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regreib
Guest
Could a God of love create cancer cells, rattlesnakes, and earthquakes? Do we want to take the easy copeout and call it a “mystery”?
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Joel_Tunnah
Guest
Because there would be absolutely no freedom in a world without death, pain, decay, laws of physics, etc - there would be no actual love.
Think of just one event in life - sitting in the sunlight. It warms you, and makes you feel good because of the physics involved. Yet, those same processes, after an hour will leave you with a nasty burn. How could it be otherwise?
How could we begin to understand a world where we had free will, but the sun didn’t, or a car didn’t, or your cells didn’t?
Read “The Problem of Pain”, by C.S. Lewis.
Think of just one event in life - sitting in the sunlight. It warms you, and makes you feel good because of the physics involved. Yet, those same processes, after an hour will leave you with a nasty burn. How could it be otherwise?
How could we begin to understand a world where we had free will, but the sun didn’t, or a car didn’t, or your cells didn’t?
Read “The Problem of Pain”, by C.S. Lewis.
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SpiritMeadow
Guest
If you stop thinking of God as a micromanager, you’ll be fine. God is not the causation of cancer and earthquakes. Those things occur from natural processes. God is the one who comforts and guides us through such ugly times. From Him we learn the skills of coping, forgiving, loving, and being at peace with a world we cannot always control.
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Pwrlftr
Guest
The sun, cars, and cells have free will? I didn’t know they had a will at all
.What in the world are you trying to say?
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SpiritMeadow
Guest
Glad you asked. Joel doesnt much care for me, so I thought I’d stay quiet, but I sure didnt’ get what he was trying to say either.The sun, cars, and cells have free will? I didn’t know they had a will at all
What in the world are you trying to say?
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Evan
Guest
You have to realize.
Our God is an awesome God. He is far beyond any other god.
Our God created a world where he gave creatures (us) the ability to NOT do His will. We can reject what He wants and do what we want. It would be a lessor god who could only create a world that does what god wants.
ALSO, our God has created a world that anticipates our foolish choices wherein we reject His will and He turns these action to an ultimate good.
As a father loves a child who sets out to find their own way in the worlds, so God loves us as we reject his will. He is always calling us back to Him, back to the path of happiness (for true happiness is found only in doing His will). As the prodigal son shows, the father lets us choose wrong but is waiting for our return.
I have heard many great men say they grew in faith only when suffering, never while comfortable. They do not want to suffer any more, but it is the only time of great spiritual growth. What you are proposing is a world where we would never have the opertunity to grow close to God.
Let us suffer that we may love all the more.
Our God is an awesome God. He is far beyond any other god.
Our God created a world where he gave creatures (us) the ability to NOT do His will. We can reject what He wants and do what we want. It would be a lessor god who could only create a world that does what god wants.
ALSO, our God has created a world that anticipates our foolish choices wherein we reject His will and He turns these action to an ultimate good.
As a father loves a child who sets out to find their own way in the worlds, so God loves us as we reject his will. He is always calling us back to Him, back to the path of happiness (for true happiness is found only in doing His will). As the prodigal son shows, the father lets us choose wrong but is waiting for our return.
I have heard many great men say they grew in faith only when suffering, never while comfortable. They do not want to suffer any more, but it is the only time of great spiritual growth. What you are proposing is a world where we would never have the opertunity to grow close to God.
Let us suffer that we may love all the more.
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Preacher_Vern
Guest
Jesus Christ turns life right-side-up,and heaven outside-in.God Bless.
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Leopard
Guest
What’s wrong with rattlesnakes? Very beautiful and useful animals, rattlesnakes.
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
There is nothing wrong with any of these things - except when they cross the path of certain things other than themselves. An earthquake doesn’t harm a living soul - when there is no soul living near by. Avalanches kill people only if there are people in their path to be killed - if there’s nobody around, the avalanche can behave as the avalanche it is, & nobody will be hurt.
They are acting according to their natures: earthquakes are meant to act in a way that causes tremors - it is not the fault of God or of earthquakes, if there is a city nearby. Men make cities - God doesn’t. An earthquake that did not quake, would be acting in a most unnatural fashion. If earthquakes modified their behaviour to suit the convenience of human beings, it would be impossible to study them; because they would completely unpredictable in character.The alternative is a world in which there are observable regularities in the natural order - the price of such regularity is that certain parts of it may suffer as a result. If rattlesnakes lost their venomousness every time they attacked another creature, they would soon be extinct; why should they have to die out just for the convenience of others ? There are worse things than bodily suffering - hard though this is to believe.
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Joel_Tunnah
Guest
If the laws of physics were suspended because the action in question might cause “pain”, or harm to someone - then the world would become a completely unpredictable place. Also, in such a world, people really wouldn’t have free will.
That’s what I’m trying to say. And it’s all in the excellent C.S. Lewis book I already mentioned.
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Pwrlftr
Guest
Thanks. I didn’t quite get what you were saying the first time.
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spauline
Guest
God created us so that we would suffer temporarily in love. If we had never fallen, there never would have been Roman martyrs who endured unspeakable tortures to bear witness to God and who offered up their sufferings for their persecutors, and in some cases, converted their executioners.
