The fact that, if God made everything, God made EVERYTHING including all the things anyone thinks as "evil" is the "Problem Of Evil". And Christianity has been struggling with that one pretty much since St. Paul's day.
A popular solution you will hear is that the evil is the Devil's, spread by his fellow fallen angels. Indeed, the whole fallen angels thing may have it's genesis in the Problem Of Evil. Certainly, it is my understanding that Judaism doesn't have a story of the Fall, and that they believe Satan and his cohorts are angels that are loyal to God, just that they have been given the "nasty" jobs (Angel of Death in Egypt, etc.) whilst Gabriel and so on got the "nice" ones.
Another is that it is the fault of Human Sinfulness, and that the "evil" somehow owes its existence to our greed, etc.
Both seem to me to imply that something other than God is a creative force, which sounds like a contradiction to the idea of monotheism.
But maybe that's just me.
The Christians do face a dilemma here. They believe in a God that loves all humans, but they also appear to believe in a God whose love is conditional on the behaviour of the loved ones (correction, all the ones I get preached at by seem to). I guess it is a reflection of the fact that Humans cannot love everyone, and often find it hard to keep on loving those they do when the "loved one(s)" do things that are disagreeable to the "lover". We project our selves onto God, and the result is not pretty (which is the true meaning of the quote about "making God in our own image", I believe).
You have talked about the idea of a truly All-loving God being beyond our imagination, and you may well be right. Certainly, religious teachers in many traditions, and not just Christian ones, seem to assume that the deity/deities they worship have limited capacity to love humans.
Can Christianity, or any other tradition for that matter, transcend this human flaw? I'd love to believe so. But I fear it may be a pious hope.
Note that, though most of what I have written refers to Christianity, that is because (a) I know more about that faith than any other and (b) I assume (rightly or wrongly) that others reading this also familiar with that tradition. I'm sure the same issies apply to other religions in some form.
Personally, I seek a dialogue with someone who can actually show me a "eureka" argument that proves the existence or non-existence of a deity. Not necessarily the specific one(s) they worship, but a godhead of some sort.
None seems to be forthcoming so far, and what I have heard combined with my own observations and logic is, though strongly suggestive of a specific answer (no), has not been able to give me a totally convincing one.
I suspect that I will never find that argument this side of the grave.
EDITED to make the point I was trying to make clearer.
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A popular solution you will hear is that the evil is the Devil's, spread by his fellow fallen angels. Indeed, the whole fallen angels thing may have it's genesis in the Problem Of Evil. Certainly, it is my understanding that Judaism doesn't have a story of the Fall, and that they believe Satan and his cohorts are angels that are loyal to God, just that they have been given the "nasty" jobs (Angel of Death in Egypt, etc.) whilst Gabriel and so on got the "nice" ones.
Another is that it is the fault of Human Sinfulness, and that the "evil" somehow owes its existence to our greed, etc.
Both seem to me to imply that something other than God is a creative force, which sounds like a contradiction to the idea of monotheism.
But maybe that's just me.
The Christians do face a dilemma here. They believe in a God that loves all humans, but they also appear to believe in a God whose love is conditional on the behaviour of the loved ones (correction, all the ones I get preached at by seem to). I guess it is a reflection of the fact that Humans cannot love everyone, and often find it hard to keep on loving those they do when the "loved one(s)" do things that are disagreeable to the "lover". We project our selves onto God, and the result is not pretty (which is the true meaning of the quote about "making God in our own image", I believe).
You have talked about the idea of a truly All-loving God being beyond our imagination, and you may well be right. Certainly, religious teachers in many traditions, and not just Christian ones, seem to assume that the deity/deities they worship have limited capacity to love humans.
Can Christianity, or any other tradition for that matter, transcend this human flaw? I'd love to believe so. But I fear it may be a pious hope.
Note that, though most of what I have written refers to Christianity, that is because (a) I know more about that faith than any other and (b) I assume (rightly or wrongly) that others reading this also familiar with that tradition. I'm sure the same issies apply to other religions in some form.
Personally, I seek a dialogue with someone who can actually show me a "eureka" argument that proves the existence or non-existence of a deity. Not necessarily the specific one(s) they worship, but a godhead of some sort.
None seems to be forthcoming so far, and what I have heard combined with my own observations and logic is, though strongly suggestive of a specific answer (no), has not been able to give me a totally convincing one.
I suspect that I will never find that argument this side of the grave.
EDITED to make the point I was trying to make clearer.