Where’s the logical contradiction in that? Perhaps the laws which cause suffering, destruction etc also allow for greater goods that would not be possible without the laws and the suffering they cause. Similar to how the greater good of free will also brings with it the possibility of moral evil.
I find this a very hopeful and well-grounded reply – I was fearing that you really had no faith at all. But I can see that’s not the case, thankfully.
With your reply here, you basically destroyed your entire reason for claiming that God doesn’t intervene. Since laws which cause all of the suffering, could also allow for greater good (which is reasonable and consistent with the Catholic tradition), then the very same argument can be given against the quote you raised from Dawkins.
Dawkins someimes brings this up when talking to believers and he has an excellent point:
Say some natural disaster occurs and thousands of people die and somehow one child survives, to start claiming that God saved that one child, leads to the question of why didn’t God save the others too?
Far, far easier to say God doesn’t intervene at all and interfere in the unfolding of his creation.
There would have been a contradiction if you claimed that God had nothing to do with the suffering caused by natural laws. But instead, you correctly pointed out that God could bring greater good out of great suffering caused by the laws He created.
Clearly, in this case here – we would only have to explain to Mr. Dawkins that a greater good came from God’s intervention in the saving of just one child, than would have come from the saving of all the people – or of the prevention of the disaster in the first place.
So, the problem of evil is solved without having to resort to the illogical notion that God has the power to create natural laws, but He lacks the power or foresight to interact with His creation in response to prayer.
Of course, for an atheist, there cannot be a “greater good” from a disaster, because there is no salvation and no eternal life. The greatest loss and evil for the atheist is pain and loss of this earthly, temporal life. As Christians, we can’t argue that way.
Eternal salvation is worth the price of pain in this world – we know that.
Thus, all of the people who died in the disaster, and who thereby died at the best time for their salvation, are rejoicing forever, and thanking God for that disaster!
Again – our faith is all about redemption, atonement and restoration through grace. This is how evil is overcome and how God brings good out of evil.
I disagree with that - I think you are misrepresenting Coyne and Miller -
As above, I’m very glad you said that. If you disagree with what I said about Coyne and Miller, it means that you have a different mindset than the one I presented (whether I was right or wrong about them).
I do not equate this with an ‘ignorant’ God.
This doesn’t address the quotes I already provided, but in any case, there’s a major lack of precision in his thought. That may be fine in many ways – I’m personally very fond of a more poetic understanding of the universe. But Fr. Coyne mixes a poetic view with a scientific one, and ends up presenting ideas which are nonsensical (as Cardinal Schoenborn stated).
And frankly, Cardinal Schonburn is out of his depth on the matter and Miller and Coyne are justified in criticising him.
I wouldn’t say that the Cardinal is out of his depth on theological issues – and that’s what we’re talking about. It’s a question of how God interacts with His creation. That cannot be solved, or even correctly understood, through science. It’s theology – so we need to use the data of revelation and the apostolic teaching handed down to us.
The Catholic physicist, Stephen Barr also shows where Schonburn has got it wrong:
firstthings.com/article/2007/01/the-design-of-evolution-22
Ok, but this not relevant to the quote that I posted about “non interventionism”. I’m very sure that Stephen Barr believes that God does intervene in nature (that is how we perceive it from a human perspective).
Please don’t think that there are no Catholics here who firmly believe in what the Church has told us we can believe, even if we can’t discuss it. It’s a shame that a lack of charity has led the largest Catholic forum in the world to take the action of banning such an important topic and as you say, the debate is hot and furious.
I doubt if anyone on this thread does - but it remains to be seen!