I think there's also a difference between "God did X" and "God allowed X to happen". If you believe that every little thing is a specific act of God then logically you have to conclude that God caused the 12-year-old girl to get gang-raped, God planted the malignant cells in the young father's brain, God caused the drunk driver to leave the small children orphaned in the car smash, and so on. With that worldview it's very hard to argue against the claim that God is some kind of cosmic sadist, inflicting pain and suffering to see how people will react. The book of Job suggests something very different, that God allowed things to happen within limits. If God allows things to happen, as opposed to actively causing them, the argument that God is some kind of cosmic sadist loses a lot of its wind.
We can know that generally, 'X, Y or Z' was allowed to happen simply because we're allowed the freedom of self-determination, and if God intervened every time, He'd do nothing but intervene, and we'd be anything but free to self-determine.
Whichever way we swing, why do we assume God is at all nervous or feels at all guilty about bearing the full ultimate responsibility for His entire creation at all times? If there is a God ... and if He in fact created everything ... then He most certainly did create our world with certain parameters that allow certain things to happen -- even the things we call evil and "bad". I don't honestly care if someone honestly believes that God, if He exists, is a cosmic sadist -- if that is what their own reasoning capacities cause them to believe after they sat down and pondered some things which are pretty easily observed and which demand some sort of attention, because there they are. What am *I* going to do about such accusations, as if God needed my defending? If I sat there and defended everything about my faith to everyone who questioned it, I'd literally get nothing else done, ever. That's a highly unproductive way to live, all these back-and-forths, arguments and counter-arguments, that nobody's yet found a satisfying answer for, because if they had, we'd no longer be arguing about these things. I see entire blogs and websites devoted to defending certain viewpoints and arguments. Entire books and libraries. Literally thousands upon thousands upon tens and hundreds of thousands upon millions of man hours spent. On what? Why? Who is that helping, even? How is our world better for that? I honestly think God put a lot of things into our experience that cannot be answered or explained by us. They can only be experienced and processed, and that's it. There are certain things in the world that demand actions, rather than explanations. Because love, our highest commandment, is an action verb. So ... I'm busy living out my sacred faith actively in my own small way on my own journey, helping who I can when I can. Who am I to judge someone else's journey? Your questions are welcome. Your doubts are welcome. Your accusations are welcome. I have my own. It's fine. Meanwhile, we got work to do.
Just my opinion, but I think the Lord God gets blamed for so many things He didn't do, that are just the result of sin.
Even as a toddler I learned the sobering truth that this world is cursed and thus, filled with disease, suffering and evil men. All the more reason to cry out to a just and loving God.
Do we believe that sin will cease to exist? I remember you once said that sin will remain, do you still believe that, or did I dream you said that?
As long as Satan exists, sin will exist, although the penalty of sin has been paid. If sin could be found in heaven before mankind was created, why would we assume that sin could not arise again later?
Free will, obedience, even faith were elements in the garden story. One can say A&E lost faith in what God had said about the TOK. Another ingrediënt (much to our situation) would be the absence of God when A&E were tempted, absence in the sense that God wasn't speaking to A&E or that He wasn't walking in the garden in the cool of the day. It (IMO) begs the question if the snake would have succeeded if God would have been present. Instinctively I am inclined to think any temptation would have failed on A&E. Lumping it all together, on the New Earth God is not always around -- as in the garden -- hence we (always) need faith. My one cent as two is too much.
I think this is the key point here. For as long as we have free will we have the freedom to do bad things to other people. To adapt a line from a guy on a forum I used more years ago than I care to count, if you've got a big stick there's nothing to stop you hitting someone with it. That's free will, even if it isn't so great for the person on the other end of the stick. On the face of it we can easily cry out when we see things like civil war, genocide, natural disaster etc and ask why God doesn't do anything about it. But what exactly do we expect God to do? If God intervenes in the most serious of cases and prevents tornadoes, tsunamis, wildfires, earthquakes etc then based on our new points of reference we'd wonder why God allowed thunderstorms and hailstones, and before we know it we're in a place where we wonder what sort of useless God did nothing about that poor lady who stubbed her toe on her bedframe and whether or not he cared about the pain it caused her. You know, the pain that lasted at least 15 minutes before subsiding. All of it points forward to a place where, to quote the guy who described it, there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.
I can imagine in many situations we could ask God, 'why did you let this happen?' and He would reply, 'why did you do it?'
Revelation 21:4 says there will be no more death. But where there is sin, there is death. So if there is no more death, there must be no more sin. If there was more sin, then there would still be more death to come.
Make sense.... To elaborate a bit, it is theorized God wanted to throw satan in the LOF for his rebellion but that (some of) those who remained loyal didn't understand the harsh measure and started to doubt God's love, justice, accused Him of being unforfgiving -- or -- that before such thoughts could arise He already decided to justify Himself by creating us, allowing sin to play its destructive role as a convincing learning experience, dying for us, in order not to be accused of being unloving, unjust, unforgiving. So, on the new earth in the theoretical case when sin rears its ugly head God can punish evildoers as He pleases as nobody will question His decisions, He richly proofed His character with operation Earth. And the best of all, no lawyers needed any longer
Limited atonement teaches that sin is never fully paid for. I don't think Calvin would say that there is no sin after Rev 21 I don't think that Rev 21 is trying to teach that absence of death = absence of sin. I think Rev 21 is talking about relationship between God and man I.e. Separation. I think the text is silent as to possibility of future rebellion.