Did any of the author's arguments change how you conceive of God's nature and decision-making?

[Melisa Jane]

BOOK WEBSITE: https://ygodallowsevil.com

In the chapter “Salvation and Separation,” the author makes a case that God’s nature as a being of “absolutes” (absolutely loving, absolutely just, etc.) leads to many counterintuitive conclusions (see, for example, the following argument: https://ygodallowsevil.com/all-loving-god). Did any of these arguments change how you conceive of God’s nature and decision-making?

[Auth Allow]

It can be a struggle to understand how God thinks and acts because we tend to evaluate moral issues in relativistic terms, as opposed to absolute terms. For instance, when we hear about a small child engaging in a petty theft of candy, we typically say to ourselves something along the following lines: “He's just a little kid, and the piece of candy he stole is only worth a few pennies, so it’s no big deal.”

The book says this about how God views the same act: “Every sinful or evil act—no matter how small or insignificant it may appear to fallen mankind—is a choice that sacrifices love in exchange for some kind of reward or fruit that a self-seeking individual hopes to acquire or experience. If love is the whole purpose of creation, this means that even the most seemingly trivial sinful act undermines the entire purpose of creation.”

If even the ‘smallest’ sin undermines the entire purpose of creation (love), it makes sense why there is no such thing as a 'trivial' sin in the eyes of a perfectly just and all-loving God.

[Bethel Saint Bright]

In a way, yes. I used to think that when we go through tough times or bad things happen to us, God allows them to test and build us up. The author tries to convince that that is not the case. While I believe that it is because of love, I'm still trying to process how it is not a test.