Good and Evil

                Christians believe that the ultimate good is God; they believe that he is omni benevolent, this means all loving. They believe that God is the creator and they believe in the holy trinity to set them on the path of good, they believe in the father, who made the world and keeps it going, but also who created humans in the image of God “God created man in his own image” consequently we must be good like God. The word trinity is a term used to denote the Christian doctrine that God exists as a unity of three distinct persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each is divine, yet there are not three Gods, but one God. Christians believe that Jesus is the son who is the immanent and personal God beside us who came to earth and lived a human life. The Father is the translucent God beyond us that created the world and keeps it going and the Holy Spirit who is the immanent yet impersonal God around us that inspires and guides Christians from day to day. So Christians understand that there are three ‘members’ of the trinity, whom all are different, but have the same purpose. (Source: the book ‘Christianity in Today’s World’)

                The Bible says that Christians are to be involved in good works for the purpose of glorifying God. Jesus who is the Christian example, was declared to be one “who went about doing good” (Acts 10:38). So Christians know that they must be involved in good works for this is a sign of becoming closer to Jesus and consequently becoming closer to God. St. Paul tells Christians that it is important to be involved in good works and that these good works must be done by the authority of Jesus Christ-another point influencing Christians to follow the path of good. Christians believe that God’s requirement is that we serve Him, therefore, obviously it is not for His benefit; rather, it is for our benefit, so Christians would also do good in hope of benefiting from it themselves. Because “God is love” (1 John 4:8), he wants the best for us. Our true contentment will be found only in living for Him, so living for God we must be good because this is what he tells us to do and this is what he does. “My friend, to be good enough to go to heaven we must have a righteousness that equals God's” (2 Corinthians. 5:21), this provides evidence that those who are like God shall be rewarded in heaven and God is good so those who are good shall be rewarded. One of the main reasoning’s Christians have for being good is a reward, they believe what good they do now they will be rewarded for it in heaven, “Sell all your possessions and give all you money to the poor and you will have riches in heaven” (Luke18:22).Therefore Christians believe that they will live in eternal happiness with God if they do the utter most good throughout their lives, because there is at the end, the prize. An apostle once wrote, “...I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day...” (2 Tim. 4:7-8) meaning he has done entirely what God has asked and consequently after judgement he will go to heaven.                        Thomas Aquinas had a set of natural laws, he defined God as the ultimate end of man, he said that man acts to achieve an end and that God is the ultimate good that fulfils every desire. So because humans act to achieve an end it can be said that God is the ultimate end of the actions of man. Christians trust the belief that God, the creator is perfectly good, always loving and has never done anything wrong. To support this, Christians would use this quote from the Bible, “the Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy”. Christians believe that Gods goodness covers two areas, what God is and how God acts towards his creatures, in other words his goodness covers his character and the expression of his character(Source: the book ‘why God matters in moral philosophy’)                 

                Furthermore Christians would say it is the goodness of God Himself, not evil which created the universe and everything of existence in it; which successfully brought everything in it into being, therefore the power of good must be an even stronger force than evil. Christians believe that they must use all these arguments as proof of God doing goods because of this they would do the same. Because of Jesus, Christians believe they live at peace with God, “now that we have declared righteousness….let us enjoy peace with God“(Romans 5:1). God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only son, so that everyone who has faith in Him will have eternal life and never die (John 3:16), God did an ultimate good by letting his son die for us so we must follow him and be good. Looking at the life of Jesus we can see that Jesus spent his life doing good and helping people, Christians would simply look at Jesus’ life and do as he as done. When Jesus gave his life for everyone as he died on the cross, Christians believe that here, Jesus did the definitive good and subsequently Christians do not doubt the fact that they must follow Jesus’ ways to show thankfulness for him dying for us.

