How can I respond to these murderous Old Testament passages?

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:DYou know it is either Gods word or not. It is either the inspired scriptures or not, If it is not I dont want it in my house. Dont you see how important this is? Love of Christ Nancy
Bravo Nancy, Bravo!:clapping:

We cannot pick and choose which part is God’s word and which part is not.
 
  1. Capital Punishment Crimes:
    Kill People Who Don’t Listen to Priests
    Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from .
    v
    v
    v
    heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
First of all, we have to address this in reference to God’s Sovereignty. He created us and His Will is supreme. He has every right to decree the the penalty of death for transgressions against His commandments, for the simple reason of His sovereignty. He is creator. We are creatures. He is the author of morality so sin is only sin because He says so.

The commandment is for us not to kill. He on the other hand can “kill” us as he wishes and He does whether it be through natural death, sickness, war,etc. Whatever God decrees is true and just.

We do not have the right to take another’s life but He does.

In the OT when God was first forming His people - Israel (the beginning of God’s Self revelation) all the other people’s in surrounding areas were pagans. In this cultures, anything goes. To make sure that the Israelites truly understand that these sins are an abomination to Him, He gave the penalty of death for it’s commision. Nothing quite ensures obedience as the threat of death. This shows Israelite that these sins (which some of us now regard as minor, and so, permissible) is not permissible to the Lord.

The Decalogue is not something that these other nations would have known about.
If you look at the sins you have listed, all these are sins agains God’s Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments as someone else put it is not the Ten Suggestions. Laws when disobeyed have consequences and God has every right to decree what the consequences would be.

Does that make Him an evil God?

Well No. We are His creatures and He decides what is and what is not permissible. Being God, He and He alone knows what is appropriate punishment. We are only seeing a miniscule portion of creation, He knows everything.

The question though is whether this is capital punishment?

Well, again, No. Capital punishment is human’s inflicting death on other humans. We (even Government’s) have no right to take another’s life. That right alone belongs to God.

The decree of death of these sins also signifies the death that comes when we commit these sins. Sin equals death. Only the chosen people have this equation. Pagans did not. This re-inforces the spiritual truth that the consequence of sin is death.

Some may say that these sins are minor (some of us even don’t think these sins as sins at all). But as we have seen, God certainly does not think so.

As Paul has written to the Galatians : " Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. "

Not inheriting the kingdom of God is far more severe than mere physical death.
 
One woman once commented, “Sometimes, the Bible is not God’s words, but God’s record of men’s words.”
How can it be God’s record of men’s word when God did not do the recording. It was men who wrote it.

The Bible is God’s Word in man’s word.
Especially in the OT, it describes how people are, warts, prejudices, and all.
There is a certain cultural slant to the OT but the same could be said of the NT for during Jesus’s Jewish beliefs have not changed at all. You must also remember that Jesus said that He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill so you cannot write off the OT as if it is somehow irrelevant because of its date and situation.
 
First of all, we have to address this in reference to God’s Sovereignty. He created us and His Will is supreme. The penalty of death the willed on transgressions against His commandments, He has every right to decree for the simple reason of His sovereignty. He is creator. We are creatures. He is the author of morality so sin is only because He says so.

The commandment is for us not to kill. He can “kill” us as he wishes and He does whether it be through natural death, sickness, war,etc.

We do not have the right to take another’s life. He does.

In the OT when God was first forming His people - Israel (the beginning of God’s Self revelation) all the other people’s in surrounding areas were pagans. In this cultures, anything goes. To make sure that the Israelites truly understand that these sins are an abomination to Him, He gave the penalty of death for it’s commision. Nothing quite ensures obedience as the threat of death. This shows Israelite that these sins (which some of us now regard as minor and so permissible) is not permissible to the Lord.

The Decalogue is not something that these other nations would have known about.
If you look at the sins you have listed, all these are sins agains God’s Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments as someonelse put it is not the Ten Suggestions. Laws when disobeyed have consequences.

Does that make Him an evil God?

Well no. We are His creatures and He decides what is and what is not permissible. Sin is sin because God said so. Being God, He and He alone knows what is appropriate punishment. We are only seeing a miniscule portion of creation, He knows everything.

The question though is whether this is capital punishment?

Well, again, No. Capital punishment is human’s inflicting death on other humans. We (even Government’s) have no right to take another’s life. That right alone belongs to God.

The decree of death of these sins also signifies the death that comes when we commit these sins. Sin equals death. Only the chosen people have this equation. Pagans did not. This re-inforces the spiritual truth that the consequence of sin is death.

Some may say that these sins are minor (some of us even don’t think these sins as sins at all). But as we have seen, God certainly does not think so.

As Paul has written to the Galatians : " Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. "

Not inheriting the kingdom of God is far more severe than mere physical death.
HI BEN!, After eading your post this came to my mind “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” and" I give two, Life and Death, of these two Choose Life" I am thinking a little difernt now and i may almost understand, but if it was God and not man speaking, Why on earth would he destroy innocent baby’s even those in the womb? They didn’t have a chance coming out the gate! I was once asked in my line of work, "Do you think when people kill and do criminal activities, that it is part of their inviroment or hereditary? I always answered Both. I have seen people of all walks of life do good and do bad. So all these people chose to do bad? What about the innocents thay didn’t have a choice? Sleep peaceful Ben you are Loved Nancy People can change with Love, guidance, and Patience.
 
