A Letter From Rhino Times Reader Austin Morris
The battle between good and evil persists, as it always has, as it always will.
Freedom means that evil will exist for as long as man has free will, because freedom means the ability to do evil as well as good. Freedom to do one thing but not the other is not real freedom. This is the answer to the question of why God permits evil in this world. It is an inescapable corollary of freedom.
So if freedom facilitates the existence of evil, why does God grant us freedom? Why is it so great if it permits wickedness? Because without it the whole project is pointless.
God is omnipotent and omniscient. He could easily create a World full of beings who are subservient and subjugated. But to what end? To demonstrate his power? God’s not that insecure. He doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. It would amount merely to an exercise in divine masturbation. God is no onanist.
God is love. Not feigned love or counterfeit love, but real love. Real love is divine in its essence, even when it is between flawed humans. Love is the purpose of the whole project, and genuine love can only exist in liberty because coerced love is not genuine. It is, in fact, an obvious contradiction in terms.
Only in the exercise of our free will can we come to love God, and each other.
This is why the forces of evil always work against freedom, exerting power and control over people. The devil is the opposite of God, so liberty is anathema to him. He really does want to subjugate us and enslave us. He celebrates any and every diminution of our liberty.
The Earthly battle between freedom and tyranny is the battle between good and evil. Those on the dark side will always sell their machinations as having a good, beneficial outcome, despite the sacrifice of an element of our liberty. “If it saves a single life…” Or “The end justifies the means”, as the German National Socialists put it.
When Charlie Kirk was the victim of a heinous act of pure evil, that was a perfect microcosm of the eternal battle. He wore a plain white shirt that bore a single word : freedom.
Evil abhors freedom. God loves it.
Please forgive my sophomoric ramblings but they came out of a metaphysical debate with my agnostic son. This time of year gives us pause to ponder the profound. Who knows if these sentiments reached him, but perhaps they will help some other agnostic or atheist to reach some understanding of faith and liberty. I hesitate to submit them, but it is Christmas.
If not now, when?
Austin Morris
Absolutely beautifully written. Prayers that your son will see the light and repent.
Well said.
Wow! Powerful accurate words Sir!
May God bless you and keep you safe, healthy, and FREE this coming year.
Best retort to why God allows good, evil and free will I have ever heard. Thank you.
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Gosh, I’m surprised and delighted to have received such compliments. Thank you, all!
I have a confession : the letter was submitted after several beers had been consumed by myself and us all on Christmas Eve, and after submitting it I felt embarrassed. The Rhino is an excellent publication, but perhaps not a forum for such issues. And the Letter was poorly written. Half a dozen German pilsners will do that…
My son had raised the old question of how an omnipotent God can allow so much evil to exist in our World, and I tried to resolve the question. Apparently I failed to convince him, so I tried my logic on the Rhino Readers.
Sorry.
Then again, perhaps we come to change our beliefs slowly and incrementally, in which case my argument may still reach him. I hope so. Sometimes when we can’t sleep we wrestle with these things. Well, I do.
If y’all found the sentiments compelling and worthwhile, good.
If not, I apologise. I was beered up.
.
God gave us free will because we had to be allowed to choose freely between believing in Him and following His commandments or Satan. Adam chose Satan when he decided to follow Eve’s decision to become equal with God, which was what Satan tempted her to do by eating of the Tree of Knowledge. Once that commandment was broken, sin was passed to each human through the male line until Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. Christ’s death on the cross as a substitute for our sins allows us to have life everlasting if we believe in his sacrifice for us as God’s Son.
God has given each human the freedom to decide for themselves whether or not to believe in that gift, because His attributes do not allow Him to force humans to accept salvation. The angelic world is watching to see what each of us decides, as Satan challenged God to make men and give them a choice regarding salvation and following God’s plan or choosing to continue in human sin. We must have free will to decide, because the angels didn’t.
We do have free will. It does mean we live in an earthly world of sin, pain, war, sickness, and violence. But God has given us His Word, the Bible, which teaches us a way of life, promises, to deal with the adversity of living here, living with peace, calm, and how to be secure knowing He has provided for all our needs. He’s promised us He will because He’s provided the most for us, our everlasting salvation, so He must provide everything else we need. Evil things are of Satan’s world, and that’s who is ruling now. That won’t always be the case. As believers, we should allow God’s Word to guide our thinking, follow His precepts in our lives, and claim His promises for our mental and emotional stability. It’s not easy, but it’s there for us to rest on.
