Does God do Evil ?

[Brother Mark]

I see your point, but this was an isolated thing that was done for a specific reason, which seems to be.... that the works of God should be made manifest in him. When a woman is raped for example, I don't see how that would agree with any of the context in this passage.

I think you are right about this David. We need to be careful that we don't assign to God the evil actions of man, at the same time, recognize that God will work things to our benefit. While the Babylonians pillaged Israel, and God raised them up, it would not be prudent, IMO, to lay the blame at his feet for the evil actions of the Babylonians. God judged them for what they did. However, he did use the evil they worked to chastise Israel. He raised them up for the very purpose of judging Israel. Yet, I don't believe for one minute that it is in God's heart to rape, pillage, etc.

I find myself lacking in trying to explain/understand the conundrum we find in scriptures. But it's there. God raised up the Babylonians to take Israel into slavery. Does that make him responsible for all the Babylonians did to Israel? I don't think so. I see him using the evil in Babylon to accomplish his purposes, then judging them for being evil.

[Fenris]

Just wanted you to know why we call the serpent satan. This is coming from a Jewish man, John the Apostle, 2000 years ago.

This is not a concept in normative Judaism, although I know it exists in Christianity.

[Fenris]

I couldn't disagree more with the idea that God causes a man to rape a baby.

As I said, it's a challenge to the believer. But there it is.

[LookingUp]

As I have said, this is the challenge of the believer: that it's all from God, the good and the bad. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD."

In order for us to understand everything that God does, we would have to be as smart as Him. But we are finite and He is infinite, so that is not possible.

I wonder why people use that verse, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways My ways" to support their doctrine that God causes suffering when in context that statement is about our inability to understand God's great mercy toward the wicked who forsake his way and return to the LORD. What our thoughts can't fathom has nothing to do with the question of suffering, it's why God would pardon the wicked who repent.

[LookingUp]

As I said, it's a challenge to the believer. But there it is.

It's not a challenge for me, because I don't believe Scripture teaches it.

[LookingUp]

I think you are right about this David. We need to be careful that we don't assign to God the evil actions of man, at the same time, recognize that God will work things to our benefit. While the Babylonians pillaged Israel, and God raised them up, it would not be prudent, IMO, to lay the blame at his feet for the evil actions of the Babylonians. God judged them for what they did. However, he did use the evil they worked to chastise Israel. He raised them up for the very purpose of judging Israel. Yet, I don't believe for one minute that it is in God's heart to rape, pillage, etc.

I find myself lacking in trying to explain/understand the conundrum we find in scriptures. But it's there. God raised up the Babylonians to take Israel into slavery. Does that make him responsible for all the Babylonians did to Israel? I don't think so. I see him using the evil in Babylon to accomplish his purposes, the judging them for being evil.

Another great post, Mark. God used them to punish Israel (i.e. to conquer and bring them into captivity), but we don't see God condoning their methods.

[Fenris]

I wonder why people use that verse, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways My ways" to support their doctrine that God causes suffering when in context that statement is about our inability to understand God's great mercy toward the wicked who forsake his way and return to the LORD. What our thoughts can't fathom has nothing to do with the question of suffering, it's why God would pardon the wicked who repent.

That's all it means? In every other aspect we can understand what God does? I don't think so...

[Fenris]

It's not a challenge for me, because I don't believe Scripture teaches it.

Is God not all-powerful?

[Brother Mark]

Another great post, Mark. God used them to punish Israel (i.e. to conquer and bring them into captivity), but we don't see God condoning their methods.

I think a lot of it goes back to the garden. We still would have been challenged by God to grow into the image of Christ by saying no to our flesh. However, once the fruit was eaten, suffering entered into life in a way that wasn't in the garden. The testing and molding and maturing is to continue just as it would have in the garden. But now, death, disease, slavery, and all the other evils that go with it plague mankind. God will still test, but now we endure things, because we each ate of the fruit, that would not otherwise have had to happen, IMHO.

