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This restoration also clarified that God does not create Ex nihilo (out of nothing), but uses existing materials to organize order out of chaos. [68] Because opposition is inherent in nature, and God operates within nature's bounds, God is therefore not considered the author of evil, nor will He eradicate all evil from the mortal experience. [69]
However, Edwards' theology presumes a God whose vengeance and contempt are directed toward evil and its manifestation in fallen humanity. To Edwards, a deity that ignores moral corruption or shows indifference to evil would be closer to the deity espoused by dystheism, that is, evil, because justice is an extension of love and moral goodness.
Indeed, one of the most important issues with this verse is that it seems to imply that God is the one who leads humans into sin, not humanity's innate sinfulness as Christian theologians generally believe. A literal reading of this verse could imply that God is the source of evil. There are several explanations for getting around this.
For some thinkers, the existence of evil and hell could mean that God is not perfectly good and powerful or that there is no God at all. [58] Theodicy tries to address this dilemma by reconciling an all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnibenevolent God with the existence of evil and suffering, outlining the possibility that God and evil can coexist.
This verse extends the same observations to God's response to prayer. If a flawed human father looks out for his own child, then there is no reason to doubt that the perfectly good God will not have the best interest of his followers in heart. According to this verse, Jesus calls his hearers Greek: Πονηροὶ, poneroi, "evil".
This verse, as with Matthew 5:37, is vague on evil. It could be interpreted as a reference to the Evil One, i.e. Satan, the general evil of the world, as translated by the KJV, or the evil of specific individuals, as is translated by the WEB. The third interpretation is the one held by most modern scholars.
It means that God is unable to sin, which is a stronger statement than merely saying that God does not sin. [25] Robert Morey argues that God does not have the "absolute freedom" found in Greek philosophy. Whereas "the Greeks assumed the gods were 'free' to become demons if they so chose", the God of the Bible "is 'free' to act only in ...
There is, first of all, the claim that if there is a personal God who is perfectly loving, creatures capable of explicit and positively meaningful relationship with God, who have not freely shut themselves off from God, are always in a position to participate in such relationship—able to do so just by trying to.