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

[Ravenshire]

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.

Anyone who can pick up a sacrificial knife against their own child either has a heart black as a mine shaft or is straight up fucking crazy. Of course, the latter would explain the voice from the heavens.