J
JohnJFarren
Guest
Hello Hokomai and Everybody – 20 June 2012
I’ll begin this new thread by addressing you, Hokomai, and some statements you’ve made in several threads and postings. What I’m writing here I also address to those who might find this thread meaningful. I’m a Roman Catholic, a son of the Church, and I am also an intelligent and respectful person who Loves all other people. Of course, many of us disagree and my purpose of to share what I have with you and to listen attentively to what you may wish to share with me.
So – Hokomai, here we go. Through my childhood (Darwinian) evolution has never been any problem to me. I accept that God the Creator had all the evolution up from the Big Bang until this day … and continuing even today … in His/Her Great Plan. Evolution and religion, spirituality, Jesus Christ, Eternal Life – all fit beautifully together. Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis never gave me a problem.
Your questions are good questions, Hokomai. Why do the innocent suffer? Why do they suffer for the sins of others? Why would an all Loving and all Powerful God permit such things? … even order some of these things? As a beginning response I think of all we human beings as interconnected, inter-related – whether we like it or not. What I do affects other people … beneficially or harmfully. And this goes for all of us. When I do evil it affects my family, my wife and my children in their whole lives, either less or more. And this in turn will affect all the people they engage with over their lifetime. “Even to the seventh generation.” 5, 7, 13 th … whatever.
And so, you suffer because of me. And because of you I’ve been benefited. Obviously we can’t measure those things very well. But they’re real. Consider this one vast universe. (Are there many others? I think so but that’s not important here.) If I choose to move my little finger, I most certainly affect the farthest edge of our universe. I agree that’s going to take a very long time … but it’s inescapable. And this applies to that edge that is far beyond what we’ve been able to detect. The birds and the bees and the ants … and all we human beings … are somehow one, really one. And it’s got nothing to do with whether we like it or not.
I’ve been asked this question from time to time. Why wouldn’t God, Loving and Powerful, have created all things, animals and us human beings, perfected and “in Heaven”? Couldn’t God have done that? I think the response is really very easy. If all God wanted was 9 billion trillion zillion PUPPETS, YES, God could have. But that has no meaning to God. God created us to be real, to become real, and having in all this a free choice share. We are meant to become real. We are made in “the image and likeness of God” and meant to bring this to completion.
It is not conceivably possible that such becoming, such process, could be without suffering. In every step in becoming, something is let go of and something new is attained. Becoming real and more real involves real suffering, pain, and because we have (some more, some less) the power of free choice between good and evil, between what I want for myself and what is good for other people, we all suffer. And we all benefit.
It seems clear to me that our terrible human sufferings are the necessary results of 1) our becomings and 2) the consequences of our deliberate wrongdoings.
St Augustine in the fourth century gave us the phrase “Original Sin” to explain evil in the world created by a good God. And that word “original” has plagued us ever since. Benedict XVI even as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed the unhappiness of many concerning that “original.” He stated that a better understanding was needed about “Original Sin” and if he had the time he would want to work on it. But that opportunity will not be his now. To be elected Pope is, in a very real sense, to be locked up for life.
What was God’s purpose, His goal, in creating? Not to “get glory.” I believe that necessarily creatures do in fact show forth the glory of God. But that’s not why He created. I’m quoting now a few words of Jesus and I don’t consider them coming out of the slot machine and that’s it. Jesus encouraged us to dialogue with the Father ourselves … and then the words “so that your joy might be complete.” That word “joy” excites me very much. I have always hungered to be filled with JOY – and for many years I was. Then a terrible thing happened … and I can be spiritually joyful but the “singing and dancing John” in this world is gone. I shall not drink of that wine until beyond this life.
And so, God created us that we might have our joy complete … and with our own free cooperation … necessarily requiring suffering … and taking time, with God’s grace, to achieve. JOY … we are meant for JOY!
What final goal has God set for human beings, individually and whole-ly? I’d better skip that for the moment because of all the above.
Hokomai (You got “suspended”? Good grief! What did ‘ya do?) I’ll send through CAF an email to you about this new thread. Whatever your beliefs … blessing, all kinds.
