19 July 2006

For thy pleasure they were created

The Intelligent Design movement has its own wedge issue: natural evil. Its existence is hard to deny, but what do you do with it? If cruelty is designed into creation, then how can the creator be good?

Most IDers solve this problem by shifting the blame from the designer to humans or demons -- anything but God. But of course that's cheating. We should clearly see the existence and nature of God from his creation. After all, Paul says we're going to hell if we don't.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. -- Romans 1:20

There are a few Christians, though, that take God at his word. He is, after all, the proud creator of evil.

I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. -- Isaiah 45:6-7

He made predator and prey, host and parasite, and did it all for his own amusement.

The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. -- Psalm 104:21

Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. -- Revelation 4:11

An ASA article by David Snoke puts it this way:

God does claim direct responsibility for the creation of natural evil.... God neither apologizes for making these things, nor weeps over them -- he glories in them.

God didn't create a world full of misery to punish Adam and Eve, and the devil didn't make him do it. He did it because he wanted to. He just likes to watch things suffer.

1 comment:

Jeremy said...

Just a note about translations - though the King James and a few other older translations render the passage from Isaiah as "I make peace, and create evil," most modern and more accurate translations render it as something to the effect of "I make success (prosperity) and create disaster (calamity)."

Most of the other passages you quote do not have quite the teeth you are endowing them with without this less accurate translation to go along with them.