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God is a very real presence in my life. This God of grace is not a still, small voice but a huge presence to me. It is a voice that I do not always follow faithfully but God’s direction for my life has become very evident to me.
My faith walk has been circuitous. I grew from a childhood in the church to a young adulthood away from worshipful opportunities. Despite the distance I placed between myself and God there was always a calling that became harder to resist. I found myself involved in a growing number of outreach activities, frequent church attendance and a greater satisfaction with life in general. I became more comfortable living as myself. If that sounds vague or difficult to understand, it is. It is not a clear-cut, divine
The human desire for evil is driven by the choice of self-interest over that of our neighbors. Humanity, consciously or unconsciously, uses the God given free will to make choices in our lives. It is these decisions that track the path of evil in our world. This follows the beliefs of St. Augustine, “there is no evil outside of the will” and that “God the Creator has created only good things, and there is no other creator alongside God.” . This God of grace permeates our world in way that envelopes humanity waiting for us to turn away from evil and sin. When we pray for God’s presence, I pray that we might open our hearts to the already present
In hurricane katrina my family had three homes nearly destroyed and all had to be completely rebuilt. Six vehicles were damaged beyond repair. The psychological damage done to my young niece continues to haunt her and has called for professional care.
I do not consider these evil. While these are certainly cause pain, they are all naturally occurring in our world. Some of them are the consequences or result of human action: a home built too close to the shore, a person who smokes excessively or participates in any activity that leads to negative results such as illness.
There are other tragedies that are outside my understanding, a child born with cystic fibrosis, a terrible accident, my brother’s death from disease, mental illness and others. These could be labeled as evil and I would not argue because of the sorrow these cause. The Harper Collins Bible Dictionary defines evil as “all forms of evil are regarded as ultimately occasioned by the disobedience and rebellion of the human race” . And yet we still have these mysteries that we live with in this world and can only look forward to this revelation in the world to
It is perhaps the most difficult intellectual challenge to a Christian how God and evil can both exist. Many of the greatest minds of the Christian church and intellects such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas spent their entire lives trying to solve this problem, and were unsuccessful (Erickson, 2009, p.439). However, this dilemma is not only an intellectual challenge, but it is emotional. Man feels it, lives it. Failing to identify the religious form of the problem of evil will appear insensitive; failure to address the theological form will seem intellectually insulting. This conundrum will never be completely met during our earthly life, but there are many biblical and philosophical resources that help mitigate it.
There are two kinds of evil, moral and natural. Moral evil is things like murder, rape, stealing, terrorism, etc. Natural evil is things like suffering and unpleasantness typically as a result of moral evil. Evil is that which has no power of its own. Evil is darkness, a negation of light. Its power is in us, in our fear of it, in that we consider it a "something" worth responding to.
Good, is portrayed by God, and evil seems to be what fate has in store for the
Dictionary.com defines evil as “the wicked or immoral part of someone or something.” Within the novel, Grendel by John Gardner evil is inescapable as this topic is discussed throughout the novel. Though the story holds a resemblance to its inspiration of the epic Beowulf in its portrayal of Grendel, it fails to highlight the underlying evil within the Anglo-Saxon’s and their values. Gardner’s novel reveals that evil is everywhere as it is seen in not only Grendel's but also in human lives and is presented in a more complex way than the epic as both have their own dark sides.
Evil, one word, two syllables, two vowels, two consonants. Definition: The opposite of that which is ascribed as being good. Evil? What is it? What is it made of? Can you eat it?. Any preacher, teacher, mentor, master, professor, coach, educator, or tutor who claims to know what is evil and where does it emanates from is simple and utterly a liar. Evil is not a thing you can touch or some microscopic parasite that you can examine under a microscope. Evil is not physical, although it sometimes it is said to be. Evil in its most purest form is mental. Take for instance the story of the perfect girl with no one ounce of impurity who ends up killing her whole family over night, or the tale of two little children who murdered their parents by only using their imagination. They are the living example of mental “evilness”.
Has evil always been around, or did man create it? One could trace evil all the way back to Adam and Eve; however, evil came to them, but it was not in them. When did evil become part of a person? No one knows, but evil has been around for a long time and unfortunately is discovered by everyone. In many great classics in literature evil is at the heart or the theme of the novel, including Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. This classic book demonstrates the growing up of two children in the South and illustrates the theme of evil by showing how they discover, how they deal, and how they reconcile themselves to the evils they experience.
We hear about the murders, assaults, robberies, natural disasters and all other evil or natural destructive events in the world, we have to ask the question, how could God let such bad things happen to good people or to let these disastrous events happen at all. Now think about the world and its population if evil or natural disasters did not exist; the world population would be unimaginable. Natural disasters are beyond human control, but murders, assaults, robberies and all other evil or bad deeds committed by human beings is a matter of exercising bad choice or misuse of free will.
Evil can be a scary thing many things can influence on why a person may be considered evil or do evil things.People do things because they were influenced by others or by their own selfish desires,
All in all, the problem of evil has been debated for thousands of years. Some believe that evil is caused by Satan and not humanity, such as the Manichaeanists and Bogomilists, and some believe that humans are the cause of evil, rather than God, such as Augustine, Peter Kreefe, and myself. While God is aware that a lack of goodness could occur, he is not the cause of it. He is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving and creates human beings with absolute goodness; however, with that that absolute goodness comes free will. With free will, humans have the ability to choose wrongly and therefore experience evil or a lack of goodness. God has given us that right because it is the only way to become happy. God cannot make one happy. The individual is the cause for their own happiness.
To answer this question, it is first important to differentiate between evil/dark and good/light. What can truly be considered evil and good? It ultimately depends on the situation at hand. A person is walking down the street and sees a malefactor beating up a young girl. The person proceeds to beat up the malefactor. Both the malefactor and person are hurting another person but one is considered good and the other is considered evil. Anything can be evil and anything can be good but until the situation is explained it is neither good nor evil.
“…And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:9-13) As it says in the Bible, we wish to be led astray from evil. However, evil is a very curious subject. For most intensive purposes, evil can be described as cruel, heinous, and unnecessary punishment. Evil is a relatively accepted concept in the world today, although it is not completely understood. Evil is supposedly all around us, and at all times. It is more often than not associated with a figure we deem Satan. Satan is said to be a fallen angel, at one point God’s favorite. Supposedly Satan tries to spite God by influencing our choices, and therefore our lives. However, this presents a problem: The Problem of Evil. This argues against the existence of God. Can God and evil coexist?
The lines that define good and evil are not written in black and white; these lines tend to blur allowing good and evil to intermingle with each another in a single human being.
Evil is defined in multiple meanings. In J.R.R Tolkien’s works he describes evil in a variety of different ways. Like in the award winning book The Hobbit, evil is a big factor for the entire journey for the dwarves, Bilbo, and Gandalf, and without the evil in The Hobbit the quest wouldn’t have been necessary. So the question is what is evil? The definition for evil is profoundly immoral and malevolent. Tolkien portrays evil in The Hobbit by using trolls, goblins, fire breathing dragons, and other mythical creatures.
When a person finds joy in something, they call it good. On the other hand, if it brings them agony, they call it evil. Good and evil can mean whatever people want you to think they mean. What is good to one person can be evil to another person. For instance, a soldier that goes to war for his country will be viewed as a hero. But the wives and children of the men that the soldier killed will view him as an evil person. No one really knows the true meaning of good and evil. All everyone really knows are just the world’s opinion on what good and evil really are.
more than evil is capable of what seems to be good. More often in the story, God