How can a good God exist in a world filled with natural evil? That is the question that authors Giberson and Collins attempt to find an answer to in their essay, Insert Title Here. In their essay, the authors argue that God is not responsible for natural evil, since evolution by natural selection is fully capable of producing sinister designs in lifeforms if left to its own devices. Therefore, God’s goodness is left unblemished since he is not directly responsible for natural evil. I believe that such an argument is inconsistent. The authors attempt to defend the integrity of the Bible in the face of the problem of evil, but their argument contradicts the Bible on many occasions.
I believe that the authors’ first inconsistency has to do with …show more content…
They claim that if evolution is responsible for the more insidious aspects of nature, then God is “off the hook”. Setting aside the moral implications of this position for a moment, I would like to focus on the theological problems wrought by this view. The authors paint the picture of a god who “wound up” the universe, putting its laws into place and supplying the matter that could be acted upon by those laws, and then washed his hands and had no other creative input for the rest of history. This concept of god stands in stark contrast to the Creator God of the Bible who is consistently portrayed as being intimately and lovingly involved in his creation – from the first act of creation in Genesis to the new creation in Revelation. When speaking with the suffering Job, God tells his servant to consider all the wonders of creation as a demonstration of his power. I wonder what point God was trying to make in describing the mighty Leviathan, if indeed it had been formed as the result of a random, aimless process and not by the hand of the living God. Additionally, the apostle Paul writes that “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes have been clearly seen – his eternal power and divine nature – from the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse”. Clearly, Paul is depicting a God who made the world, and receives glory from the things that he has made. Once again, the point becomes moot if the wonders of creation truly are the result of an unguided, inefficient
I believe that the authors’ first inconsistency has to do with …show more content…
They claim that if evolution is responsible for the more insidious aspects of nature, then God is “off the hook”. Setting aside the moral implications of this position for a moment, I would like to focus on the theological problems wrought by this view. The authors paint the picture of a god who “wound up” the universe, putting its laws into place and supplying the matter that could be acted upon by those laws, and then washed his hands and had no other creative input for the rest of history. This concept of god stands in stark contrast to the Creator God of the Bible who is consistently portrayed as being intimately and lovingly involved in his creation – from the first act of creation in Genesis to the new creation in Revelation. When speaking with the suffering Job, God tells his servant to consider all the wonders of creation as a demonstration of his power. I wonder what point God was trying to make in describing the mighty Leviathan, if indeed it had been formed as the result of a random, aimless process and not by the hand of the living God. Additionally, the apostle Paul writes that “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes have been clearly seen – his eternal power and divine nature – from the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse”. Clearly, Paul is depicting a God who made the world, and receives glory from the things that he has made. Once again, the point becomes moot if the wonders of creation truly are the result of an unguided, inefficient