The Power of Good and the Power of Evil According to Christian Belief
Most Christians believe that the devil, or Satan, is the power of evil
and that God is the power of good. Satan is an ancient Middle Eastern
word meaning "an accuser". Satan appears at various times through the
Bible as the opposite to God. Satan, in the form of a snake, tempts
Adam and Eve to eat the apple and so disobey God. Satan also tests Job
and even tempts Jesus to abandon his ministry (but is unsuccessful).
Many Christians say the devil is a real being, who has the power to
corrupt us into doing evil. Some of these people's lives revolve
around "resisting Satan". They ban the music of rock groups whose
lyrics supposedly include satanic ideas. They hold exorcisms to rid
people of satanic influence.
In the Middle Ages the Church developed an obsession with Satan.
Satan, or the Devil, was seen as an ugly man dressed in red, who lived
in the fires of a place called Hell. Life was pictured as a cosmic
struggle between God and Satan, or Good and Evil, in which humans were
little more than pawns.
Most Christians believe that Satan was once one of God's high angels
until he became greedy and wanted to become more powerful than God.
God then threw Lucifer (Satan) out of heaven and into Hell, "And he
said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven" (Luke
10:18). Some Christians take this to have literal meaning, but others
say Satan is just a made-up person to symbolise evil.
Some Christians say that Evil does not exist, it is merely an absence
of good. St Augustine first suggested this view in the fourth century.
He said that all things were created good, but because of free will it
was possible for things to grow away from good and become evil.
However, he added, that what appears evil may be good in the context
of eternity.
There was a great deal of talk about evil in the weeks following the
The problem of evil is a big topic in today’s society and will continue to be for forever. The problem is that so many bad things happen in the world that Gods existence is debatable and if he is real, it is questionable that he is as powerful as the bible portrays him to be. In this case, we ask the question, how can such a good and powerful God not prevent evil in the world? The argument at hand is that if a perfect God exists, there would be no evil in the world and since evil exists, there is no God. In this paper, I will examine both sides to the problem. I will discuss views on why God is in existence and allows evil, as well as views on why God is not in existence based on the fact that there is evil in the world. After that I will take my stance on the issue and justify why I think that way.
want to end all of the suffering that occurs in the world, just as an
Between a one of god's greatest servants, Job. Before god's treacherous test, Job lives a great life full of blessings. “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all people of the east” (Job 1: 1-4). “That man was blameless and upright” shows that Job did not harm before being tested, that he was just a simple living human being. “He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels… and very many servants” shows all the blessing that god has given him. We see Job as a great servant to god through the many rewards that he has acquired like his livestock and his sons and daughters. This will soon be challenged by good and evil, God and Satan. The two almighty powers discuss “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side?... Very well, all that he has is in your power”
“The third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive… For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes… Behind me, I heard the same man asking; ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows.’” (Wiesel, 1982) What possible good could have come out of this child being executed? He committed no recognizable crime. How could an all powerful, all knowing, perfectly good God allow such a thing to happen? Philosophers and theologians have struggled with this question for centuries. It is known as the problem of evil, as the existence of evil and the classical theistic concept of God appear to be logical incompatibilities. Many philosophers have devised theodicies or justifications of evil; however; J. L. Mackie proposed that the only plausible explanation is not that evil is justifiable but rather that the problem lies in the traditional concept of God.
Genesis 3 highlights and records the fall in a simplistic form so it can be easily understood. On the sixth day of creation, God formed man in his own image. Man who is in the image of God has “dominion over…all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26). The question would not be about the appearance but the power of dominion of man who is made in the image of God.
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (Lewis, 1994, p. 91). Throughout history man has had to struggle with the problem of evil. It is one of the greatest problems of the world. Unquestionably, there is no greater challenge to man’s faith then the existence of evil and a suffering world. The problem can be stated simply: If God is an all-knowing and all-loving God, how can He allow evil? If God is so good, how can He allow such bad things to happen?Why does He allow bad things to happen to good people? These are fundamental questions that many Christians and non-Christians set out to answer.
“…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?
