I think St. Augustine says it best, “Good can exist by itself but evil is only the perversion of the good.” The creation is less than the creator making evil possible with a perfect God who allows freedom of choice. I have a book on this topic Thought, Choice, Action: Decision-Making that Releases the Holy Spirit's Power.
@@ronsandison taking humans and free will out of the equation for the sake of argument. When a zebra, deer or other prey is torn apart and eaten alive screaming in agony; did this happen because the zebra has free will? Or is the universe like this everywhere where you have unceasing torment and suffering regardless of free will? Take a pious man, a good man and he will still suffer.
@@Westcoastrocksduh From my book Though, Choice Action. On a Friday night, I joyfully watched two coyotes playfully chase each other in a vacant field a mile from my home. These were Selah moments that gave me a glimpse of God's wonder and glory in creation. As Theologian Karl Barth statement, "Humanity is never dismissed from the wonder that forms the root of sound theology." Elizabeth Barrett Browning observed, "Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries." Approximately two weeks after I experienced the coyotes' joyful playing, while I was eating breakfast at six in the morning, I witnessed a spotted fawn frantically scurrying in my neighbor's yard into the brush from a deadly predator. Hot on her trail was a coyote ready for an innocent prey of Bambi. These two events demonstrate both the wonder of creation and also the upheaval and violence. As Philip Yancey said, "Everything that we humans touch gives off both the original scent of goodness and the foul odor of fallenness, and requires the slow work of redemption." William Robinson describes this wonder and terror, “Nature always has a double aspect. It presents itself as benign, ready to do more than cooperate with man’s endeavor to reach happiness. And it presents itself as hostile, destroying in a single night all that man has built up through long years of research and toil, sometimes appearing to take on even a malignant aspect, as if mocked and derided the high endeavor of man’s spirit.” Even the violence in the animal kingdom from the fall will be restored at Christ's return. Isaiah 65:25 says, "The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountains, says the Lord." On a more humorous note the wonder and terror in creation can be seen by peoples' unique experiences with adorable squirrels. My Aunt Jennie had a squirrel named Chatter who knocked (scratched) at her door and she hand-fed peanuts. As a child watching this friendly squirrel brought delight to my brother Chuck and me. My supervisor Dwayne Clark had a terror experience with a furry free falling squirrel. After Dwayne smoothly shaved his head, he went for a midsummer walk near his home and a squirrel fell from the top of hundred foot oak tree and just barely missed his head. Dwayne joked with our staff, "If I had any hair it would have stood straight up as I saw the kamikaze coming right at my unprotected head!" Professor Carol Harrison wrote, “In our fallen condition, even profitable labor is distasteful to us. We are beset by numerous threats to our physical and spiritual health, so that exile, disease, sudden death, demonic attacks, and famine are not uncommon. At the same time, St. Augustine in his writings contemplates the extraordinary blessing that God gives humans, including existence, fitting bodies (hands, erect posture, voice, internal organs, and so forth), procreation, rationality, the arts, agricultural and technological development, poetry and philosophy, and above all the ability to attain eternal life by grace. The beauty and diversity of the natural creation likewise manifest God’s bounty."
@@Westcoastrocksduh I think it is both as Sensus Plenior verse like Joel 2:28-31, Sensus plenior is used in biblical interpretation to explain how a biblical text can have a primary meaning on its own, but also holds a deeper, richer meaning when understood in light of later revelation or the broader context of scripture, often referring to how events in the Old Testament foreshadow or "prefigure" events in the New Testament.
