One sentence that throws the problem of evil out of the window.

[Mr.Obvious]

You may not be a literal bible believer, I don't know. When I was raised Catholic in school, not by my parents because they didn't believe, some believers tried to teach me the bible was alegory and poetic guidelines, others told me it was literall truth and yet others said it was a combination. But in either case, the underlying idea remains, doesn't it?

God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to him.
And he was going to do it. He was ready for that. In any other case we might call that psychopathic, evil and monstrous.
Bottom line is Abraham had "a heart dark enough to kill innocent people and children"; his innocent son. He didn't do it, but only because God stopped him the last second after seeing in Abraham's heart that he would have.

Catholics are free to believe in either an allegorical or literal interpretation of the Old Testament. In my Catholic school, we were taught as though it were all allegory, and that's the stance I continue to take.

Let's suppose for arguments sake that God's voice sounded from the skies and told Abraham to kill his son, and then told him not to.

I'd say Abraham's culpability is mitigated due to the fact that he was obeying God Himself. He certainly didn't *want* to do it, but felt backed into a wall when, heck, God Himself is telling him to do it. His thinking was "well God gave me this child when i asked Him for one, now He is asking for the child back." While I completely disagree and wouldn't do the same thing in a million years, I wouldn't guess that Abraham has an evil heart for it, either.

Then by that logic, if Hitler thought he was doing Gods will, doesn't that absolve him of any blame? Whether or not he believed it, in many instances he profiled himself and his movement Christian, catholic even, and doing the lord's bidding. Could've been lying and manipulative about it, , but he could have honestly been convinced that what he was doing was God's work. I'm pretty sure he thought it was necessary and right, in his mind in any case. And even if he didn't believe he was followign the lord's command, by profiling his movement as such those in the Nazi party under him who believed in the Christian God found justification for their actions. They probably did heinous things whilst believing it being a holy cause.Just like the crusades of old or even muslim terrorism today.

Or look at it this way. If Abraham had been mistaken. If the devil, supposedly the greatest cheater and lying monster (though created purposefully such by God but that's a rant for another day) had convinced Abraham he was God and that he ordered him to sacrifice his son; would Abraham's culpability still be mitigated? After all, in his heart as honest as could be, he'd still think he was following divine guidance.