My claim that we have evil in this world because of our libertarian freedom does not fully answer the notion of “the problem of evil”. Saying we have evil in this world is just like saying we have bad decisions in this world. Bad decisions just like evil do not have a form. Every decision that God makes is a good decision therefore God cannot do evil. Human beings initiated evil. In fact, the first human beings (Adam and Eve) gave ongoing birth to evil because everyone ultimately came from them. So everyone after Adam and Eve is inherently evil. This idea is evident in our lives because every human being has committed evil. The ultimate problem is not how an all-powerful God can exist while evil exist, the ultimate dilemma is how a holy God can accept human beings that are not holy. Stephen T. Davis in “Free Will and Evil” writes, “All the moral evil that exists in the world is due to the choices of free moral agents whom God created” (Davis). Davis argues that free will is the answer to the problem of evil. This is consistent with my view that evil exists because of our libertarian freedom. Unlike Hick, Davis is consistent with my answer for evil and he is also consistent with how evil is solved in regards to heaven and hell. Davis states, “I do believe hell exists, but I do not hold that it is a place where protesting people are led against their will to be tortured vengefully. I believe that the people who will end up separated from God freely choose hell and would be unhappy in God’s presence. Having lived their lives apart from God, they will choose eternally—to go on doing so. So it is not a bad thing that they do not spend eternity in the presence of God. People who will prove to be incorrigibly evil will never come to th...
Evil exists in all human beings, even children. This is proven in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies in which a group of youthful, inncocent boys are stranded without any contact with the outside world. The boys are not in the civil surrondings that they are used to, but their instincts kick in and their ultimate goal is to survive, together. The first sense of security is when all of the boys find eachother. They are given hope. Hope that is immediately lost when the division between the two born leaders, Jack and Ralph, begins. Their innocence is lost due to the lack of proper authority and consequence. They are no longer just juvenile boys under someone else's care, but survivors fighting to stay alive.
Evil is a metaphysical term used to describe the thoughts and actions of humans that are seen as morally wrong or ‘bad’. In extreme cases even a person can be labelled as overall evil, such as Adolf Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer. Previously, it has been thought that a person has the ability to choose between being ‘good’ or ‘evil’ and that they simply make this decision based upon what pleases them. Recently, however, neuroscientists have shed some light upon the physical explanations of human thought and action. In this essay I argue that evil does not exist, and that actions and thoughts previously termed ‘evil’ are in fact malfunctions of the human brain.
These explanations above, apparently, do not give explanations of the problem of natural disasters. Why there are tornadoes, epidemics, hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes happen in our world? These evils cannot be explained by free will of creatures. Because of these natural disasters many innocent people die or lose their families and friends. How can natural evil be explained and what is the reason behind it? Moral evil is explained through the concept of free will, but we cannot do the same with natural evil. Therefore, there is a problem: God is the one who is responsible for the natural evil, and, as a result he is also responsible for death and suffering of innocent people. (Geisler, 2011)
The presence of evil has been a conflicting view amidst various philosophers dating back thousands of years. With the belief in God across the world, an essential question arises: Since God is claimed to be omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving, then how can there be evil in the world? Augustine of Hippo, a preeminent philosopher who was born in Algeria, North Africa in 354, had attempted to expound this significant contradiction. In 360, Augustine followed the religion of Manichaeism, which was founded by a Persian man named Mani. They believed that humankind, being a byproduct of the devil, was inherently evil and, therefore, not culpable for evil in the world. With the belief that humans were capable of free will, Augustine ultimately broke ties with the Manichaeans. Human beings as one entity of body and soul were made good by the almighty God and with their free will were able to cause evil phenomenons to occur, which rules out the idea that God is the cause of evil. Peter Kreeft was one that agreed with the ideals of Augustine and offered an answer to why God created the possibility of evil.
...en by Mitchell. The words he chose to describe evil in his story, to describe two beings, are very similar and one could conclude that the two are the same being. The only problem with this assumption are the visual associations that already exist in people’s minds. It seems impossible that an angel, something noted for its winged physique and angelic appearance, or a fallen angel, namely Satan, who is characterized as a red demon, could be the same as the Serpent, which is described as a sea monster. Although modern conceptions of the devil have changed, and the devil has become more monster like, it can still be hard to imagine the devil, who was an angel, to look like a sea monster. Once visual connotations are put aside, it is possible to interchange the two characters.
Before one understands why there is evil in the world one must ask two important questions. First, who is God and what is His personality/characteristics, and second, what is sin and how does it affect humans and their relationship with God? By understanding these two different types of questions, one will understand the implications of evil and therefore be able to establish if God truly is evil or if sin truly is the root of all the evil in the world. Sin is defined by Erickson when he refers to the work of Satan, saying, “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is likeness of God.” 1 Consequently,
Good versus evil is an eternal struggle, conflict, war, or a unification. Good exists while evil does as well, this is because without evil, there can be no such thing as good, and without good, there can also be no evil. The question exists that if there is an all-good & powerful God who is omniscient; omnipotent; omni-benevolent; then how can evil exist within such absolute terms?