elohiym said:
Do you believe the following scripture, Shimei?
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
Shimei said:
Isaiah 45:7 (New King James Version)
I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the LORD, do all these things.’
elohiym said:
Try doing a word study instead of using a translation that sounds more appealing to you.
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil <07451>: I the LORD do all these things.
Genesis 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil <07451>.
God states that he creates evil. Do you believe him?
Of course we believe Him, but you are perverting what He said.
In Isaiah 45:7 God also said that He created the light
and the darkness, but in Genesis 1 only the creation of light is mentioned, and in fact darkness is actually the absence of light, so God only created darkness in the sense that darkness exists because of (or as a byproduct of) His creation of light. The same could be said of evil.
But note that in Isaiah 45:7,
evil is not contrasted with
good but rather with
peace. Words have a range of meaning and their specific meaning varies depending on the context. This is even more true in Hebrew than in English, as there are far more words (many of which have tighter ranges of meaning) in the English vocabulary; the Hebrew language has relatively few words. Therefore given the context of the word in Isaiah 45:7 being contrasted with
peace (as opposed to
good), the NKJV translation "calamity" is more precise. That is not to say that "evil" is a mistranslation, for that word has a
broad range of meaning similar to the Hebrew word it is translating.
The problem is that Calvinists (and the occasional atheist) like to apply the narrow first definition to this verse in order to falsely accuse God of wickedness and maintain their warped viewpoint. Their condemnation is just.
I find it ironic that you claim that you never do anything immoral because God dwells within you, yet you also blasphemously claim that God is the source of every wicked and perverse thought and action in all of history. In your Bizarro World, you never do anything wicked, but God does
everything that is wicked. :down::vomit:
In reality, God despises that which is wicked. Wickedness is done in rebellion against God, not in accordance to His will. Not only does God not predestine anyone to sin, but He doesn't even so much as tempt anyone to sin:
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. James 1:13-15
You should repent of your slanderous claim that God is predestines wickedness.
