Billy Graham: Perfect God?

Q: Can God make mistakes? I suppose you'll say He can't, but why not? I wonder about this when I see how messed up the world is. Maybe God didn't quite get it right when He created the earth. -- S.C.L.

There isn't a God that created the Earth to begin with. But it is clear that if there was, he's either not very caring, or is grossly incompetent.

A: No, God doesn't make mistakes or do anything wrong because He is absolutely perfect, holy and just.

So Billy thinks that the world is perfect then? Because by definition, if God is perfect then he can only create a perfect creation...

Nor does He ever lie or give us false promises, because "I, the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right" (Isaiah 45:19).

But what about those times that he did?

"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die"
-Genesis 2:17

God is supposed to be all-knowing. Adam and Eve don't die the very day they ate from the tree. So God lied to them.

"I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed"
-Genesis 26:4 (also referenced elsewhere)

This is a false promise on God's part. There are an estimated 13-14 million Jews in the world (who the verse was talking about). Yet there are up to 400 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy. And the observable universe contains a conservatively estimated 100 octillion stars. To put that info perspective Earth contains up to 14,000,000 Jews. Yet the universe contains at least 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. That's quite a big margin of error. Sounds like a false promise to me.

"and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind"
-Revelation 6:13

Another false promise. This one is because it proves that the people writing the Bible had no idea what stars where, or where they are (and obviously, how many there are). So this one is false because it's not even possible.

Why, then, is the world so imperfect, and even evil? Is God responsible for this (as you suggest)? No!

Actually, yes... Yes he is!

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
-Isaiah 45:7

Seeing how even the Bible claims that God created evil, I feel pretty safe in saying he's responsible for evil. He could have just not created it, but nope...

When God created the world it was absolutely perfect. But something terrible happened -- and that "something" is what the Bible calls sin. The world was no longer perfect; evil and death had invaded God's perfect world, and they have been with us ever since. Never forget: Sin isn't just some little thing we do wrong; sin is ultimately rebellion against God.

There's two problems here. For starter, 'sin' is all part of God creating evil. Secondly, this comes back to the claim of God being perfect. If he's perfect, he can only create a perfect creation. If his creation can go wrong, it wasn't fully perfect. If the creation wasn't perfect God can't be perfect. So is this really the road Billy want's to be heading down?

But listen, part of God's perfection is that His love is perfect!

As long as you meet the conditions of his 'love'...

That's why He didn't destroy the world or abandon it.

Except for that one time he supposedly did. I'd count killing almost the entire planet with a global flood as destroying the world. In fact, Genesis 9:11 even confirms that God considered the flood to be 'destroying the Earth'.

Instead, He has done everything possible to bring us back to Himself by coming into the world in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Well, not everything. He could scientifically prove his existence, or at least in a way that was accurately and historically documented.

By His death and resurrection, Christ conquered evil and sin and death, and some day His victory will be complete and all evil will be destroyed.

Because the all-powerful God of the universe just didn't feel like doing away with it himself without attaching some arbitrary condition/act to it?

Is your hope in Christ? Or have you given in to despair and hopelessness? 

Why is this phrased as if it's a question of either or? Research has shown that in the USA, the areas with the most financial despair also tend to have the most faith. 

If so, I invite you to see God as He really is

Non-existent?

-- perfect not only in His justice and holiness

Has Billy even read the Bible?

, but perfect also in His love.

*Some conditions may apply.

-Brain Hulk

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