Join the Hit the Mark panel as they discuss Sabbath School Lesson 7 – The Problem of Evil. It’s the fastest hour of the week!

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/the-problem-of-evil-hit-the-mark-sabbath-school/

Daily Lesson for Thursday 13th of February 2025

God has granted creatures free will because it is necessary for love; misuse of this free will is the cause of evil. Again, many questions remain. God allows evil (for a time), while passionately despising it, because to exclude its possibility would exclude love, and to destroy it prematurely would damage the trust necessary for love.

“The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan’s deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God’s government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 22.

Image © Justinen Creative from GoodSalt.com

Without free will, there could be no love, and if God is love, then it seems clear that it is not really an option for God to negate love or the freedom needed for love to exist. One could suppose, too, that if we knew the end from the beginning, as God does, we would not want Him to get rid of our freedom. After all, who would want to live in a loveless universe?

Even when we cannot see through the darkness, God can see the end from the beginning. He can see, too, the eternal bliss promised to all who place their faith in Jesus. According to Romans 8:18, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (NKJV). Do we have the faith and trust to believe this amazing promise?

Also, so sacred, so foundational, was love, and the freedom inherent in love, that rather than deny it to us, Jesus knew it would send Him to the cross, where He would suffer greatly. Yet, He granted this freedom to us anyway, knowing what it would cost Him. Why is this such a crucial thought to keep before us always?

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-07-love-and-evil/

Join It Is Written Sabbath School host Eric Flickinger and this quarter’s author, John C. Peckham, as they provide additional insights into this week’s Sabbath School lesson.”

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/7-the-problem-of-evil-it-is-written-discussions-with-the-author/

View an in-depth discussion of The Problem of Evil/a> in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris.
Click on the image below to view the video:

With thanks to Hope Channel – Television that will change your life.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/7-the-problem-of-evil-hope-sabbath-school-video-discussion/

Daily Lesson for Wednesday 12th of February 2025

However much we don’t understand of God’s ways and thoughts, Scripture does reveal some things that help to address the problem of evil. One avenue for addressing the logical problem of evil is known as the freewill defense.

Image © Educational Concepts Collection at Goodsalt.com

The freewill defense is the view that evil is the result of the misuse of creaturely free will. God, then, is not to blame for evil, because evil is the result of creatures misusing the free will that God has given us for good reasons. Why, however, would God give such free will? In this regard, C. S. Lewis once wrote that “free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other. . . . And for that they must be free.”—Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan, 1960), p. 52.

Why command them unless they had free will to begin with? Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and since then our planet has been filled with evil. In Genesis 4:1-26, the next chapter after the Fall narrative, the terrible consequences of sin are seen in the murder of Abel by his brother. The narrative of the Fall shows how the misuse of Adam and Eve’s free will brought sin and evil into the history of our planet.

All through Scripture, we see the reality of free moral will. (See Deuteronomy 7:12-13; Joshua 24:14-15; Psalms 81:11-14; and Isaiah 66:4.) Every day of our lives, to one degree or another, we ourselves exercise the free will given to us by our Creator. Without free will, we would not be recognizably human. We would be more like a machine, or even a mindless robot.

<–Tuesday Thursday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-07-the-freewill-defense/