If there is a God, why is there evil?

Hi, John.

I prefer to reference the King James version whenever questions of doctine are raised, and other versions only to help shed light on difficult passages. There are a couple of reasons for this.

Firstly, the KJV is free of copyright. No man owns the text, so it is free of cost and there is no need to esteem anyone's name but God's when quoting it. Secondly, it is not influenced by the modern tendency to try to make reading easy, which not only constrains the text to particular interpretations, but inhibits the absolutely necessary task of questioning what you read. If you have to ask, "What is this passage saying?", you will either give up or do some work to find out. Given that God prefers us to be participators rather than freeloaders, desirous of solid food and not just milk, the KJV gives us opportunity to demonstrate to ourselves that we really want to participate.

That's not to say that other versions aren't needed. How could Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, etc, etc, speakers have access to the words of God if the KJV were the only one available. For ENGLISH SPEAKERS who want a version less influenced by paraphrase and "dynamic equivalence", the KJV fits the bill.

As an example of what I'm talking about, look how the KJV compares with the NIV in Psalm 139:13
"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb."
-- NIV

"For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb."
-- KJV

The NIV clearly conveys David's belief that God put him together, but the KJV is a little more mysterious. It talks of possession. It talks of being "covered", Strong's number H5526, which also means "overshadowed", which then opens up a connection to Luke 1:35 where it is told to Mary that she would be "overshadowed" by the Holy Spirit in order for her to give birth to Jesus. In other words, the prophetic nature of David's words are lost in the NIV.

The words of the NIV still accurately depict David's thoughts, but they don't allow for the possibility that God via the Holy Spirit actually knitted together the genetic attributes of Joseph and Mary, so that the flesh of Jesus was truly descended from David, but that the spirit of Jesus was God the Father himself. This is where the "possessed my reins" is important, but missing from the NIV. The "reins", Strong's H3629 means "kidneys", which was believed to be the seat of emotion and affection. So, God himself was walking and talking amongst his creatures, fully man according to the flesh, and fully God according to the spirit.

Even if you want to contend that I am inventing stuff, the modern translations actualy prevent this sort of mental activity, which I believe, is the essence of inspiration.

Cheers,
enegue.

Hello Enegue.

There are a few examples I can use which show the difference.
No I am not going to use the bible.
In classical music there are some who like to use the original instruments rather then the far superior modern ones, perhaps for nostalgic reason, but I find the results wanting.
In music recordings, some say that vinyl is superior to CD"s eventhough the CD format is more accurate, what they actually are missing is the distortions inherent in vinyl.
Is it not logical to use the most accurate source written in the clearest language, instead of one which is flawed and written using words were the meaning is hardly known or has changed a lot?
Do you use a car or a bus for land transportation, Or do you saddle up your trusty steed?
It seems to me that the believers who are legalistic regarding the Bible and how to live, are also holding on to the KJ version for dear life.
And why use the smokescreen of copyrights, If you had written a math tutorial and held the copyrights, would your work be suspect? The cost of purchase is often about the same, so that part also has no bearing.

Now for you preferring the KJ version says more about you, then that Bible, in my opinion.

Howdy, John.

I appreciate what you are saying about classical music, but your analogy reflects the same careless attitude you have towards scripture. I use "careless" to communicate the impression that you give of having made up your mind about the worth of the Bible and your not wanting to bother about the detail.

As it turns out, the same issue of authenticity is as true of classical music scores as it is of original Bible texts, for example:
"many people feel that the composer's written score should be fairly sacrosanct as far as what is actually written. In matters of dynamics, tempo, phrasing and dozens of nuances the performer may interpret what the composer wrote in different ways or ignore what's written altogether."
-- The Search for Authenticity

If the original scores are not available, then a performer doesn't have the same freedom to play with the composition, they can only play with an interpretation, having limited opportunity to be moved in ways the composer intended, which relates to what I was saying previously about inspiration. Now, in regard to scripture, it is true that to be perfectly authentic, one would have to know Hebrew and Greek, but the text of the KJV is still connected to the older languages in such a way as to facilitate deeper investigation for the non-academic, as I demonstrated in my last post. This sort of thing is not possible in the newer translations.

Cheers,
enegue.

Hello Enegue

Authenticity Enegue? Mission impossible for the Bible. Using for translation works written as much as 2000 years earlier,no punctuation used, often context unknown, it was and is often best guess which is found in Bibles.

