Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Religious responses to the problem of evil are concerned with reconciling the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. [1] [2] The problem of evil is acute for monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism whose religion is based on such a God.
The book also references the concept of "fallen time" and of an atemporal fall (where the entire universe is considered to be incomplete and imperfect as a result of a fall that took place outside of time as we now experience it). Hart's book is not a typical Christian apology for the existence of evil in a world created by a good God.
Evil, according to Clement, does not exist as a positive, but exists as a negative or as a "lack of good". [61] Clement's idea was criticised for its inability to explain suffering in the world, if evil did not exist. He was also pressed by Gnostics scholars with the question as to why God did not create creatures that "did not lack the good".
Such sins are described as removal from God's presence. The devil's sin does not give evil a positive value, since evil is, according to Augustinian theodicy, merely a byproduct of creation. The spirits have all been created in the love of God, but the devil valued himself more, thereby abandoning his position for a lower good.
Framed this way, the suffering of Hell is caused by free will and something God could not have prevented; or worse still is caused by the lack of free will, as God's omniscience—His knowing/determining all that will ever happen in His creation, including human acts of good and evil—makes free will impossible and souls predestined, but God ...
Numerous variations of theodicy have been proposed which all maintain that, while evil exists, God is either not responsible for creating evil, or he is not guilty for creating evil. Typically, the Irenaean theodicy asserts that the world is the best of all possible worlds because it allows humans to fully develop.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
In his book The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity, Jeffrey Burton Russell discusses various meanings and difficulties that are encountered when using the term devil. He does not claim to define the word in a general sense, but he describes the limited use that he intends for the word in his book—limited in ...