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Monday, August 17, 2009

The Origin of Evil & Free Will

In John 8:42-58, Jesus is confronting religious leaders about their inability to identify Him as God. While doing so, He says "you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies" (v.44)
This makes sense to me. The devil is the icon for evil. He is evil... God's foil character if you will.

God is good, and all He creates is so as well. God created the universe, and it was good. He is all things beautiful, loving, pure, holy, and He is the very definition of goodness. He exists outside of time and space without beginning or end. Before there was anything, there was God.
Meaning this struggle between the devil and God that we are living will end. We know how it will end, too. God will win, because He has the real power and has existed long before Lucifer.
Here's one thing I often overlook: the devil, aka Lucifer, was an archangel created by God to be beside the infamous Gabriel and Michael. God created him, and he was beautiful.
So, if everything that God exists is beautiful and good, than Lucifer was good at one point. Right?
Then where did evil show up?
God is Love, and true love is not forced. When He created the angels, and later humans, He gave us free will. He wanted us to be able to choose Him, so there must have been the opportunity to NOT chose Him. If God is love, all things good, pure, beautiful and holy, than the option apart from Him must be none of those things. Thus, sin is a rejection of God. Abuse is the opposite of love, lies the opposite of truth, corruption of purity, etc. So, in a sense, evil was "created" when God gave us the option to NOT choose Him. But, is acknowledging the lack of something really creating something? A hole is the lack of dirt in the ground, but one cannot hold a hole or manufacture it. Darkness is the absence of light. Cold is the absence of heat. These concepts were not necessarily created, per se, but we consider them things.
Back to John 8. If God gave us the option to not choose Him, how could Jesus say that the devil had "no truth in him . . . he is a liar and the father of lies". Didn't God create the option and Lucifer simply choose it? Yes and NO. Example: a parent who says their child can stay or leave home at 18 is not responsible for the cruel world that s/he encounters if s/he leaves. The parent did not create the world, but the lack of family/home/etc is what the child chose when leaving. When rejecting the safety, love and acceptance of home, the young adult unknowingly accepted the other option... the complete lack of it.
Basically, was sin more theoretical until Lucifer committed it? When he chose to not choose God, he chose defiance. He chose death, destruction, lies, cruelty... everything that God stands opposed to. In a sense, God opened the door for it to be done (while knowing it would be, because He knows all), and Lucifer "created" sin. Maybe.

I'm just thinking.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Thinking without words.

I was thinking about words the other day, and I stumbled upon a quandary:
When we think, we contemplate in sentences. If we don't understand it, we can't find words to explain it. Finding the right word to fit an emotion, a situation, or a particular phenomenon is what helps us wrap our minds around something and understand it. When we learn new languages, we process in our native tongue and translate for a while before becoming fluent enough to possibly "think in another language".
So here's the question: What if we didn't have language?
We know that pre-born children feel pain and recognize certain voices (mother, father, common sounds, etc), but can they form a thought? Obviously not in the sense that we explain it, but could there be something else? Maybe that's why a 7 year old can't remember what it felt like to be in the womb, but a 70 year old can remember his/her 16th birthday. It's not the time elapsed, it's the language in which we frame memories and thoughts. Maybe. Because while that makes sense, I find it pretty impossible that babies, prior to learning to speak, cannot think. So where's the raw emotion, experience, or THING that we use words to capture? and does putting whatever it is down in words diminish its magnanimity? Maybe music is called the language of the soul, because it awakens love, hate, joy and pain without words. (Even in songs with lyrics, the words mean nothing without musical intent behind them and an inspiring texture)
I don't know, but I'll ask this: What would life be like if we needed to really feel and learn how to recognize others' feelings to communicate?