To love without suffering is good. To love so much that you SUFFER for what you love is even greater, more beautiful, more profound. God desired from all eternity to be able to love a certain type of creature so much that He would SUFFER for it, and later, to give such power to the creatures themselves.
Hence, he that acquires cancer may not have done anything bad to deserve it. So then, he can offer it up to God for sinners, and God will give graces to sinners on his behalf. Hence, if the sinner is saved, in heaven, he will meet his partial savior and rejoice: thank you, my friend, for saving me. You helped God save me. I am forever grateful.
THAT is beautiful. That is the central mystery of Catholicism.
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jcrichton
Guest
***Hi, regreib!
Some people do believe that God should control everything and every one… not!
We live in one huge eco system subdivided into thousands… there are creatures living in us and around us… for the most part, it is a benign coexistance… mankind has made terrible changes in the environment which have plagued the planet for years and will do so for decades to come. These alterations we’ve introduced into our bodies and the world at large are largely the cause of much of of our ailments. And instead of coexisting with and learning from nature, we abuse it, exterminate it, and throw it into chaos. By destroying the balance of nature we cut ourselves off from natural wonders (herbal/natural meds; early storm/earthquake warnings from animals, less cellular aberations in our bodies, no greenhouse effect?..) and we constantly poison ourselves.
How can we blame God for our own doing?
Maran atha!
Angel
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spauline
Guest
again, you are blaming us, which is only partly true. There were plenthy of ways to die horribly prior to modern Industrial age. Let’s start with the black plague. Nobody knew anything about chemicals back then.
Let’s talk about Kateri, who died the death of martyrdom by the bed. Did she deserve that? was she a mortal sinner that her final moments were agony? She IMPOSED her medical death upon herself by doing excruciating and severe penance for the conversion of her people.
St. Zladislova, a Czech saint, died early, I believe in her 30’s, because she worked herself in utter extemity to build a place to help the poor. She was a woman, mind you, and she did it herself. Work that would’ve challenged even several strong man.
Some people suffer because of their sin, or because of other people’s sins, but many saints suffer because they VOLUNTARILY impose terrible sufferings upon themselves for the salvation of others.
Don’t stay in primitive theology. There are plenty of people in this world who suffer, and it is not because of their sin or anybody else’s. It’s called PHYSICAL evil.
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jcrichton
Guest
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spauline
Guest
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jcrichton
Guest
***Hi, spauline!
…I understand… it happens some of the times…
In the Old Testament we find that the people of Israel linked the “cause-effect” of sin to any ailment/evil experienced in their environment; but their’s was a different economy (eye for and eye; tooth for a tooth). Perhaps Yahweh allowed this direct relationship to exist in order to help them stay the course.
As you pointed out Jesus clarified that the blind man did not suffer for his sins nor for the sins of his parents–he served God’s design!
Hence the dilemma… would a God of love create evil/pain/suffering?
There’s a yogurt commercial that amuses me… a young woman brings her garments to be cleaned and altered (taken in) but regardless of her efforts the lady behind the counter insists on letting them out. Finally the customer demonstrates that she was just out and that now she is in***. The Holy Scriptures present just such a problem… When we say that God allows evil to exists some people understand it as “God creates evil/pain/suffering…”
It is difficult to change another person’s mind when they come from such a resolute and opposing understanding… to state that everything God created was good simply hightens their guarded disposition and they shut down before you can make a dent!
***I believe that when sin entered the world, induced by Satan, evil, death, pain, suffering, etc. was introduced. As stewards we are called by God to intercede on behalf of the world… some of us preach or pray or teach… still, some of us do exactly what you say: they take unto themselves the affliction and offer their sufferings to God. This of course is such a difficult task that few dare to embrace it (Mother Theresa, Mother Angelica (EWTN), Pope John Paul II…).
I think that our thought do not differ as much as our wording does!
Maran atha!
Angel***
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spauline
Guest
Dear Angel,
thanks for the clarification. I agree, it is more our wording that is different, not the ideas.
I pray you have a blessed Day, and a wonderful Advent and Christmas!
thanks for the clarification. I agree, it is more our wording that is different, not the ideas.
I pray you have a blessed Day, and a wonderful Advent and Christmas!
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spauline
Guest
BTW, i love your three rejoicing smilies in your sig!
:extrahappy: :extrahappy: :extrahappy:
:extrahappy: :extrahappy: :extrahappy:
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Filius_Prodigus
Guest
When beauty is abstracted
Then ugliness has been implied;
When good is abstracted
Then evil has been implied.
So alive and dead are abstracted from nature,
Difficult and easy abstracted from progress,
Long and short abstracted from contrast,
High and low abstracted from depth,
Song and speech abstracted from melody,
After and before abstracted from sequence.
The sage experiences without abstraction,
And accomplishes without action;
He accepts the ebb and flow of things,
Nurtures them, but does not own them,
And lives, but does not dwell.
-From Chinese philosopher LaoTzu, the TaoTeChing.
It’s all part of the plan. Live with it. All questions will be answered in due time, when knowledge and experience will be one, in the One.
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