Having said that, it is not easy to explain away that God did indeed raise up the Babylonians. How then can we not lay at his feet some of the troubling things they did? I like what Cory-Ten-Boon said about just such a question. She was witnessing to a woman in prison with her. (She was in prison because she had hidden Jews during the war.) The woman had been able to play a musical instrument but the Nazi's crippled her so she could no longer play. She held her hand up to Cori and her sister and said "How can your God be love and allow this to happen?" Cory and her sister replied "We don't know. But he loves us and you."

In 1 Cor. 5, we find that God uses Satan to destroy the body in order to save the spirit similar to how he used Babylon in the OT. He does so out of love because He is love. But such things are not easy for us to understand.

[Eyelog]

There is only one instance that I could find where one of the friends said anything wrong. Bildad told Job in 8:5 that Job should have made supplication for his children ahead of time, and of course we know Job had done that.

God never said the friends said anything wrong, rather it was what they had not said that God chastised them for. Job confessed to being a sinner and repented, the three friends had not confessed and repented at the time God chastised them for not saying what was right, but Job had. When John the baptist came telling Israel to repent those that did not repent where not saying what was right.

I have asked people to point out where in the book that the three friends said what was wrong.

I believe Job cursed God in his heart, but still whether he recognized this as sin is questionable. We know that even unintended sin needs atonement, so regardless Job needed atonement and his own righteousness was not adequate.

Job's wrestling with God was one of the heart and not physical. If Job had quit he would have lost his soul in the pit, as described by Elihu, who said Job needed a ransom before he died, because, by implication, Elihu said it would be to late after he died.

Hi Redeemed.

Job's wrestling with God in his heart was not wrestling in prayer, and it was not benign in the way Jacob's wrestling was. Nor did Jacob/Israel arise from the fray repentant. Job should have been wrestling in prayer, not in defiance, 'multiplying words without knowledge,' self-righteously. He should have taken his freinds' advice to seek God in his distress,rather than going off the deep end, as he clearly did, practicallly drvien to madness in his grief. He wanted to die rather than endure any more ofthis suffering, which he rightly said was brought on by God's authorization.

Ultimately, though, it was onlyh the fear of the Lord which restored Him.

In his face to face confrontation with God (“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You"), Job confessed he spoke wrongly about the Lord, about things he did not know. And he then recanted his words and repented. He did not "curse God to His face". (Satan predicted, "However, put forth Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse You to Your face.” Job 2:5 See 1:11 also.)

Specifically, the passage says:

1 Then Job answered the LORD and said,
2 “I know that You can do all things,
And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”
4 ‘Hear, now, and I will speak;
I will ask You, and You instruct me.’
5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees You;
6 Therefore I retract,
And I repent in dust and ashes.”

You are saying the three friends never said something wrong about God, but just didn't say something right about Him. I agree forthe most part, though God required they make the sacrifices, which God would not have accepted but for Job's prayerful intercession for them. No doubt God wanted Job to forgive his friends, and they him. He also wanted to show He favored Job over them. Indeed, as I think you are saying, they should have conessed, recanted and repented too, but they did not. Note how they had to do sacrifices but Job did not.

So now we come down to it. What did the 3 friends say that was false?

Well, I did not think it so cool that Eliphaz quotes a demon who visited him, and the demon's perverted conclusion about how God deals with man:

12 “Now a word was brought to me stealthily,
And my ear received a whisper of it.
13 “Amid disquieting thoughts from the visions of the night,
When deep sleep falls on men,
14 Dread came upon me, and trembling,
And made all my bones shake.
15 “Then a spirit passed by my face;
The hair of my flesh bristled up.
16 “It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance;
A form was before my eyes;
There was silence, then I heard a voice:
17 ‘Can mankind be just before God?
Can a man be pure before his Maker?
18 ‘He puts no trust even in His servants;
And against His angels He charges error.
19 ‘How much more those who dwell in houses of clay,
Whose foundation is in the dust,
Who are crushed before the moth!
20 ‘Between morning and evening they are broken in pieces;
Unobserved, they perish forever.
21 ‘Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them?
They die, yet without wisdom.’ Job 4.