                 However Roman Catholics believe that when someone has been good all their lives, but not good enough, they will go to a place called purgatory, a half way house between heaven and hell where they will stay until they are good enough to go to heaven. Nevertheless Christians believe it matters how they live and all have the conviction that ‘being good’ is important. They believe in some kind of judgement upon evil; because obviously, if ‘good people’ go to heaven, ‘bad people’ don’t. All Christians, then, are concerned about being good. The Bible teaches that no responsible person is ‘good enough’ to go to heaven. Although we can always find someone who is ‘worse’ than we are, we have all sinned against God. As God views us, “there is none righteous, no not one ... for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:10, 23). That means we must be saved from our sins, and the goodness of Jesus Christ (Heb. 4:15; Rom. 3:24-26) will redeem us, and from this goodness, the ultimate good of Jesus Christ in which he died for us Christians learn that we must do good. Jesus himself did not give a set of rule that Christians should follow but from the teachings of his life one can assume the following; You must be forgiving, merciful and strive for peace but never strive for revenge. Jesus’ view on how Christians should live their lives was “love your neighbour as you love yourself”, for Christians this is enough to back up the fact that they must be good to everyone, for the whole of their lives. The phrase in the Bible Christians would use to summarise their beliefs about the power of good would be “God is love”(John 4:8), Christians would say this shows that all love and its power comes from god, and therefore all Christians have love in them-the power to do good.                                                                                                                        God created us in His own image so we can know Him personally and have a joy-filled life. He did not make us as robots to automatically love and obey Him, but gave us a will and a freedom of choice. Christians believe that we have been given free will. Free will, to begin with, is the power asserted on moral beings from their own will or choice without the restraints of physical imposed necessity. Christians believe God wanted humans to worship him freely, not to act mechanically. The existence of this freedom of choice essentially then requires the possibility of evil choices. So free will is the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. God does not will evil; he simply creates humans who make evil choices. Although this is often presented as a powerful argument, it is open to several objections. First of all if freedom is good in itself, and therefore necessary in a perfect world, there must be choices, these must involve  must involve good and evil, so one can choose freely between good alternatives without becoming a mere robot. So people have the choice to do right or wrong, someone’s conscience depends on the right or wrong; the good or bad they do. "God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell”. ‘That is not free will’, these were the words of a Christian (-William C. Easttom II),in his opinion, by looking at this quote it seems like God is ordering us to do good so really there is no choice.

                 Morality can be used to distinguish the right from the wrong and the good from the bad, so that right and good actions can be chosen, and the wrong and bad actions can be avoided. Christians refer to this morality as our conscience, but it is more than that because a conscience is that which is developed by what we are taught from an outside source, it is variable and dependent upon social guidelines. A conscience is the sense a person has of the ethical aspects of their actions, motives and character; it creates in the subject a feeling of responsibility; Firstly to do what is right, to be good and secondly to avoid what is bad or morally wrong. It gives the individual intuitive guidance as to morally proper behaviour. A conscience is, many would say, one way at least in which we are different from the rest of the animal kingdom. We are different from animals because we have the ability to choose things morally, as we are made in the image of God. People disagree over the sources of the conscience. The different possible causes of a conscience are generally believed to be; Upbringing, the way we are trained and taught to act by our parents, or it’s an interface, a mysterious way our brains and our spirits connect. Christians however, believe that it is the voice of God and that he speaks to us through our consciences when we want to know what the right thing to do is. The reason why Christians try to follow a moral code and be good is to; be in harmony with God, to please God, to improve the lives of others, because of guilt or to show our gratitude to God. Christians have faith in the fact that sinning against God and doing evil breaks the moral code and separates a person from God, so this explains humans doing good to keep in harmony with God. The Bible makes it clear that God is contented with human kindness and love, we can see this in the passage “Just as I have loved you….you have love among yourselves”, and this shows us how God is pleased with humans doing well.        

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                According to Christians the Devil is the sworn enemy of God, in the Bible it is also referred to as Lucifer, Beelzebub and Satan. Ideas of what the Devil is like, range from a stereotypical picture of a figure with horns and a tail, to a sophisticated powerful being who hates all that is Godly and revels on human suffering. Mention is made of the Devil in many passages of the Old and New Testaments, but there is no full account given in any one place, and the teaching on this topic can only be ascertained by combining a number ...

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