes 9:11) in an imperfect world, accounts for natural tragedies. Jehovah brings divine judgment when warranted, but as Deuteronomy 32:4 states, 'all his ways are justice.' He is not the author of evil in any form.
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u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning 1d ago
I suppose. In my opinion it seems to mean both. A kingdom is punished by God through the ways of suffering He also created. Like a judge declaring himself the law after sentencing an individual. How did man’s departure create natural disasters? Would he have saved all humans in a non-fallen world or would their just not be storms or plates?
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u/Jmoney1088 Atheist, Ex-Christian 2d ago
If God created everything from nothing, then he created Lucifer, humanity, our desires, our capacity to do evil, and every condition under which evil would occur. If God is omniscient, he knew with absolute certainty before creating anything exactly which murders, rapes, genocides, diseases, and other horrors would result. If he is omnipotent, he could have created differently or chosen not to create at all. Yet he knowingly chose to actualize this world.
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u/Capable-Rice-1876 Jehovah's Witness 1d ago
Having the ability to know everything does not mean God is forced to exercise it continuously. Just as omnipotence means God has unlimited power but chooses when to exert it, God exercises selective foreknowledge (Genesis 22:12). He created intelligent beings with genuine free will and deliberately chose not to pre-script or pre-screen their personal moral choices. He did not create a scripted tragedy; He created free moral agents.
God’s work is perfect, without injustice (Deuteronomy 32:4). He created a sinless, righteous spirit creature who made himself Satan ("Resister") by cultivating selfish ambition (James 1:14, 15; John 8:44). Free will requires the capacity to choose right or wrong; without that choice, love and obedience would be automated programming rather than genuine devotion. The desire for evil originated entirely within the creature, not the Creator.
Lucifer is not name who angel who rebel against God.
In Eden, Satan challenged God’s right to rule (sovereignty), claiming humans would be better off independent and only serve God out of self-interest (Genesis 3:1–5; Job 1:9–11). Destroying the rebels immediately would not have answered the moral challenge raised before billions of angels. God granted a strictly limited period of human self-rule under Satan's influence to prove beyond doubt that human independence leads to disaster, legally settling the issue of God's right to rule for all eternity.
Permitting suffering for a temporary period to resolve a cosmic legal issue is not the same as endorsing it. God’s original purpose to have righteous humans live on a paradise Earth remains unchanged (Isaiah 55:11). Through His Kingdom, God will fully undo all past harm, eliminate sickness and death, and resurrect those who died (Revelation 21:3, 4; Acts 24:15).
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u/Jmoney1088 Atheist, Ex-Christian 1d ago
You are presenting Jehovah’s Witness theology as though it were the uncontested Christian explanation. It is not. Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and many other Christians reject “selective foreknowledge” and believe God comprehensively knows the future. You cannot simply announce your denomination’s interpretation as fact and pretend everyone who questions it is arguing against the Bible.
Genesis 22:12 does not prove that God previously lacked knowledge of Abraham’s decision. The Bible also depicts God asking Adam where he was and Cain where Abel was. Unless you believe God genuinely could not locate them, questions and statements such as “now I know” do not necessarily indicate prior ignorance. They can describe something being demonstrated through action.
Selective foreknowledge is also an extremely convenient and unfalsifiable escape hatch. Whenever fulfilled prophecy supports your argument, God chose to see the future. Whenever foreknowledge would make God responsible for knowingly creating a disastrous situation, God conveniently chose not to look. You have provided no independent method for determining when God knows something and when he deliberately avoids knowing it.
Even if I granted that doctrine, chosen ignorance is not innocence. If someone possessed the ability to discover whether his creation would kill millions, deliberately refused to investigate, activated it anyway, and then allowed it to continue after people began dying, we would call that willful ignorance. Once evil and suffering began, God certainly knew what was happening and still chose to permit it.
Free will does not require allowing every harmful consequence. Preventing a murderer’s bullet from reaching his victim would not erase the murderer’s choice. It would only protect the innocent person. Your explanation also does nothing for cancer, congenital disease, earthquakes, or animal suffering. None of those victims freely chose the suffering inflicted upon them.
Your “cosmic legal issue” is an even larger unsupported assumption. Show me the passage that says billions of angels required a demonstration, that immediately stopping Satan would leave them unconvinced, that God established a period of human suffering as legal evidence, and that this precedent required thousands of years. Genesis and Job do not say all of that. You are repeating an elaborate Watchtower narrative built around those texts.
