Jobeth – You said
Correct.
Evil, defined as being unnecessary pain or harm that causes nothing good, does not ever actually occur.
Evil, defined as being necessary for the purpose of facilitating some good, does actually occur.
Why is this distinction so hard for you to understand?
I define evil and sin as that which goes against God and His ways and His will. Your definition says nothing about moral wrongs, like immorality and wickedness and deceit. Pain and harm are amoral concepts; you are presenting a purely amoral definition for what you consider to be the two main varieties of evil! Or did you leave out the third moral evil for some reason? Consider:
Doing harm or pain is not a moral issue.
When you kill weeds that are chocking up your garden produce, you are causing harm, when you spank your children for being bad, you are causing them pain, but for a good cause. Also, the reverse is true. The shedding of innocent blood causes harm and pain and is absolutely condemned by God that it should not happen. So your definition is an amoral one, and one that is rather foolish for forgetting about the most significant way that God uses the word "evil", which is somewhere on the order of 95% of the time or more, namely, He uses it to condemn evil and promote goodness, to oppose all wickedness and support and bless righteousness. God is intensely concerned about right and wrong, but in your definition of what evil, somehow you forgot all about right and wrong.
Also, to the extent that you intended on your definition being complete and comprehensive, you have another problem, you contradict scripture in yet another way. You suggest that evil can somehow produce something good, but God says that idea is strictly condemnable, never mix good and evil. This should be obvious since God’s entire word demonstrates the same message only consistently, that good never produces evil and evil never produces good. Consider.
Joh 5:29 "and come forth——those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
8 And why not say, "Let us do evil that good may come"? ——as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.
Am 5:14 Seek good and not evil, That you may live; So the LORD God of hosts will be with you, As you have spoken. 15 Hate evil, love good; Establish justice in the gate. It may be that the LORD God of hosts Will be gracious ...
Isa 5:20 Woe to those who call evil and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight!
Pr 14:19 The evil will bow before the good, And the wicked at the gates of the righteous.
1Pe 3:12 For the eyes of the LORD [are] on the righteous, And His ears [are open] to their prayers; But the face of the LORD [is] against those who do evil."
1Jo 3:12 not as Cain [who] was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.
Woe to you Jobeth, for exchanging good and evil and slanderously teaching that it is godly to say that good comes from evil, you condemnation is just. Woe to you for respecting and making evil the means of good, instead of hating evil, there can be no justice if you confuse good and evil. Your ideas are unjust, and unrighteous, they are ungodly, they are against scripture, but they conform precisely to Paganism and Greek mythology.
As just demonstrated from this very small sampling of literally thousands of other teachings that support the exact same message, I get my understanding from God’s word.
So,,, where do you get your definition for what evil is?
About Christ's work at the cross, I said
Here is what I think you fail to understand. God never holds someone else responsible for someone else’s actions. Just as you and I do all the time, if someone did something especially good or bad, we attribute that to them, not someone else!
and then you said
Are you saying that Christ dreamed this whole Atonement thing up all by Himself and God had nothing to do with planning or causing the event of the crucifixion?
Didn't Christ himself say "I come to do thy will, O God" and "the Son of Man must suffer, and be rejected, and be killed, and after three days rise again" and that the reason these things must necessarily happen is in order that "the scripture be fulfilled"???
Your not listening to what I am saying. God planned to sacrifice, not just bruise Jesus a long time before it ever happened, but that makes God, including Jesus, responsible for the most loving and righteous act ever. God "responded" against sin and evil, by His work of redemption at the cross, and it is ALWAYS good to righteously respond against evil, so God did not evil in planning the loving sacrifice of His Son. The people who hated God and His righteousness, they were the one's who killed Jesus, they were the ones who were guilty of shedding innocent blood. And God is not culpable in their ability to do evil either just because He created a world with free will moral agents, because it would be unloving and unjust for God to force everyone and everything to love or to hate Him, to do good or to do evil. To be that controlling is sick in the highest degree, it's like a guy making a puppet and saying, your my wife and you will always do everything that I ask you to do. Also, such egotistical desire to control others is found in all the most wicked criminals, like the murderers and kidnapers, and rapists, they all have an unhealthy desire to control other people's lives, even to end their life if they want them to stop living. God is nothing like that, He is healthy and wise and loving, love and respect and trust is a two way street, we love God because He first loved us, God rejects those who reject Him, it's always a two way street.
So it's not that God had nothing to do with volunteering to die for us, God did not make Jesus do it, He did it voluntarily. You said
So why does God get a pass from you, when He could easily have prevented them from doing any evil towards you, and didn't?
It's not from me, God establishes absolute right and wrong, and that He is right and good because He does right and does no evil. It is good to promote loving righteous relationships, and it is good and right and just to oppose evil and unrighteous people.
If you love someone, maybe you are even considering to marry them, but you are not sure if their love for you is true love, when the time is right, if you let them go the way that they will, and they stay, you have won their love, but if they leave, you know the truth of the matter, that their love for someone or something else was stronger than their love for you. True agape is not selfish, true love desires the best for the other person, but will not and can not force the other person to love and respect you. It is foolishness to think that you can force someone's love, let alone respect and caring and trust, these are all two way streets. It's risky business, hoping for love, or trust, or respect, because often we are rejected, and that hurts, but it would be selfish and unjust to force others to do everything we want them to do.
If the evil and unrighteous want to rebel and reject God, ok, that will make the righteous and the godly that much more appreciated, then so be it, God is a healthy righteous and just God, He never forces anyone to love and respect Himself.
I'm not in a bad mood, your more than welcome to call.
(Oh and if my mood is completely controlled by God, then how dare you not approve? It's not a bad mood, it's a good mood, you should always say, nothing bad happens, only good things.) I had responded quickly to your request to talk to me, I sent you a message and told you when you could get ahold of me so that you could get ahold of me at your earliest convenience. If you don't want to talk to me after the fact, then don't blame me.
