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From: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: God and suffering
Message-ID: <329@cylixd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Sep-85 15:41:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: cylixd.329
Posted: Fri Sep 27 15:41:18 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 06:18:43 EDT
References: <389@decwrl.UUCP> <2203@sdcc6.UUCP> <351@pyuxn.UUCP> <328@uwvax.UUCP> <541@oakhill.UUCP>
Reply-To: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Organization: RCA Cylix Communications , Memphis, TN
Lines: 63
Summary: 

>>Thus, the argument that if God is omnipotent and wholly good, then he
>>would eliminate all evil fails:  it assumes premisses which may be
>>false, such as that God can do anything and that if a good God saw 
>>any evil, he would eliminate it.
>>							Harry Plantinga
>
>      This line of thinking might hold for "evil" such as murder, rape,
>etc.  How does it apply to letting innocent children die from
>starvation, disease, storms, earthquakes etc?  
>-- 
>Motorola Semiconductor Inc.                Hunter Scales

I'm probably going to regret this, but here goes.  (Biblical basis
for the assertions follows.)

Christians generally hold that God made man and the universe good.[1]
When man sinned, it warped his nature to the extent that a man can no
longer be entirely good, even if he wants to. [2]  Besides warping
*human* nature, the presence of sin also warped nature in general. [3]
Starvation, disease, storms, earthquakes, and so on, are a result, not 
of a given sinful action (like rape or murder), but of sin in general.

God also does not like the situation.  He could (and we are told that he
will) create human bodies immune from these evils, and he could (and 
will) create a universe without them. [4]  But he cannot do so until sin
in general has been wiped out.  He has not yet wiped out sin in general,
because doing so will unfortunately and necessarily wipe out a lot of
people as well, and God is reluctant to do that. [5]

The gospel of Christ is that through His death and resurrection, we
can be delivered from our sinful nature, and that the world will also
ultimately be delivered from the results of sin as well. [6]

1: God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)
2: I do not know what I am doing.  For what I want to do, I do not do,
but what I hate I do. . . . I know that nothing good lives in me, that
is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good,
but I cannot carry it out. (Romans 7:15,18)
3: The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be
revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its
own choice, buy by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that
the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and
brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that
the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right
up to the present time. (Romans 8:18-22)
We know that . . . the whole world is under the control of the evil 
one.  (1 John 5:19).
Cursed is the ground because of you: through painful toil you will eat
of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles
for you. (Genesis 3:17)
4: So it will be with the resurrection of the dead.  The body that is
sown perishable, it is raised imperishable; . . . For the perishable
must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with 
immortality. (I Cor. 15:42,53)
5: He is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish. (2 Peter 3:9)
6: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away, . . . "There will be no more death or
mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"
(Revelation 21:1,4-5)

		charli