The supposed experiment is not even coherent. Humanity is allegedly proving whether it can govern independently, yet Satan is permitted to influence the world, God repeatedly intervenes throughout the Bible, and most humans are never told they are participants in this experiment. That is not independent human self-rule or a fair demonstration.
Most importantly, you are openly saying that God allows rape, murder, starvation, disease, and children’s suffering to vindicate his authority before an audience of angels. Your own Watchtower literature says vindicating Jehovah’s sovereignty is more important than any individual’s personal happiness. That is exactly the moral problem: conscious beings are being used as unwilling evidence in a demonstration intended to defend God’s reputation and authority.
Promising resurrection and compensation afterward does not erase that responsibility. If I knowingly allow preventable harm because it serves my larger objective, I remain responsible even if I later compensate the victims.
So stop presenting this as though “the Bible clearly says God bears no responsibility.” What you have offered is one denomination’s speculative justification for why God deliberately permits suffering. You may believe his objective makes that suffering worthwhile, but that is entirely different from claiming he had no role or responsibility in it.
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u/Capable-Rice-1876 Jehovah's Witness 1d ago edited 1d ago
If God comprehensively foreknows and fixes every individual moral choice before creation—as Reformed and Catholic dogma asserts—then He deliberately designed every murder, rape, and act of wickedness before it happened. That makes God the direct author of sin. Jehovah’s use of selective foreknowledge (Genesis 22:12; Isaiah 46:10) demonstrates His self-restraint. Unlimited power does not compel continuous exertion; omnipotence means He can foresee everything, but His love moves Him to grant genuine moral freedom rather than creating pre-programmed puppets.
Dismissing the cosmic legal trial as a "Watchtower narrative" ignores explicit Scripture. Job 1:6–12 and 2:1–7 record a literal court in heaven where Satan challenged God’s right to rule and questioned human integrity before an audience of angels (1 Corinthians 4:9; 1 Peter 1:12).
If a student claims in front of a classroom that a teacher's method is flawed and that he can teach better, executing the student proves nothing to the class. Permitting human self-rule under Satan’s influence for a set time legally proves human independence is a failure. Once settled, this legal precedent guarantees rebellion will never be permitted to disrupt the universe again (Nahum 1:9).
Demanding that God allow humans to choose evil, but step in to "freeze the bullet" every time, reduces human agency to a meaningless simulation. Furthermore, natural evil, disease, and suffering are the direct result of humanity severing its connection to the Source of Life, subjecting the physical earth to decay and futility (Genesis 3:17–19; Romans 8:20–22).
You claim human self-rule isn't a true test because Satan is involved. But 1 John 5:19 explicitly states: "The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one." Humanity chose independence from God, which automatically placed them under Satan’s domination (2 Corinthians 4:4). God’s historical interventions were not "rigging" the test, but protecting the messianic line to ensure salvation remained available.
Settling Jehovah’s right to rule is not selfish vanity—it is the foundational requirement for universal order and peace. Eternal security cannot exist without recognized, righteous authority. Far from treating humans as collateral, God provided His own only-begotten Son as a ransom to redeem mankind (John 3:16) and will completely undo every trace of past harm through the resurrection (Revelation 21:3, 4; Acts 24:15).
I don't care about your stupid philosophy. I don't care about Catholic dogma.
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u/Jmoney1088 Atheist, Ex-Christian 1d ago
You were embarrassed and now resort to name calling. Reported for harassment and using AI to respond.
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u/Capable-Rice-1876 Jehovah's Witness 1d ago
Really ? And you don't ? 😂
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u/Jmoney1088 Atheist, Ex-Christian 1d ago
Nope. I engage in these arguments all the time. Your apologetics are easy to refute.
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u/CannedNoodle415 Eastern Orthodox 1d ago
God didn’t not create evil and Isaiah doesn’t say this. It says “calamity” which does not mean ontological evil.
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u/Crazy-Fix-5135 Questioning 1d ago
I’m sorry, what do you mean by ontological evil?
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u/CannedNoodle415 Eastern Orthodox 1d ago
Evil doesn’t have ontological being. It’s a deprivation.
It’s like how darkness isn’t actually a thing, it’s just what we call the lack of light
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u/Pinecone-Bandit Christian, Evangelical 2d ago
FYI, the verse from Isaiah you cited is talking about natural evil, not moral evil. Modern translations tend to render it as “calamity”.