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Thanks Deborah.
Your comment outlines the way forward for each soul. My Letter was more limited, only explaining why the existence of evil on Earth does not disprove the existence of God. In fact it corroborates it.
A lot of people get hung up on this quandary, so I wanted to provide an answer for them. If just one reader grasps it, then the effort will have been worthwhile. And of course, I hope that reader is my son.
It might be a gateway to Faith.
Thanks Austin like you and your family, this very issue has been a source of tension and division in my family. Being raised in a family of believers it’s difficult to understand how someone can’t believe in God but that’s where free will comes in to play. Evil is always around us but for us who believe in God, Good will prevail. God bless you Austin and Happy New Year!!!
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Thanks Reb. Happy New Year!
PS
For the atheists in your family, try asking them how to defend their proposition that
“Nothing plus Nothing equals Everything”
It’s crude and logically questionable, but it gets them thinking. And that’s the whole point.
Good luck!
The non-believers, the Godless, the atheists, and many leftists among us continue to question why God lets tragedies happen to children. They try to make a religious argument by attacking God, the Bible, Prayer, and Christianity.
This ages-old attack on God is simply one more way that evil people try to justify, in their own minds, their godless behavior. Those who criticize prayer after mass shootings reveal their own ignorance.
Some Democratic politicians and left-wing media pundits, including CA Governor Newsom, have disputed the effectiveness of prayers and have questioned the existence of God. After the shootings in Minneapolis, many pro-crime Democratic politicians and the legacy media mocked God and prayer.
God gave us a book on how to live, how to obey or disobey, and who we will serve. The Bible is clear that we have Free Will to make moral choices, although some faiths may disagree.
The Bible emphasizes God’s sovereignty alongside the concepts of Free Will and personal responsibility, meaning the ability to make decisions independently of divine intervention or predetermined fate. Some believe in predestination.
God did warn Adam of the consequences of eating from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God gave Adam a clear choice: to obey Him or to disobey Him, exercising his free will.
Many Christians believe that God created humans with Free Will so they could choose to love and follow Him, rather than being compelled to do so. This freedom allows for genuine love, obedience, and moral growth. It’s often cited as a reason for the existence of evil in the world, because people have the freedom to choose wrongly.
Terrible things have occurred throughout history, and they will continue to happen. God has given every person Freedom of Choice. We have the right to choose whether we do good according to the word of God or whether we do evil. God gave us that choice, and he will not interfere in it even when people choose evil, because that’s not Choice, and unfortunately, some people will select evil.
The sinner wants the Freedom of Choice to do what they want to do. They want abortions, the mutilation of children’s bodies, the pedophiles, and the right for a man to claim he is a woman. They want selective Choice with their ideology and the sins they want to commit, but not Freedom for others with whom they disagree. It just doesn’t work that way.
It’s been asked by many people across cultures and religions throughout history, and there’s no simple, universally accepted answer. Human beings are responsible for their actions. When someone chooses to commit acts of violence, they bear the moral and ethical consequences of their choices, even though God gives them the freedom to act.
In the end, the question of why God allows such tragedies, particularly the suffering of children, remains one of the most painful and challenging aspects of human existence.
While no answer can fully resolve the heartache that comes from these tragic events, faith, prayer, community support, and personal resilience often become the means by which individuals and communities cope with suffering and seek to prevent further harm.
Before and after tragedy, it’s time to pray.
God has no competitors and no opposites. Omnipotent beings do not share power. Christianity is not “dualistic”, yin-yang where God has 50% of all power and Satan has 50%. Satan has no power over humans when we are with God. We are not commanded to fear Satan, we are commanded to fear God. We do not lose our freewill when we believe in the deceptions of Satan, otherwise how would God judge us at the end? Good is not the opposite of evil; evil is merely an absence or privation of The Good. God does not create evil. Read about “Privation of Good” from Saint Augustine.
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Agreed.
God does not create evil but he permits its existence by allowing us our freedom. Then It is us who create evil.
And omnipotent beings might well choose to share power. God shares power with humanity. We have the power to destroy ourselves, for example. This power exists because we have free will, which God has given us, so it’s an example of an omnipotent being sharing power. If Satan ever became omnipotent you can be sure that he would not share power.
