God created evil

[12th Doctor]

This is one of many areas in which you will find that Christianity does not represent one, unified, world view.  Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that different sects of Christianity are not, in fact, different groups looking for the right answers to the same questions, but rather groups that so different that they have more in common with other sects of other religions than they do with one another, all looking for totally different answers and asking totally different questions.  Theologically, I have almost nothing in common with someone like Bono, or jmfcst, inspite of the fact that we both believe in Jesus Christ, because our views of the nature of God are completely different... and I have much more in common with someone like Ben Constine, even though he is Jewish.  We aren't all fighting over the same God, here, the span of "Christianity" are all worshiping what is fundamentally a different divinity.  There is no intrafaith unity, because there is no common faith.  You are libel to find more interfaith unity between different sects of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.

That being said, my view on evil is more philosophical than it is explicitly theological, because even in the collected writings that we call "The Bible" you find a wide array of views on the nature of good and evil, from strict monism (in the Pentateuch) to all out dualism (in the New Testament).  Simply put, I believe in what you might call a "Black and Gray" reality, with actions and people that are truly evil, and then those that inhabit various zones of goodness, or acceptability; but you will never find a perfect good, either individually, or in action, because such a thing is impossible, the best you will find is a person who doing their best and failing much of the time.  Finding something (short of God) that represents a perfect good is, at the least, a oneway ticket to disappointment, at the least, and delusional in most cases.  Even by doing good, people are going to commit at least some sin, active or through negligence.

And so the real root of all evil is pride.  Not only is the idea of a perfect good diluted, it is evil itself, because people who believe, or think they are acting for the absolute good, or are even good incarnate, are also the people who tend to be capable of the most evil actions.  Too much pride equals a lack of remorse, because one who thinks they are absolutely correct sees no need to examine their own shortcomings.

[12th Doctor]

Theologically, I have almost nothing in common with someone like Bono, or jmfcst, inspite of the fact that we both believe in Jesus Christ, because our views of the nature of God are completely different... and I have much more in common with someone like Ben Constine, even though he is Jewish.  

I do not understand what you are saying:  How do you and I have a different view of the nature of God that would have you more in agreement with Judaism's view of of the nature of God than with my view of of the nature of God?

Are you referring to our disagreements about the Trinity, or about having a relationship with God, or about who is going to be saved...or are you referring to God having always existed...or something else? 

Seriously, I am not trying to be a wise guy, I am probably confused because the term “nature of God” is not something I use, mainly because it seems so broad that it could refer to anything and/or everything relating to God.

This is a conclusion I came to in my long, drawn out, debates with Bono over the years, through AIM.  After that long period of time, I finally came to the conclusion that the primary reason for our disagreements, and our lack of ability to resolve them, was not because we were failing to come to an understanding over various theological points about the Christian scriptures, but rather because we were asking totally different questions, and thus had no ability to come up with similar answers.

The cycle has repeated itself between you and myself over the years.  What frustrates me most in dealing with you, and I am sure in you dealing with me, is that we have no hope of agreeing on anything.  This is because our disagreements aren't predicated on this or that point about trinity vs the unified Godhead, or about apostolic authority vs a diffuse Church, or on a continuing development of the Church vs authoritative teaching stopping with scripture... yes, those are all symptoms of or differing views of the broader nature of God, the universe, and man's place there in, but even on the points where we can agree, the agreement is merely superficial, because we don't agree on the the starting point of the inquiry... we don't agree on the questions that cause us to arrive at that point. 

Superficially, we appear to agree on quite a bit.  We agree that this guy named Jesus was divine, and that these scriptures are inerrant, and we agree on this, and that... and so one would be led to say that we agree on the major points... but really we don't.  Those are the minor points.  Even a Marxist and a Burkean can agree on the facts and the details.  After you get past that, to the more fundamental stuff, its an entirely different story.  Likewise, I have certainly met Democrats on whom I agree far more on the nature of government and the issues, even if we don't agree on specific policy, than many of my fellow Republicans with whom I might have more in common, on the surface.

Does it matter that we both agree on this Jesus guy if we can't agree at all on the nature of his mission, his role, his teachings, etc?  No.  As much as you an I agree that this God exists, we don't agree at all on who this God is.  You and I, in reality, worship a totally different entity, even though we call him the same thing, while there are people out there who don't call this divinity the same thing, but agree with each of us, separately, on the worldview we ought to take in exploring and understanding It.  Ben and I certainly agree way more on the nature of the divine than you and I.

I don't mean it as a put down.  I don't mean it as a call to arms.  It's simply reality.  I can't remember who it was, but someone said in the other thread where we are fisticuffing that it is amazing to see how much we fight when we have so much in common... says who?  Do you feel like we have anything in common?  The notion that we do is based on backwards thinking, looking at the product as opposed to the process.  There is no common process when comparing how we come to the conclusions to which we have arrived.

[12th Doctor]

In fact, one time I told Bono straight up, and not out of anger, but out of fact:

"You and I don't believe in the same God."

His reaction was... well, fearful it seemed to me... but it's the truth.  I don't see how we can avoid saying it when we agree on almost nothing about what this God is like, and how he has ordered the universe.  It doesn't mean that we are, all of a sudden, on different sides.  We were never on the same side.  It's easier to simply accept that than to maintain the farce, that then leads us to exclude people of other faiths from our circle, with whom we have far more in common.  Just tolerate the differences, and move on.