The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum God's Omnipotence

plt,

I am not an expert on the Roman State Church by any stretch of the imagination. Actually, I often wonder who could be since their beliefs vary so greatly even while they claim to be of "one mind".

As to his response that God did not create "evil", perhaps he was not understanding the question/word to mean natural and spiritual disasters but sin? Most even quasi-conservative professing Christians would deny that God is the author of sin. But those of the Reformed camp (exceptions allowed) hold firmly that even sin was ordained of God yet He is not responsible for its existence, i.e., God did not create sin.

[color:"0000CC"]The Belgic Confession of Faith, Article XIII
The Providence of God and His Government of All Things

We believe that the same good God, after He had created all things, did not forsake them or give them up to fortune or chance, but that He rules and governs them according to His holy will, so that nothing happens in this world without His appointment; nevertheless, God neither is the Author of nor can be charged with the sins which are committed. For His power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that He orders and executes His work in the most excellent and just manner, even then when devils and wicked men act unjustly. And as to what He does surpassing human understanding, we will not curiously inquire into farther than our capacity will admit of; but with the greatest humility and reverence adore the righteous judgments of God, which are hid from us, contenting ourselves that we are pupils of Christ, to learn only those things which He has revealed to us in His Word, without transgressing these limits.


[color:"0000CC"]The Canons of Dort, First Head of Doctrine
Divine Election and Reprobation - Articles of Faith

Article 15
What peculiarly tends to illustrate and recommend to us the eternal and unmerited grace of election is the express testimony of sacred Scripture that not all, but some only, are elected, while others are passed by in the eternal decree; whom God, out of His sovereign, most just, irreprehensible, and unchangeable good pleasure, has decreed to leave in the common misery into which they have wilfully plunged themselves, and not to bestow upon them saving faith and the grace of conversion; but, permitting them in His just judgment to follow their own ways, at last, for the declaration of His justice, to condemn and punish them forever, not only on account of their unbelief, but also for all their other sins. And this is the decree of reprobation, which by no means makes God the Author of sin (the very thought of which is blasphemy), but declares Him to be an awful, irreprehensible, and righteous Judge and Avenger thereof.


[color:"0000CC"]The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter III
Of God's Eternal Decree

I. God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass:[1] yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,[2] nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.[3]

1. Psa. 33:11: Eph. 1:11: Heb. 6:17
2. Psa. 5:4; James 1:13-14; I John 1:5; see Hab. 1:13
3. Acts 2:23; 4:27-28: Matt. 17:12; John 19:11; Prov. 16:33

And as to natural/spiritual disasters, surely if God has not eternally decreed, determined, purposed these things, then there is something outside of His Omniscience and Omnipotence which de facto strips the biblical God of His deity and relegates such things to fate and/or chance.

In His grace,