Nope.
Apart from the discussions I’ve had here about hell and eternal punishment for a finite crime as you described it, I’ve also brough up issues like Madelaine McCann, missing for years, family in unimaginable agony, prayed for by Catholics everywhere, vigils offered for her safe return on a daily basis, prayed for by the Pope (JPII) and … nothing. The family’s pain continues unabated and Madelaine remains missing. No loving all powerful all knowing personal Deity would ever allow such suffering to continue, in my opinion. Others obviously disagree and question my hubris and ask if I know more than God
Irrelevant to me in the face of the real pain and suffering of this family. The perps free will was not interfered with - the child was abducted - so I don’t see the block to an all loving God now revealing where the child is, to end the families suffering. But no … nothing. That’s just one example of many that convince me if there is a God, He’s certainly not an all loving one.
Agreed. Although, I wouldn’t argue I’m ignorant now of the claims of the Catholic Church, or the claims of Christianity or Islam in general - I would argue though I find myself unable to accept them.
Sarah x
First of all Madelaine McCann wasn’t prayed for by Pope John Paul II, at least not on Earth, because he died well before that. It was the current Holy Father. See this:
metro.co.uk/news/50969-pope-prays-for-missing-maddy
Why is Madelaine McCann missing? Because some evil person took her to satisfy their own urges. That is what free will means, we all have a choice and we all have a responsibility. Why doesn’t God reveal things like the location of Madelaine McCann? That’s part of free will.
Can I try to explain it by an analogy with my own life? I have a very rare condition called Early-Onset Primary Erythromelalgia, I developed it at age 7. Erythromelalgia (EM) causes horrific pain, it’s like being in the hottest boiling oil that you can imagine and at the same time being stabbed with thousands of needles, from a fine injection one up to a huge knitting needle, and through those needles you’re being injected with boiling acid. It is absolutely horrific and at that time, about 50% of children under 12 diagnosed killed themselves to escape the pain.
About once a month, I would get an infection in my leg which would make the pain go off the scale. When that happened, my dad would phone a doctor and they would come out and give me an injection of pethidine, the drug then used on women in labour (although even at 7 I was getting 4 times that amount!). The pain would stop, I would fall asleep and that would allow the antibiotics to deal with the infection.
Now imagine that you’re a fly on my wall (or my pet hamster/cat if you prefer). You see all this and then you discover that my dad
is a doctor. He actually has pethidine in his case downstairs! If it works when the pain is really bad, it’ll work on the normal pain. He could easily give me that every night and spare me hours of utter torment. If he has the drug and has the ability to give me it, why doesn’t he? What kind of loving father is that?
The reason my father didn’t give me the pethidine was
because he loved me. He knew that if I had been given pethidine every night, I would quickly become addicted, that I would be drugged during the day which would affect my schooling, that it would prevent me doing anything and that I would need higher and higher doses to get the same effect, eventually they wouldn’t be able to increase the dose or they’d kill me. I cannot imagine the strength it took to see me in such awful pain and not give in to the temptation to give me pethidine, “just this once”. It must have almost destroyed him to be a doctor and not be able to stop your daughter’s pain.
God is like my dad, not giving us the pethidine of miracles. If we were to get miracles all the time, we’d come to depend on them, it would be an addiction. If there would always be a miracle to come along and get us out of the hole we got ourselves into, we’d never learn. There would be no consequences. We’d then lose our free will, at the extreme end, if you tried to kill someone, a miracle would come along to save them. Your free will is lost. Because our decisions always affect someone else, free will is gone. Then we’d need miracles more and more, until it would be asking for a miracle to get you through a traffic jam.
Finally, we’re not actually meant to be here forever. This is not our permanent home. As we have to die, it would cause pain and suffering to those left behind. They’d want miracles to stop us dying. Without the pain of lesser suffering, the pain of bereavement would be even worse than it is already. You’d have no coping mechanisms.
God is like my dad, He doesn’t help because he loves us, it must hurt Him terribly, but He knows that the results would be even worse than they are at the moment.
Why doesn’t God reveal where poor Madelaine McCann is? Because some scumbag out there already knows where she is and isn’t telling. I pray for Madelaine and her family every night. I cannot imagine the horrendous pain they’re suffering. I do believe that God can help them without a miracle, He can support and comfort them.
I hope that is some help in how God works, too many people see God as uncaring when He is anything but.
who exactly do you think that you are to demand to know everything? Your conception of God must not be very impressive if you don’t see the silliness in such a request. He is infinite. You and I are finite. That’s the key to understanding this. His knowledge literally will not fit inside our tiny little brains. It won’t fit inside the minds of angels who are the highest level of created beings. It won’t fit anywhere else but inside Him, because everywhere else is finite and He is, once again, in-finite.
