God does not prevent evil because evil is necessary to accomplish His "marvelous" ends. Refinement occurs in an environment of adversity, a stone is polished by grinding, metal is hardened by beating.
As you rightly point out evolution is an imperfect process and produces imperfect results. It is this emergent imperfect world we live in that provides the very crucible in which we, as the offspring of God, are forged and gain experience.
One cannot fully comprehend sweet without having tasted bitter, one cannot exercise choice without at least two alternatives, evil exists that we may comprehend good and learn to prize it.
If you're interested in the scriptural basis for this I quote below:
11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.
12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.
13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.
14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.
15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.
16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.
Hmmm. … scriptural basis … Respectfully, @gavvet, to help with any misconceptions our fellow Steemians might have from reading this, would we be able to agree on something? Specifically, that applying this adjective to this book would be okay primarily, if not exclusively, with members of the LDS church?
New to your posts and reading this, I am wondering whether you are an active member or at least very interested in this church. Assuming so, your sympathetic view of evolution is certainly understandable. I recall a phrase, from my youth, from the LDS church. While perhaps not an exact quote, it says, "As man is now, God once was; as God is now man may be.” You may be familiar with it.
May I humbly suggest our fellow Steemians might find a major challenge supporting this statement from Scripture?
Thank you for this post and your comments @gavvet. I have upvoted it and am now following you!
If this is the case then humans have become 'better' in spite of God, not because of god.
He created a situation of perpetual suffering, then laid out the rules of the bible which presumably we can just completely ignore and let natural selection and later technology do the work, no? I mean, I'm an atheist yet I consider myself a far kinder and thoughtful individual than many of those christian bigots I've met and read about who study the bible, the same as many other non-believers, so clearly the bible isn't necessary to guide us in any way, it can guide us either on a dark path or a light one, depending on who we are as a result of natural selection and genetics.
In fact, we've defied the bible in so many ways as a global society yet pushed to a far better place, that it's another example of progress in spite of efforts from God to thwart us.
Furthermore, I think the level of suffering from nature is pretty excessive if the only motive is to make us appreciate the good stuff. Thousands of generations of torture, disease and God's own personal (very human) issues - many of which actually created by humans themselves.
How can one reasonably worship a God that decided this was the only reasonable direction to take to reach a magnificent end? Why not simply leave that out of the blueprints? If these things cannot be understood by mortal humans, then I see no reason why we should bother following their lead, as they take us through countless millennia of horror and despair that only really existed via his own product; the soul. The only logical approach - which is all us humans have to go by - is to abandon such terror and guide ourselves with science and understanding of the world and each other.
This happens irrespective of any greater power, evidently. Ergo, to me, God's only input in our existence is to make us suffer. That doesn't sit right with me, and I find it odd that anybody could keep it on faith that eventually something magnificent will come out of it all, history just doesn't support that premise.
Hope this makes sense, stream of thought unplanned
Edit: I realise this is probably not the place to be having such a potentially sizeable debate so I might just make a pondering post about these thoughts instead
My understanding of God and his purposes is a lot broader and deeper than you describe, therefore I find Him palatable. I can see your point of view in not wanting to believe in the god you describe. If that were my understanding and level of perception of him I could also likely choose the atheistic route.
However there is more than you describe and bigots etc. are found amongst atheists and non-believers alike. They are likely representative of the ratio in the rest of humanity... simply more noticeable because they profess a higher standard.
I must confess I've never actually read a bible (Other than what I was raised with in CoE schools) and generally find it hard to engage with individuals since there's always this kind of thick red line between 'us and them', so I'm obviously somewhat biased and ignorant of the deeper levels that you claim to be aware of. Something for me to think about =)
Well said, and the stream is oftentimes the better way 😀