I don’t think the biblical story is one of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ It is one centered on who determines “good” and “evil.” When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they did so out of a desire to be ‘like’ God. Or in different words, they wanted to be the one to say what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad.’ Ever since then, humanity has followed suit – claiming that this war is good, that one bad. Claiming that the uncontrolled greed for wealth is good, even though it takes away food from the bellies of the poor. We say that uncontrolled sexual desire is good – even though it is causing huge emotional, physical, and relationship problems…

God desire has always been that the world would live in harmony, loving and carrying for each other in an interrelated community. In order to do this, He had to make free agents – for to do otherwise would have been nothing less creating robots.  He also had to allow humanity to suffer the consequences of their decisions – for what is a “choice” with consequences? To help them along their way, He inserted His guidelines into their souls (Rm 1-2).

Not content to leave it that, He decided to walk with humanity, helping them and guiding them along the way. God did this both before and after Adam and Eve decided to take things into their own hands (i.e. God did not stay in the Garden, He went with Adam and Eve as seen by His conversation with Cain, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, etc). He is doing it now. And He will continue to walk with and guide humanity (and the rest of creation for that matter) forever – as seen in Revelation where God dwells among humanity on earth (yes, a new, restored earth – but a physical, material earth none the less).

Seen through these eyes, “Christianity” is not about “do this” or “don’t do that”… In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us at everything and anything is permissible under the grace of God. However, not everything is beneficial (Rm 14, 1 Corn 8, 10). For example, tripping out on heroin is not going to ‘cut’ me off for God as long as I have bowed my knee to Him as King and follow Him to best of my abilities. However, as most folks (and science), will tell you, taking heroin is not good for you for several reasons including physical, emotional, sexual, and relational.

So, does God allow humanity to “use” their free will? Yes, He does – and He walks along with us as we make decisions and live life. The question becomes, are you going to listen to His suggestions and guidance? Or do you want to call the shots yourself? If you listen to Him, He will wrap His arms around you and destroy death and the evil within you. If you ignore Him, well, He will leave you to your devices and the consequences received.

Is He all-powerful? Yes, for He not only created everything, but He destroyed death itself.

Is He all-knowing? Yes, for time itself is a created item (Albert Einstein) and as such, created by God.

Completely benevolent? Yes, for He did not leave us to walk this life alone, but He came down among us and walked WITH us – taking on our form and our suffering.

In other words, God desire to be with us is stronger then the option on NOT creating the world. (some may say that it would have been better if the world was never made…that might be, but the fact is that we are here today. We can either bow our knees and follow Him, allow God to decide good and evil. Or we can continue to decided good and evil ourselves)

Some may say since humanity can discover how this world came into being and how the universe works, then that “ability” would have had to been placed their by the Creator God. As such, this same creator God could have chosen to ‘turn off’ or not allow people to suffer or feel sorrow. To start with, this is a big assumption. To date, humanity has not done any of that. We have guesses as to how the world can into being – and how the cosmos works. But we don’t know for sure – nor, I believe we will. Yet, even if we do – how does knowing how creation got here or how the cosmos work change anything? Neither one of these things solve the worlds problems of murder, war, death, greed, environmental destruction, emotional havoc, etc.

Continuing on the same line of thought, if humanity has the capacity to rid the world of famine, disease and virus – then why did, who gave humanity this ability, allow these things in the first place? To this, I would say that we have to remember that we have not done this. In fact, we have created more problems by destroying the ecosystems in which we live, which leads to drought and famine.  Uncontrolled greed among humanity means that the rich get richer why the poor die in hungry and poverty.  Yes, we have ‘cured’ some diseases (thank the Lord!) – but we have also created disease due to our uncontrolled eating habits and lifestyle. While I’m not a biological or disease expert, I have to ask the question of whether or not there was as many diseases and virus in the world 2,000 or 4,000 years ago… hunger and mal-nutrition was an issue, I know that…but did those folks have all the kinds of cancer, virus and stuff that we have? (Note that I’m not saying, did they know about them, but rather, did they have them).  Seeing how virus tend to change and grow – I would suggest that there was less diseases and virus back then – plus, I think the human body had more immunities then it does today (especially in the West where we live in a very clean environment).

As it stands, I think the reason we have done as much as we have is thanks to a merciful God who is guiding humanity. I think it is His hand that leading people to help each other (remember that He left His ‘rules’ on the hearts of all of humanity?). Now, this brings up the question about other religions. If God is guiding humanity, then are all religious ok? Seeing that this is getting really long, I will shorten my response to this a tad… :/

I believe that all religions have truth in them as God has left His fingerprints within everyone. The question then becomes, what part is “true” and what parts are not? Well, let us look briefly at the main world religions. Buddhism and Hinduism say that the material world is bad and it is the spiritual or unseen world that is pure and correct. As such we must remove karma from our lives (Buddhism – by knowledge; Hinduism – by good deeds). Islam believes in one “god” – or Allah – who is the judge of humanity. No one knows if they get to go to heaven or not, for that is judged at the end by looking at your ‘good’ and ‘bad’ deeds as determined by the 5 pillars of Islam (the one exception is if you die in a holy war, then you go straight to ‘heaven’). Judaism also sets rules on its followers when the understanding that God will ‘forgive’ those who obey everything He says (again, good deeds).

Christianity, in its pure form (I will look at the impure forms later), says that God is standing next to each person wooing them to Him – asking them to allow Him to help them walk through this world. All humanity needs to do is say “yes” and start following. The deeds come after the decision to follow. In addition, the Bible teaches that both the material and immaterial is good. God is a creator God whose goal is to restore all of creation to Himself, purging all evil from the land.

Unfortunately, a lot of “Christians” have over simplified the Bible and the Faith – leading some people to think of Christianity as a system of rules or right doctrines that one must follow/believe. Others have fallen into the trap of saying that the material world around is ‘bad’ and the immaterial is ‘good.’ Both of these are false views as the Bible (a collection of letters describing the mission of God among His people) says otherwise.

How are we to know what is “good” and what is “bad”? By following and listening to Jesus. Reading the Bible helps, but ultimately is about hearing and listening to God as there are places and times when the Bible isn’t there. Isn’t this subjective? Not really. We have the trajectory of Bible and history to point us along the path. We know for example, that God is one of mercy, love and justice. As such, we know to walk down that path – listening to Him as we go. God also uses people, meaning that we are to live in community as God will use the community to help guide us down the path towards Him.