And God has allowed Satan to have a degree of power (this is a concomitant of liberty). God could crush him in an instant if he desired. God created us, and he did so that we might love him – and celebrate life itself. But love is only able to exist in a milieu of freedom, because coerced love is no love at all. So our freedom is a necessary precondition for love. And if we have our freedom, some of us – or all of us – will choose evil. This explains the existence of evil in our World, and also that the existence of evil does not at all disprove the existence of God.
It only explains our human frailties and failings, of which He was perfectly aware when he created us.
I know this is getting rather abstruse, but in brief, life is a gift in itself. My Grandmother’s last words were “Life is sweet”. Intellectuals ask “What is the meaning of life?”. That is because they’re overthinking it. It’s like asking what is the meaning of ice cream? Buy your kid an ice cream and ask him that question. He’ll laugh at you because it is a stupid question. The ice cream is its own reward, intrinsically and emphatically worthwhile. Only a stupid grown-up would ask what is the point of it!
And only a stupid intellectual or academician would ask “What is the meaning of life?”.
But if they want the real answer – and that’s a big “if” since many of them just want to pontificate and perorate – then here it is : –
The meaning of life is to allow love, and especially love of the Divine, to flourish in the existence of a perfect liberty in which its refutation is readily allowed. And also because life is intrinsically worthwhile, like an ice cream on a hot Summer’s day.
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Okay, so now Austin Morris is putting himself up there with the Great Philosophers and theologians as he addresses the eternal question : What is the meaning of life? What a joke.
Sorry. I don’t know how I got in this deep.
Austin please take this with humor and a few cold beers, but I’m thinking you got your insight and inspiration from Chris
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Er… that would be “no”, Will. This sort of metaphysical debate is above his pay grade. And there’s no opportunity for him to call anyone “racist”, “bigot” or “hater”, so he’s not interested.
But hey, I appreciate your sense of humour, and that I should enjoy a few cold ones! I’m actually quite proud of myself at the moment – I haven’t had a drink all year.
But… Mondays are half price beer at Jake’s on Spring Garden Street, so my dry run will probably end then.
Cheers!
What time do you normally get to Jake’s
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Sorry Reb, change in plan. I have to head up to Eden today.
Ahh… the joys of running a small business! So it goes.
Cheers anyway!
No problem Austin, I had a couple for you anyway. Stay safe and your powder dry.
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Cheers Reb !
Hey give this beer a try if you can. It’s only $5.99 for four half-litre European cans, brewed and canned in Germany, and it’s good.
It’s called Wernesgruner (more correctly Wernesgruener) and it’s sold at those German ALDI grocery stores.
Just make sure it’s cold before you drink it.
I’ll have a beer for you, probably tomorrow. Until then, I can still honestly say that I haven’t had a drink all year.
And I can’t say that very often….
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Stopped at my favourite bar today – Old Town Tavern. Lovely little boozer.
I can no longer say that I haven’t had a drink all year.
Iechyd Da!
Wish my brother and his family would read this. They are so lost.
William Your family reading this won’t change them, they will be lost until a life changing moment happens. Speaking from experience, the best thing you can do is not to try to change their minds but continue to pray for them. Good luck and. god bless.
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Sorry to hear that William, but I have many who are lost also. I’m from the UK, and it dismays me to admit that most Britons have lost their faith, but it is undeniably true.
All we can do is to lay out the truth. Jesus laid out truth, and did so more magnificently and impressively than we could ever do. And yet even some of those who have been shown truth still deny it.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. All we can do is lead the horse to water.
Ours is a Judeo-Christian Republic. The bedrock is the Bible. Almost all early settlers were from Europe; people looking to escape grinding poverty, while serving The Man. Such as Hessian soldiers?
Greco-Christian. Watch Charlie Kirk’s memorial if you don’t believe me.
Herod’s Temple was destroyed in 70 AD by Rome and it’s destruction was prophesied by Christ in The Olivet Discourse. The Judeans were later genocided by Rome in 136 AD.
Adam was not a Judean. Noah was not a Judean. Cornelius, Constantine, Charlemagne and Martin Luther were not Judean. Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, and George Washington were not Judean.
Judeo-Christianity is a political term used to describe a recently defunct political coalition formed as a reaction to Roe v. Wade in the 1970’s.
It’s over. That political coalition and it’s civic religion, including the false moral absolutes that underpin it, are now defunct.
America First