What is clear to me is that the KJ translators were very conscious of who they were working for.
The distance that exists between God and mankind in the KJ is so much of what royalty expected between them and their subjects.
Having read the Bible in both Dutch and Frisian has given me a larger perspective of what can be.
The Frisian language has no honorifics regarding beings, so that Bible ended up being very personal and intimate, not cold and distant like the KJ.
If you had the ability to read the Bible in a different language, plus being familiar with that language's culture, you would no longer make the claims for the KJ that you do.
In case it is unclear, I have used the KJ at times, but most of the time newer versions.

Hi, John.

I wonder sometimes if you ever get what I am saying. You often give the impression you don't. Maybe it's the way I express myself, but I try awfully hard to make my thoughts clear.

Did I say, modern versions are of no value? No, I said, "I prefer to reference the King James version whenever questions of doctine are raised, and other versions only to help shed light on difficult passages.". Did you bother giving consideration to the problem I raised in regard to Psalm 139:13? If such things are not important to you then, that's ok. I'm not trying to convince you that the KJV is the best version, only that their are consequences to trying to "improve" things as the modern versions do.

As a matter of interest, can I ask what you are looking for when you read the Bible? What motivates you to pick it up and search it's contents? Are there gems you are trying to unearth? Are they of sufficient value to justify the effort needed to excavate?

Cheers,
enegue.

Hello Enegue.

To answer the last question first, at present I am using the KJV as it is the only Bible I can locate, but I have several others stored somewhere in our large house which I am still working on to finish it.
In the past I mainly used the Revised American standard but also a very literal translation, one that clearly indicated all words added, with added notes on words used which were questionable.

On the KJV, as a work of literature it is the best of all the bible versions.
However we are not discussing literature at present, just which is the clearest and most accurate version of the bible, not which one that had the most meaning for us, or whether a text lost its prophetic meaning with a more accurate interpretation of itself.
The KJV translators had very few manuscripts to work with, plus a limited knowledge of the languages they had to deal with, compared with modern translators.
Today we are fortunate that the Ottoman Empire preserved its fantastic library, so that today we have access to the writings of many of the ancients, plus the Dead Sea Scrolls and others that have come to light in the last 100 years.

However, my original question was asked of Thomas, who was pointing someone else to the KJV of Geneses, in order to point to the origin of sin.
Now if that person had no familiarity with the Bible, it seemed to me to be the wrong version to send him to.
The "good News" bible is less accurate but much easier for the novice to read and understand, after which that person may want to graduate to a more accurate version for in depth study.
If a person was interested in literature, I would never suggest they start with Shakespeare.

The accuracy of translation is hard to judge because even the placing of a comma may change the meaning of a sentence drastically; for example Luke 23:43 were someone had to decide whether the comma was to be placed before or after "today", with profound doctrinal implications.

PS. That literal Bible was good for comparison, but painful to read.

Regards, John.

I argue against free will. I've never known a human being that can choose not to do evil (and I don't mean singular acts, because I myself have chosen to tell the truth or not to steal) but to do all good is impossible and i guess to do all evil is impossible, because somehow good could come out of evil or evil out of the good you've done.

Intention is very important, i do agree.

We being born into sin, being born sinful... We have no free will, we can't choose. Has anyone accepted Jesus, who supposedly gives power over sin, and never sinned again? I tell you, I do not wish to sin, but my very existence is sin.. my society prevents me from any chance. All is vanity.

Yes I'm a cry baby.

Since my intention is to follow God, but I am to weak....does that dimiss me. Is my choice to do good made, but my inability to do so excusable?

Hi, Faith.
God and it's erstwhile representative on earth direct your intentions. You say you have no free will. Rejoice! You are blameless and therefore sinless. They, not you, failed (for some good reason, I'm sure) to direct you to carry out those intentions they had directed you to have in the first place,

Dewey wrote:

Hi, Faith.
God and it's erstwhile representative on earth direct your intentions. You say you have no free will. Rejoice! You are blameless and therefore sinless. They, not you, failed (for some good reason, I'm sure) to direct you to carry out those intentions they had directed you to have in the first place,

I agree with Dewey that nobody has ultimate free will and everybody is ultimately (although not legally) blameless. However blamelessness although necessary for human freedom is not sufficient for human freedom. Faith, and everybody else who wants to be free to act as well as possible in the world, has to use reason and the best available knowledge together with the humility to know that she is never infallible.

