None:
Polyps:
Strongs:

Corrupt? Absolutely

So, if in place of the pursuit of pleasure man will choose the option that furthers his pursuit of some long term goal, even if it be an evil such as to enslave others, does that make God corrupt as after our own pattern?

God has allowed this creation to continue in order to reclaim a remnant of faith as His own people, to dwell with them forever. God's long term goals are intricately interwoven with a requirement for a total victory over the evil that is currently in the world. The work of redemption and the salvation of the cross are indeed finished and complete. We merely wait for the last convert and the arrival of God's wrath to put an end to the reign of evil. Does that still make God corrupt? What if men (as without excuse) are indeed as evil as the suffering they see in the animal world? If they themselves know they are animals, and weigh ethically every decision, yet do so in full knowledge that they would certainly choose the suffering in the animal kingdom over the possibility of mass extinction, what are they then?

If then this world is corrupt because of the nature of the animal kingdom, does a corrupt creation imply a corrupt creator? No. It does not.

If you could create every possible world and chose this one over every other - does that make you a corrupt creator or one that is intimately involved in the solutions to suffering and for lack of a word, evil?

This creation is most certainly corrupted. It was declared "good" in the beginning by God, but good? Really? It was good to purpose. God could happily rest without needing to be the instigating cause in every case of suffering, or rather was not the direct cause of any suffering - it being the decision of the lion to eat the antelope rather than the commandment of God or his action as a puppeteer.

We actually have the same standards ourselves, and we do little to realise it.

God created evil, there is no surprise there - but eternal evil? I doubt very much at that. I do not see any evidence of God corrupt, but creation, fully corrupt, yes, totally. God is able to be and is at rest still, and has no need to intervene to feed the lion with bread instead. We pay no heed to killing the germs in the sink and we would not consider the possibility of intelligent microbial life on another planet if we sanitized it for colonisation. Ethical judgements are without exception coloured by perspective, and we paint God with our own, because we are too much like His own character at heart to admit it.

I make that statement in knowledge that yes, we are also corrupt but God is not. God does not and did not gamble suffering into existence. If the animals are innocent of causing their suffering, will they be punished for it? Clearly not. If man is the only iniquitous animal on earth, we deserve our judgement unless we freely take our single escape route through Christ.

So there is in some simple sense a justification for God using evil for his good purposes over us using evil for our own short sighted goals. God's corrupt creation is for a few thousand years in an eternity without another playground of such iniquity and suffering required. The attempt at Babel was a short term plan for suffering on a much larger scale. The opportunity for power to be passed on to the next generation would not make the exercise "good".

However if God would hand men the reigns to create a system they could be happy to live in, would they invent the same as described in the bible? Would man invent the bible with the solution to evil that is posited within it? If religion is only wishful thinking and an invention of the paranoid - why did we end up with a system like the biblical one that gives one answer to man concerning evil and suffering? The answer is to beware when you think you're saved more so than you should be if you know you are not. Now, is that not the strangest condition to invent for a religion that is supposed to be "good news"?

That very statement itself is completely opposed against God being the cause of any suffering at all. If that is the intent of a God that will most certainly sanitize His creation of the cause of the complaint of suffering, He will most certainly do so. Any christian can happily state that the hippo has no knowledge of Christ, but will say the concept of a hippo going to hell is ludicrous. Beware then, if you state that the hippo suffers without need: No one knows what God has prepared for us, let alone those that He gave life without ethical quandary.

The hippo being carnal will happily expect pleasure over pain,. and will defend himself to keep that expectation. The hippo, without quandary being wild will expect a reward for his own suffering, even if it only be more wildness. Eternal life then for a hippo is its own natural expectation - and without the condemnation of the law from the commandment of God, the hippo can happily receive eternal life knowing it has fulfilled the will of its creator despite it's own suffering. It reaches Godward for pleasure and with a natural response away from suffering. How will the hippo then appreciate it's life without a brief stint under suffering? Eternal life is a free gift, but a hippo will play as much as the kitten in the paradise God has for it, and why not, it earned it under it's own God-given law without committing sin.

Whether the hippo has faith or meta-faith, is a human and ethical quandary. What we can expect is that the animals in the wild are in themselves in their manner more wise than the man who points the finger at God; whom is happy to face the horse when it is paddocked.


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