[MarkBsnr]

GOD is not the author of evil. He *permits* evil. He *allows* for it because it plays a role in the fulfillment of His ultimate, eternal plan for His people. If you read the book of JOB, you'd see that He *permits* Satan to wreak havoc on even the lives of the most faithful people. But, even SATAN is ultimately under GOD'S jurisdiction. Satan can't work beyond what GOD allows. Because in the end, everything will go exactly as GOD intends.

You cannot have it both ways. Either God is the author of evil because He dictates every action or else God permits free will to occur with the resulting evil that satan and men may do.

If God directs satan, then He is the author of evil. We Christians reject that. We believe that God is not the author of evil. And therefore satan operates within Creation of his own free will, as we do.

[firebrand]

I think of it as similar to the card game in Last Year at Marienbad, in which cards are laid out in a pyramidal grid, the players can take a certain number of cards from a row, and the goal is to not get stuck taking the last card. God is the one who always wins. The one who begins the game always submits to God in the end.

I worked the game out painstakingly when I was a youth by starting with only two cards left, then going to three, then four, etc., and recording the pattern of how many cards had to be removed in order to win.

I think I remember learning later that in the movie, the winner makes a mistake but then corrects it in the next round. God of course would not make a mistake.

It is easy, on the other hand, for someone who does not know the pattern to make a mistake.