Not sure that was a good thing to say to a despondent man. Indeed, it was a taunt of Satan, not unlike what Job's wife uttered. Satan twisted the truth to lead Job to further despair.

Yet, Eliphaz pulls it out, and says, "8 “But as for me, I would seek God,
And I would place my cause before God;
9 Who does great and unsearchable things,
Wonders without number." Job 5.

How would you take that passage?

++++++++++++++
Edited point:

In my blog post I said:

If that was not enough, he was falsely accused by being punished for seriously sinning against the Lord, by three of his best friends. They saw what the Lord was doing and attributed it to God’s punishment rather than His discipline, causing further discouragement to Job over being falsely accused and defamed. Job accurately replied to them, “⁴"But you smear with lies; You are all worthless physicians.” Job 13:4.

Where I come from, that's the conventional wisdom. Aside from the issue of speaking falsehoods, does it seem the 3 Amigos have it wrong as described? Or, are they really telling it like it is with Job?

[LookingUp]

That's all it means? In every other aspect we can understand what God does? I don't think so...

No, we don't understand what God does in every other aspect. But I think it's a cop-out to use it in this situation. I already shared that Scripture doesn't teach it, but somehow you think I'll change my mind by saying we just can't understand God’s thoughts. Of course, we can understand some of God’s thoughts. This passage tells us we will have difficulty understanding God’s thoughts as it relates to His mercy. No surprise here…we humans struggle with showing mercy. But as far as the topic of this thread, God already made His thoughts clear regarding what He thinks of evil and those who commit acts of evil. So, no, I don’t think it’s appropriate to use the ol’, “our thoughts are not His thoughts.”

[LookingUp]

Is God not all-powerful?

Sure, God is all-powerful.

[ewq1938]

Yep. The word does not have just one definition so we have to determine which definition is being used in any given verse and the definition that fits best in Isaiah 45:7 is disaster or calamity rather than moral evil.

No, the one and only correct choice is the one the translators knew was the right one, Evil. God creates peace and evil, period. He creates calamities and whatnot but he also has created evil. Anything other than that is creating a new verse that God did not speak.

[ewq1938]

Maybe the reason it's a common argument is because it's a valid argument, since apparently a lot of folks are coming to the same conclusions about that verse. Your argument is that it's not in the feminine form. After reading what Lookingup's friend, who is a scholar in Hebrew, had to say on the matter, I'm inclined to think he likely knows what he's talking about, based on the fact he is the expert scholar in Hebrew.

So now it's a fact this person is an expert? lol

Besides, he did not counter anything mentioned in this thread so his comments are essentially moot.

[LookingUp]

I think a lot of it goes back to the garden. We still would have been challenged by God to grow into the image of Christ by saying no to our flesh. However, once the fruit was eaten, suffering entered into life in a way that wasn't in the garden. The testing and molding and maturing is to continue just as it would have in the garden. But now, death, disease, slavery, and all the other evils that go with it plague mankind. God will still test, but now we endure things, because we each ate of the fruit, that would not otherwise have had to happen, IMHO.

Having said that, it is not easy to explain away that God did indeed raise up the Babylonians. How then can we not lay at his feet some of the troubling things they did? I like what Cory-Ten-Boon said about just such a question. She was witnessing to a woman in prison with her. (She was in prison because she had hidden Jews during the war.) The woman had been able to play a musical instrument but the Nazi's crippled her so she could no longer play. She held her hand up to Cori and her sister and said "How can your God be love and allow this to happen?" Cory and her sister replied "We don't know. But he loves us and you."

In 1 Cor. 5, we find that God uses Satan to destroy the body in order to save the spirit similar to how he used Babylon in the OT. He does so out of love because He is love. But such things are not easy for us to understand.

Thanks, Mark. You sound as if you have a pretty decent handle on this topic and you've been doing a fabulous job at articulating to us your understanding. Very helpful, indeed.