John (JohnJFarren)
I’ll begin this new thread by addressing you, Hokomai, and some statements you’ve made in several threads and postings. What I’m writing here I also address to those who might find this thread meaningful. I’m a Roman Catholic, a son of the Church, and I am also an intelligent and respectful person who Loves all other people. Of course, many of us disagree and my purpose of to share what I have with you and to listen attentively to what you may wish to share with me.
So – Hokomai, here we go. Through my childhood (Darwinian) evolution has never been any problem to me. I accept that God the Creator had all the evolution up from the Big Bang until this day … and continuing even today … in His/Her Great Plan. Evolution and religion, spirituality, Jesus Christ, Eternal Life – all fit beautifully together. Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis never gave me a problem.
Your questions are good questions, Hokomai. Why do the innocent suffer? Why do they suffer for the sins of others? Why would an all Loving and all Powerful God permit such things? … even order some of these things? As a beginning response I think of all we human beings as interconnected, inter-related – whether we like it or not. What I do affects other people … beneficially or harmfully. And this goes for all of us. When I do evil it affects my family, my wife and my children in their whole lives, either less or more. And this in turn will affect all the people they engage with over their lifetime. “Even to the seventh generation.” 5, 7, 13 th … whatever.
And so, you suffer because of me. And because of you I’ve been benefited. Obviously we can’t measure those things very well. But they’re real. Consider this one vast universe. (Are there many others? I think so but that’s not important here.) If I choose to move my little finger, I most certainly affect the farthest edge of our universe. I agree that’s going to take a very long time … but it’s inescapable. And this applies to that edge that is far beyond what we’ve been able to detect. The birds and the bees and the ants … and all we human beings … are somehow one, really one. And it’s got nothing to do with whether we like it or not.
I’ve been asked this question from time to time. Why wouldn’t God, Loving and Powerful, have created all things, animals and us human beings, perfected and “in Heaven”? Couldn’t God have done that? I think the response is really very easy. If all God wanted was 9 billion trillion zillion PUPPETS, YES, God could have. But that has no meaning to God. God created us to be real, to become real, and having in all this a free choice share. We are meant to become real. We are made in “the image and likeness of God” and meant to bring this to completion.
It is not conceivably possible that such becoming, such process, could be without suffering. In every step in becoming, something is let go of and something new is attained. Becoming real and more real involves real suffering, pain, and because we have (some more, some less) the power of free choice between good and evil, between what I want for myself and what is good for other people, we all suffer. And we all benefit.
It seems clear to me that our terrible human sufferings are the necessary results of 1) our becomings and 2) the consequences of our deliberate wrongdoings.
St Augustine in the fourth century gave us the phrase “Original Sin” to explain evil in the world created by a good God. And that word “original” has plagued us ever since. Benedict XVI even as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed the unhappiness of many concerning that “original.” He stated that a better understanding was needed about “Original Sin” and if he had the time he would want to work on it. But that opportunity will not be his now. To be elected Pope is, in a very real sense, to be locked up for life.
What was God’s purpose, His goal, in creating? Not to “get glory.” I believe that necessarily creatures do in fact show forth the glory of God. But that’s not why He created. I’m quoting now a few words of Jesus and I don’t consider them coming out of the slot machine and that’s it. Jesus encouraged us to dialogue with the Father ourselves … and then the words “so that your joy might be complete.” That word “joy” excites me very much. I have always hungered to be filled with JOY – and for many years I was. Then a terrible thing happened … and I can be spiritually joyful but the “singing and dancing John” in this world is gone. I shall not drink of that wine until beyond this life.
And so, God created us that we might have our joy complete … and with our own free cooperation … necessarily requiring suffering … and taking time, with God’s grace, to achieve. JOY … we are meant for JOY!
What final goal has God set for human beings, individually and whole-ly? I’d better skip that for the moment because of all the above.
Hokomai (You got “suspended”? Good grief! What did ‘ya do?) I’ll send through CAF an email to you about this new thread. Whatever your beliefs … blessing, all kinds.
John (JohnJFarren)