What, after all, is God other than our intentions to be good? What is Jesus other than a life that is as good as is possible in a world that contains suffering?

Sorry, Belinda. I, myself, DO believe we have free will (including your new-to-me category of "ultimate free will").

Sorry, Belinda. I, myself, DO believe we have free will (including your new-to-me category of "ultimate free will").

Hi Dewey,

You and Belinda raise an interesting point, which has far-reaching implications. For if indeed we have no free will, then we are no different to animals who are driven by instinct alone. Sure, we have the luxury of thinking we have free will because we are allowed to consult our reason and our emotions before making a decision (to do good or evil). However the B.F. Skinner approach is that if all the external and internal factors impinging on our decision were known, then it would be possible to predict the outcome; i.e. we do not really have free will at all.

In such case, evolution or God has programmed our DNA such that we will react to certain circumstances in a certain way, depending on our life experiences up to that time.

How then do we account for humans’ ability to think outside the box, such as did Einstein when he came up with the theory of relativity, and as do others on a more mundane level? For a designer, it is only possible to program what can be foreseen, or what can be reasoned from what can be foreseen.

If free will exists, maybe evolution provided the route to it! Imagine a time when our predecessors were fully programmed for decision-making. If a mutation occurred in one of them, bestowing the ability to think outside the box, then this would have been naturally selected, as it would have given this individual and his or her progeny a huge survival advantage.

Once you introduce natural selection and survival of the fittest into the picture, it really sows confusion as to what constitutes good or evil.

PhillipS

Evil only exist because there is intelligent life capable of interpreting an event in such away that an event has a negative affect on the intelligent being. If an event isn't in the favor of someone (as in it doesn't have a direct positive affect to the individual perceiving it) individuals often feel there is an omen of some sort that must have been responsible.
The negative omen being defined as "evil".
So the reason evil exist is because life exist there is no other possible explanation.
The only universe that could consist of life where evil couldn't exist would be a universe where all life had a con-joined consciousness with no individuality an every event in that universe resulted in a positive outcome for the said consciousness.

So even if God does exist, the fact that all life as an individual awareness dictates that there will be the perception of evil. Even the most holly of holly people will be perceived as pure evil by someone.

Evil is down to our intent, such a God would provide for all, and such intent, would be how we discarded our provisions. I guess.

Phillip S wrote:

If free will exists, maybe evolution provided the route to it! Imagine a time when our predecessors were fully programmed for decision-making. If a mutation occurred in one of them, bestowing the ability to think outside the box, then this would have been naturally selected, as it would have given this individual and his or her progeny a huge survival advantage

'Thinking outside the box' is a skill that can be cultivated and encouraged in all human learners by knowledge of the world and how we humans get hold of ideas in the social world.The ability to think outside the box undoubtedly increases the freedom that the individual commands over his natural, political and social environment. I am sure that certain geniuses did not have to be taught how to think outside the box, they did it intuitively.

I cannot agree that thinking outside the box is evidence for natural evolution of free will among humans. Free will implies causelessness. This causelessness may be true randomness(not an advantage to man or beast) or it may be a God-like propensity to create from nothing, i.e. from no cause. I doubt if any God-like ability is or can ever be evolved through the entirely deterministic process of selective adaptation.

I cannot agree that thinking outside the box is evidence for natural evolution of free will among humans. Free will implies causelessness. This causelessness may be true randomness(not an advantage to man or beast) or it may be a God-like propensity to create from nothing, i.e. from no cause. I doubt if any God-like ability is or can ever be evolved through the entirely deterministic process of selective adaptation.

You may be correct in your central thesis that free will requires a God-like propensity to create something from nothing. However, I disagree with your view that selective adaptation is an entirely deterministic process. At the front end of each step in selective adaptation is a mutation, which is a chance event. I would prefer to describe the process as nature choosing the best path forward from the choices available to it, some of which have arisen by chance.

Philip S wrote:

At the front end of each step in selective adaptation is a mutation, which is a chance event.

When you say 'a chance event' do you mean that we don't and possibly cannot know the causes, as chancing to guess where the roulette wheel will stop? Or do you mean that 'a chance event' is truly an uncaused event?

I would prefer to describe the process as nature choosing the best path forward from the choices available to it,

Do you really think that nature is the sort of thing that can exercise intentional choices?