So was god just lonely or what?

[Cris]

Free will and evil.

It has been said here that we are free to choose between good and evil, that we have free will and must pay the consequences of our actions or be rewarded.

However, it is also said that we have been designed/created by God. Our ability to choose between good and evil, and that means our reasoning and emotional abilities/properties to evaluate between good and bad, is a direct result of how we were designed.

Having omnipotent power God could have designed us to have a much clearer and greater ability to evaluate the options between good and bad. Ultimately our choices are determined by our capabilities and they were determined by our designer.

The net result is that we are seriously constrained by our design and the choice of that design was God's. If we choose evil it is because of a flawed design.

As with any flawed product it is the manufacturer/designer who is responsible for the behavior of the product.

In effect God must be responsible for all evil since evil was chosen by his flawed products that operated according to his design.

 

[Killjoy]

Michael

What you defined as Christian is what would better be described as a "practicing" Catholic.
In Matthew 6:5-6, Christ himself pretty much says stay the heck out of Church & engage in solitary prayer directly with God.


Cris

God "designed" beings who could automatically see the "ultimate wisdom" of good over evil long before there were human beings...
At least that appears ot be what the Catholic cosmology claims.
"Angels"... "Seraphim"... "Cherubim"...
The corniest image being squadrons of winged harp-twangers flitting about ululating "Halleljahs" , and snoozing on cloudbanks.
At the other end of the spectrum, Archangels with flaming swords.

When the concept of free will was introduced to these beings, the possibility that some number of them would choose evil was either just another known potential outcome of the capacity to choose... To be influenced in some way other than the "programming" of the Creator, or an unanticipated result which was allowed to run its course in order to utilize it for the next "test group"...

Humanity was created minus the supernatural powers and infinite lifespan of the "Angelc Hosts", be they Graced or Fallen from it. It's as though the line of reasoning was to make the infinite reward more difficult to attain and therefore seemingly more precious. To do away with the potential for immortal beings to "stagnate" into evil.

True, we are constrained in certain ways by our design, but no more so - although in vastly different ways - than were the "Angels". Free will didn't work with them either.

Nonetheless, God did not create evil. Perhaps the potential to choose evil, but this implies only a knowledge that evil is possible.
But in order to allow for utterly free will, to use an awkward phrase, the choice to stray had to be included.