steve7150 wrote:God created a context in which evil was possible? I've stated the following points in the past but they were never specifically responded to. God created Adam and Eve innocent and highly susceptible to influence. God SENT Satan to tempt Eve. Why didn't God stop Satan from entering the garden? Satan is the master deceiver in the universe and Eve was innocent and immature. Is it hard to predict the outcome of their encounter?
My argument doesn't depend on it being 'hard to predict.' It depends on it being POSSIBLE for them to stay in right relationship with God. You, by focusing on the devil's power and human inexperience, make it sound like God rigged them for failure. Of course, there was another huge factor involved in the story: God's love. They could have obeyed and remained in right relationship to God. That God knew they would likely succumb to sin does not make God the author of evil unless God caused them to sin.
Considering the players in the Garden of Eden encounter why did God appoint Adam and Eve to represent mankind?
Are you forgetting that God was also in the Garden of Eden?
Why did God curse the ground that Mankind would need to cultivate to survive?
I think the ground was cursed, in part, to remind humanity that the world is not as it should be.
Why does God have to "work with" evil to accomplish his purposes?
God only has to work with evil b/c evil came into the world. God would have preferred evil not come into the world to begin with. God could have accomplished divine purposes without evil, but given evil's entrance into creation, God chooses to work through it rather than giving up on creation.
Why not just destroy it now? God shows he will intervene anytime it suits his purposes, why not intervene and destroy evil completely.
This quote is, I think, where you go far astray in your thinking. How do you know that 'God shows he will intervene anytime it suits his purposes'??? It seems to me God does NOT intervene TRILLIANS of times when it would suit divine purposes. Everytime someone doesn't get saved it goes against God's purposes. Every time someone sins it goes against God's purposes. By stating that God intervenes anytime it suits his purposes, you CREATE the problem of having to say that every situation in which he does NOT intervene is, therefore, part of his will!
Why work with it?
What's the alternative? Giving up on the world? Love never fails.
How does working with evil respect mans free will? Most people do not want evil in the world. I think you said God allows evil to allow our free will to work but when evil happens, whose free will is working and whose is not? Yesterday a ship with hundreds of African immigrants was rammed and sunk by human traffikers and almost everyone died. That was evil, so whose free will was served? People's free will is violated all the time every second. When evil happens it always violates the victims free will.
We've discussed this before, but maybe you forgot my position. You keep making it sound like FREE WILL is a prime doctrine... that its advocate will go to all lengths to defend it. As I've stated before, though, free will is just a principle that extends from the doctrine of God's love. There is no reason for people who believe in libertarian free will to argue that everyone is free in every situation. We only require that people have genuine alternatives to the point that they could have chosen various options.
Human and natural disasters happen in a world ruled by a devil (another free will creature). Free will theists do not believe that free will gives people the power to choose anything (like avoiding a certain disaster). It does not argue that there are an unlimited number of options. You're debating a straw man.
James said, "Therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin." James 4.17. God can stop evil but he generally does not, therefore it must be beyond just working with evil. If God is just working with evil he is violating James 4.17. The only explanation IMHO is that it suits his purposes and it is done out of love. Yes it looks ugly, but we look through a glass darkly in this age.
God gave a certain created being a certain amount of potential and freedom. This being could have used his potential and freedom positively, but chose to use it negatively. God does not revoke a gift once given. The devil has an allotted time to wreak havoc on this planet. Rather than just taking a vacation during this time, God chooses to work in the midst of evil and suffering.
So, yes, it does suit God's purposes and it is done out of love. The difference b/w you and I, it seems, is that I think God accomplishes divine purposes in spite of these things (They are not part of God's ideal will) and you think God accomplishes divine purposes with these things (They are part of God's original plan).