reply to post by TurtleSmacker
YOU: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
---Isn't this the point of the Bible's narrative? Not only is he able, he knows the end of the story and it ends well for all who trust and have
faith in what is evident. Preventing evil means first allowing it. Free will depends on the opportunity to choose.
YOU: Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing?
---Neither of these premises are accurately stated. He is both able and willing. The plan is in motion.
YOU: Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing?
---Yes, but not malevolent. God's will is to give only. This is why were are here in an image rather than consciously awake in paradise. We are
prodigals; willing participants in the mud.
YOU: Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
---What interval would you like to claim for God to allow free will, but preclude the choice to choose the opposite direction of truth? Can we choose
to manipulate opposites apart from there being a choice that brings evil? Free will demands that all outcomes are freely available, but by limits.
The limit is the guardian of the law. What interval would you like to claim for God to stamp out evil? One week? One day? 1 second? 7,000
years?
The law is our guardian, yet we have free will. Free will is a choice with every action having a reaction.
Galatians 3
Under the heading: (Children of God)
23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law
was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to
Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
I think the bottom line for most Atheists is this: God is both willing and able to show us truth and bind us to it. He is both able and willing to
raise us as the children and restricting our freedom and will by law. For those of us who grow up in this image and mature to adulthood, the laws and
restrictions are removed.
EMET=Truth = Aleph Mem Tav
EMET is truth. Truth is the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, with MEM (WATER) in the middle. You must be born again. We are raised in
an image and water is the key to the entire thing. Water puts out fire and fire burns when we break the law. It is our guardian. Baptism is our
immersion into the river of life. We are involved (involution) in the water so we can rise to new life (Evolve).
Involution and Evolution
Where does the image lead when we find the key out the door?
1 Corinthians 13
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind
me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am
fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Love is the key. I would gladly live 1000 lives to find the key if it means living as a loving person in the end, free from the restrictions of law.
If I refuse the key I hold in my hand, I remain locked in the prison until I learn I have the key in my hand.
edit on 22-5-2013 by EnochWasRight because: (no reason given)