If God, Why Evil? Quotes

“The highest freedom is the freedom from evil, not the freedom of doing evil.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“God overrules the evil intent of humans to accomplish His ultimate good.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“If for no other reason, God sometimes allows us to suffer pain so that we can comfort others suffering in a like situation.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Bad things will happen to good people, but a good God has for us a good end, for these bad things will bring about good results: “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“There are some things even God cannot do. He cannot force anyone to freely accept Him. Forced freedom is a contradiction in terms. This is why Jesus said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. (Matthew 23:37) So the only way God could literally destroy all evil is to destroy all freedom.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“In the same way, it is possible that the amount of people in heaven, even though it is less than all persons who ever lived, is the highest number of people God knew He could achieve getting there without violating their free choice. Forcing people to “freely” believe is a contradiction in terms. God is love (1 John 4:16), and love cannot work coercively – only persuasively.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“God had to give us lower freedom (freedom to do evil) in order to achieve a higher freedom for us (freedom from evil).”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Medical science has discovered that the body’s nervous system that conveys pain to us is designed to save our lives. Scientific research on leprosy has revealed that most of the loss of fingers and toes is not caused by the disease but by the leper himself. Leprosy destroys the ability to sense pain. Hence the leper has no warning when he is in dangerous situations that can cause harm or even death to his body. For example, if one cannot feel pain, then he could be severely or fatally burned without even knowing it. Lesson Two: In order to save us from self-destruction the pain has to be strong enough. In addition, experiments done with lepers demonstrate some of pain’s main purposes. When lepers were equipped with bleeping devices to warn of pain, it was discovered that they did not work. Why? Because a bleep is not painful, it did not divert them from unwitting self-destructive activity. Lesson Three: In order for pain to work it has to be out of our control. Further, doctors learned that hooking up a shock mechanism did not work either. Once the leper learned he would be shocked by a sharp warning pain in certain situations, he would turn the system off so as not to be confronted with it again. Now, it is difficult to imagine a better way to utilize pain for our benefit than the world in which we live. Certainly the pain is strong enough, and it is often beyond our control. Rabbi Harold Kushner admitted this point in When Bad Things Happen to Good People: “I am a more sensitive person, a more effective pastor, a more sympathetic counselor because of [my son] Aaron’s life and death than I would have ever been without it” (133). But he added, “If I could choose, I would forgo all the spiritual growth and depth which has come my way” (ibid.). And that is the point: None of us will to go through suffering, and yet most of us admit we are better persons for having done so.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“An all-knowing God knows the end of all things. An all-good God wants to bring all things to a good end. And an all-powerful An God can bring all things to a good end. Therefore, all things (including suffering we don’t understand) will come to a good end – if not in this life, then in the next.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Forcing people to “freely” believe is a contradiction in terms. God is love (1 John 4:16), and love cannot work coercively – only persuasively.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Since God by His very nature (love) cannot force anyone to love Him, it would be highly improper to think of a heaven where people were forced to be there.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“There are some things even God cannot do. He cannot force anyone to freely accept Him. Forced freedom is a contradiction in terms.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Surely, no one who believes in an all-good God, who wants all to do good, could consistently claim that God gave Lucifer the desire to rebel against Him. Perish the thought!”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“(Isaiah 14:12;”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“The fact is, it’s good to be free. No one ever marches against freedom, chanting, “Down with liberty! Back to bondage! I want to do only what the government tells me to do!”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Neither can we deny that free will (the power of free choice) is a good thing.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Yes, God is the author of everything, including evil, in the sense that He permits it, but not in the sense that He produces it. Evil happens in His permissive will, but He does not promote evil in His perfect will.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“not that he is totally deprived of all creaturely good metaphysically.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Love never forces itself on another’s will. So”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“finite being needs a cause, the Cause of all finite beings (God) does not need a cause: He is the Uncaused Cause and Unlimited Limiter of all limited things.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“No pain, no gain. Without danger, the virtue of courage cannot be developed. Without trials and tribulations we can have no patience. God has to permit sin before we can experience forgiveness. Higher-order virtues are dependent on allowing lower-order evils.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Take an illustration from science. Evolutionists once claimed there were some one hundred eighty vestigial organs (with no known function) left over from our animal ancestry. Over the last century or so, this list has shrunk to six! And now there are known functions even for these. More recently some scientists were speaking of “junk genes,” but now there are good reasons for believing they have a special function – playing, for example, a key role in controlling gene expression (see Stephen Meyer, Signature in the Cell, 406–407). Further, even Nature magazine (2009) refers to them as “the junk that makes us human” as they account for the crucial differences among species. In fact, this is all evidence of intelligent design. Finally, to assume they are junk is to hinder scientific research.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“Simply put, that we don’t know a good purpose for some evil does not mean there is no good purpose for it. There are many things we don’t know. And there are many things we once did not know but now do know. So it should be expected that in the future we will discover good purposes for things for which we do not now know a good purpose.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“All moral choices are free choices. No one can be praised or blamed for an act in which they had no free choice. If they were forced to do it, then they can’t get either credit or blame. Hence if God destroyed all freedom, He would be destroying all possibility to love, praise, and worship Him – to say nothing of destroying all possibility of our enjoying His or other people’s love, praise, and sacrifice on our behalf.”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

“this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object, in other words by God himself. (Pensees, #148)”
― Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question