Does God have the ability to be evil?

[lightgigantic]

Lightgigantic,

If God is willing to stop evil but unable, he's not omnipotent.

If Gos is able to stop evil, but unwilling, then he's not benevolent.

What part of that statement escapes you theists' perceptions????

the issue of the free will of the living entity - hence you see the material world acting as an expression of god's potency to rehabilitate and curb the tendency of the conditioned living entity from ignorance

 

[Kittamaru]

That's a silly question mate- God is "evil" by being good, because in being good you create the chance for evil to exist.

Going on a purely religious aspect, God did not "create" evil. He made the chance for it to exist by giving Humans free will... God wants Humanity to love him. He doesn't MAKE us love him because it serves no point- he has Angels for that. The choice to love him is what makes our love special... but it also leaves room for us to not love him, which is where Evil spawns.

 

[lightgigantic]

Snakelord

“
basically there would have to be a nature higher than god for him to sin - since this defies the understanding of the word 'god' (no nature higher than him), the only other possibility is if god could transgress his own nature, which requires the influence of illusion or ignorance, and this also defies the standard definition of the word 'god' (no trace of the illusory influence of ignorance)
”
This statement is not needed. Basically it would be of better use to say that a god can do anything, but wont regard what it does as a 'sin' or evil the way humans perceive the word.

a thief may regard the king as a thief, especially when he is brought to justice

There are many written records of actions by gods that to us would be deemed sinful or evil.

there are also many indications what we are doing here in the first place, experiencing the 'criminal' acts of god

As an example I would mention human annihilation that from human morality is just plain wrong.

guess we should have thought about that before we came to the material world - I guess its the nature of ignorance that it escaped our mind ....

god however can do these things and be free from any repurcussions purely on the basis that there is nobody to judge him/her/it/them.

there are many differences between god and the living entity - as you indicate here, absolute power is one - a second one is also absolute knowledge

It would be apparent that a god can sin/perform evil actions. If it could not then it would not be omnipotent and thus would cause LG to state that it "defies the standard definition of the word god".

I think you would be the first to admit that you are not 100% socialized around the notion of eternal life in heaven - if you want to have heaven on earth without god, and view the influence of the time factor represented by death as a great interference to this cherished desire, I think we have a strong argument for your criminal position

In short: yes a god can sin, there's just nobody to judge those actions.

yes, the dogs will bark, but the caravan will pass

 

[lightgigantic]

Why is Satan termed as being "evil"? Because he doesn't agree with God?

I guess so

 

[SnakeLord]

a thief may regard the king as a thief, especially when he is brought to justice

there are also many indications what we are doing here in the first place, experiencing the 'criminal' acts of god

guess we should have thought about that before we came to the material world - I guess its the nature of ignorance that it escaped our mind ....

there are many differences between god and the living entity - as you indicate here, absolute power is one - a second one is also absolute knowledge

I think you would be the first to admit that you are not 100% socialized around the notion of eternal life in heaven - if you want to have heaven on earth without god, and view the influence of the time factor represented by death as a great interference to this cherished desire, I think we have a strong argument for your criminal position

yes, the dogs will bark, but the caravan will pass

All of them certainly very interesting, but none of them add anything to what I said or really have much relevance to what I said.