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From: ln63fac@sdcc7.UUCP (Rick Frey)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: God and suffering
Message-ID: <134@sdcc7.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Oct-85 15:52:07 EST
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Posted: Wed Oct 23 15:52:07 1985
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Summary: More on God and Suffering

In article <785@cybvax0.UUCP>, mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:
> 
> I can't follow your logic.  The above statement seems consistant with two
> non-christian hypotheses:
> 
> 1)  That the hypothetical god is incapable of fixing those bad things, and
>     thus not omnipotent.
> 
> 2)  That the hypothetical god doesn't really care enough about us to fix
>     them, or wants them that way so that we can suffer.
> 
In my last response I was answering a different part of your question, but 
since you've brought this up, I'll see what I can come up with.  The whole 
foundation for the question has to do with where did evil come from, who
is/are responsible for it and can/should anything be done about the fact that
it does currently exist by an omnipotent God.

Part 1 - Where does evil come from.  While Genesis uses the word death, the
Bible speaks of death (and I feel consequently evil) resulting from man's
original choice to disobey God.  Not to make this sound like beginning Sunday
school, but that is traditional Christian doctrine.

Part 2 - Who is responsible for evil.  If I put you off with the simplicity
and dogmaticity (??) of my first response, it's mainly because to me, this is
more of the crux of the issue.  As hard as it is to understand, I feel that
both God and man are responsible for evil.  Man's part we've already looked
at, but just to add one point, not only does the Bible say that Adam sinned,
but Paul, in Romans, says that as Adam sinned, so do all men.  To me this
means that I'm not suffering unjustly for something Adam did, I'm a joint
instigator and cause of the problem.

Back to responsibility and God's side of the issue.  To say that God is not
the author of evil is in some ways true but in some ways misleading.  Nothing
exists outside of God creating it and willing it.  In John 1:3 it says, "And
without Him (Christ) was not anything made that was made an all things were
made by Him."  God throughout Isaiah continually claims to be the sole
creator of everything, so to some extent, God is the creator of evil.

But the crucial issue is the way that God is the creator of evil.  Since
nothing exists outside of God creating it (forgive me for stating that as a
given in contrast to your own beliefs, this is simply for the purpose of the
discussion) God must have either directly created evil and sin or He must have
created the means for those to come about.  And to me that's the crucial
difference.  Forgive me if you feel I've taken a long way to get to a simple
point, but lots of people feel they understand this concept (who disagree
with it) but when you sit down to try to find oout where, they have all sorts
of extraneoous notions about this process.  To state another fundamental
assumpion (which I freely admit is a big one) as far as I can tell both
rationally and experientally, free will (which I believe exists) necessitates
the existence of the 'other' side to choose.  If God were the damager-God of
Paul Zimmerman's arguments than there would still be the possibility of 
good in the world even though this God had designed things to work the 
other way.  

Basically it comes down to this.  God created man and willfully and
deliberately gave them the gift of choice (made them choose, whichever you
prefer) and in creating that choice process, God allowed there to be a
consequence for choice away from Him.  This is where things get fuzzy, like
Laura was saying, omnipotent doesn't mean able to create paradoxes (i.e.
round squares).  That's not a limit to power, simply the necessity of a world
with specific meanings.  So could God have created a world where people have
free will but yet do not suffer for their mistakes?  Possibly.  Could God
have created a world with free will but where there is no choice away from
God?  To me that seems like a paradox.

Second to last part.  Since this 'world' God's creating right now must have
the ability to choose going away for God to meet the criteria for free will,
there is still the question of why must their be consequences for wrong
actions?  You can imagine two scenarios.  One, where the football coach tells
everyone to run laps and no one does and nothing happens and another where
the football coach makes everyone 'pay' for their disobedience.  While one
might seem much more fogiving and loving than the other, each situation has a
different thrust for the goals they're trying to accomplish.  In the don't
worry about it situation, there is little impetus for change and my under-
standing of why someone might create a scenario like that would be to let the
players play.  In the second scenario, there is a specific desire on the
coach's part for the players too conform to what He has called them to do.
I'm not trying to discuss the relative value of either so much as I'm trying
to say that either free will necessitates the secoond scenario or maybe God
simply chose to have things be that way.

Last part.  Our world now consists of free will, consequence for choice or
action and a still relatively undefined thing called 'suffering'.  The
question that this all reduces down to is that since God has given us the
ability to choose either for Him or against Him and since He wants us to
choose for Him and we as people do not consistently choose God, there must be
some method for God to get us back on the right track.  I'm not sure who said
this but some said "Pain is God's megaphone to a deaf world".  People have
the ability to turn off their ears when it comes to God (just like they can
close themeselves off to parents, friends, education, almost anything).  God
would love to just tap us on the back and have us turn aroound and say,"sorry
God".  But when a light tap doesn't work, it becomes a firm pat then a
stronger grab till He eventually drops an atomic bomb on yoour shoulder.  If
this seems wrong to you, it's a simple question of priorities.  If life on
this earth is more important than what God tells us about our eternal lives,
then for God to mess up our life on earth for that is a waste.  But if we are
going to live eternally and live with the choice that we make on this earth,
then I'm up for God doing anything it takes to get me into a right
relationship with Him.

The very last thing.  I kind of glanced over it in the last paragraph and
it's a crucial question.  Why don't I naturally choose to do what God wants?
Why do I (we) seem to have this tendency to want to go away from God?  In
answering it I would say two things.  First of all, I've felt like my whole
life has been lived on a balance, even more like trying to balance a circular
disc on the tip of a pin.  God seems to have created me amazingly in terms
of seeing both sides of things, always being on the edge of knowing what's
right and what's wrong and realizing there's a consequence for my actions.
But much of this was a learned discrimination.  At times I've tried as hard
as I could to shut God up and put Him in a nice little box.  I succeeded for
almost two years during high school but God worked His way back out my
Freshman year in college.  All my experience (all 22 years!) has shown me
people who somewhere insde realize that there is a consequence for action and
it's just a question of how much of it do you want to face vs. how much you
want to do just what you want to do no matter what it does to anyone/thing
else.  People can get incredibly hard, and it's not so much of a blanket
thing, where you're either completely open or completely closed.  I was
willing to face my problems of cynicism and being overly critical (not that
they're solved by any means) but I hid from and ignored what God was trying
to tell me about my relationships with friends.  So someone can be compltely
open and amazing in one area and a complete bonehead in another.  But every
thing I've seen in terms of morality and conscience confirms in me that
God created each of us with a picture of Himself inside of us.  We can
live trying to prune our lives to fit that picture or we can whitewash over
it build any type of hoouse we want.

This is one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite authors and this is
the second time that I've got to use it this week.  (I know you're not a C.S
Lewis fan, but the quote is still right on the mark in terms of what God
is saying to us as people).  "There are those who will say to God, Thy will be
done and there are those to whom God will say thy will be done."  From later
on in the same book (The Great Divorce) he says, "No soul who truly seeks
after joy shall be denied."

Sorry this got so long.  I have a tendency to get excited about these
discussions and ramble somewhat.  I hope you can find the thread of coherency
in this that makes any sense to you and I'll stop now and let you hammer on
this and bring up specific questions rather than me trying to guess what
you'll ask.

				Rick Frey

"If you seek for me with all your heart you will find me says the Lord."
			(Jeramiah 24:25)