Roses of Grace

God is good , and God is all-knowing , and God is all-powerful . But according to a lot of people, that can't be true. Because if God really knew about the evil that happens in the world every day, and if he was able to stop it, he would—or he wouldn't be a good God. Today we're going to talk about a common objection to the Christian faith called the problem of evil. I'm going to be perfectly honest: this post has been a difficult one to write. Because this problem doesn't really have a satisfying answer. And I'm not some master theologian, I haven't even graduated from high school, so what do I know? People have been trying to solve this problem for hundreds of years.  But we have to think about the problem of evil. Sooner or later, everyone wonders, "why would God let so much evil happen?" And we don't want to shy away from the hard questions. So let's talk about it.    Evil exists. This, at least, is something that nobody argues about. ...

God is all-powerful. God is all-knowing.  This would be extremely bad news if he wasn't also good.  The Bible makes God's love and compassion abundantly clear. 1 Chronicles 16:34 says, "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!" And Psalm 33:4 reiterates this by saying, "For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness." Why is this so important?    If God wasn't perfect: Imagine something with me for a minute. Imagine a god that is omnipotent, and that knows every single one of your thoughts. Imagine a god that is in total control of your life.  Then imagine that that god also doesn't care about what happens to you in the slightest.  Or worse: he not only doesn't care, but he actually isn't admirable. He's petty, envious, and selfish. He doesn't keep his promises. And he kind of dislikes you. Wouldn't you get a little worried?  I know I would. Because the god ...

Knowledge is power. So goes the saying, and God has the most knowledge of all. Omniscient means all-knowing. And it's a crucial attribute for God to have—what good is power without knowledge? How powerful would a God who didn't know everything truly be, or God from whom you could hide? That isn't our God, though. The God of the Bible is omniscient, all-knowing, and it's important for us to understand what that means.   The True Power of Knowledge Omniscient is also a word derived from Latin. Omni means all, and scient comes from the word sciere , meaning "to know." It's also the word that "science" comes from. Science is a popular field. Ever since the early days, when it was called natural philosophy, human beings have studied the world and start to understand its secrets. We have a thirst for knowledge that hasn't been satisfied yet. Now, it's possible that this desire stems from our nature. God has knowledge, and we want that knowled...

Who is God? God is omnipotent. God is omniscient. And God is perfect.  In this article series, requested by an email subscriber, I'm going to go over these three attributes of God, and talk about what it means for us. While there are certainly many attributes of God, so many that they aren't able to be counted, I'm only going to go over these three so that we can keep focused! God is amazing, and he's so far beyond our understanding that we could study him for the rest of our lives and not even begin to comprehend the majesty that he is. The Glory of Creation First of all, God is omnipotent. Omnipotent means all powerful. It comes from the Latin word omni , meaning all, and the word potent , which we've often heard used to refer to taste or smells. Potency is power, and it's also strength. Why does this matter? Well, it gives us a new sense of what the word omnipotent means. All-powerful, but specifically all-strong. God isn't just a battery, full of "...