Accept that at the time Judaism was the faith and Israel was the nation, and the two could not be separated. You could not be and Israelite if you weren’t a Jew, and if you were a Jew, you wouldn’t want to be anything but an Israelite. The law of Moses was both the divine law for the soul and the secular law for man’s day-to-day life. These punishments for those particular crimes were necessary to purge evil from Israel so that the nation as a whole would be pleasing to God, not just individuals, families, or tribes. Also keep in mind, it is only modern thinking that God’s infinite mercy applies to this life. His mercy is for the soul, not the body. Whole nations were destroyed, but that does not mean they were condemned. God in His mercy and wisdom can end the life of sinners before they do something that condemns them forever. It may seem cruel to us, but that is for Him to decide, since He always knows which course of action would be best.
Very, very well said! 👍
 
ahollars, then what you are saying is, God took them away so Jesus would one day come and offer himself for them, for their sins and when he died on the cross he decended into the pit and retreved these same people and they are now with him in heaven? They were forgiven? But like you said he stopped it before they committed sin, to spare them, so I would like to cover all the possibilities. If they had not sinned, they would have been innocent like the children, if we all died like that, we would not have needed Jesus, NO it’s much more then that. But you are on the right track. Love of Christ Nancy
 
HI BEN!, After eading your post this came to my mind “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” and" I give two, Life and Death, of these two Choose Life" I am thinking a little difernt now and i may almost understand, but if it was God and not man speaking, Why on earth would he destroy innocent baby’s even those in the womb? They didn’t have a chance coming out the gate! I was once asked in my line of work, "Do you think when people kill and do criminal activities, that it is part of their inviroment or hereditary? I always answered Both. I have seen p[eople of all walks of life do good and do bad. So all these people chose to do bad? What about the innocents thay didn’t have a choice? Sleep peaceful Ben you are Loved Nancy
The baby not coming to full life if it was God’s decree is as it should be because God alone knows what our fate should and will be. The baby was created by God so only God has a right to terminate it’s life.

You could say the same thing about those who are somehow miscarriaged. Why did God terminate these babies lives even before they had a chance to live outside the womb. Well, God alone knows. God’s wisdom is not man’s. We know only a tiny smidgen of the truth. He knows all.

I suppose I can give this example from my own life.

My niece was borm with lump on her cheek that would have looked terrible when she grew up had we left it there. The solution was to have the operation while still very young so that there will be no trace of scarring when she grows up. She was operated on when I think she was only a few months old.

When she was strapped in a jacket in preparation for the operation she cried so bad it was heart breaking. She turned to her dad hoping to get some help from him to stop whatever it was that was about to happen but of course her did not do anything to get the straight jacket off. When she came to after the operation, she would turn away from her dad every time he came around. Her little mind resented what she perceived as a failure to help her she when she most needed help.

Now she is a grown up woman and understands why all that had to be done and is very thankful for it.

The point of my story is, we are all, in a way, still like my niece during the operation. Unable to understand why we and other’s have to go through the pain. When Christ comes we will know. And we will know that He was being just and loving when He allowed all that to happen.

Thank for the well wish for a peaceful sleep. I do hope I get a good sleep. I suppose I will as I do not have to worry about getting up early since tomorrow is a public holiday here. Have a wonderful day today. And you are loved too. And I know that you know that:).

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ahollars, then what you are saying is, God took them away so Jesus would one day come and offer himself for them, for their sins and when he died on the cross he decended into the pit and retreved these same people and they are now with him in heaven? They were forgiven? But like you said he stopped it before they committed sin, to spare them, so I would like to cover all the possibilities. If they had not sinned, they would have been innocent like the children, if we all died like that, we would not have needed Jesus, NO it’s much more then that. But you are on the right track. Love of Christ Nancy
Even if we had died as children, innocent and unblemished by personal sin, we still need Jesus because what Jesus died for is to cut the strangle hold of sin which is all a result of the fall of Adam and Eve - original sin.
 
How can these people be of God if all they ever did was kill and rape and plunder the land? I alway’s thought “God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.?” They imply GOD said to kill, God said to rape, God said. If you look at the old testement God and you look at Jesus, they seem so differnt,like two seperate beings. Why would God change so much?
God did not change so much. Our perception of Him changed. We grow in understanding of the mystery that is God.

In the OT, God is determined that the Israelites will know that He is not like the gods of the pagans. He is the One Almighty God. He is very adamant about this so when the Israelite kept going back to their old way and kept getting influenced by the pagans, He had to make sure that they get His commandment right. That is why the very first command is “I am the Lord thy God , thou shalt have no other God’s before me.”
Even baby’s were murdered,we today claim God is all forgiving, all mercifull, ETC. WE are still the same sinners that we always were, Look around and see, is abortion rampid? And stealing, rape, cheating on taxes and all the junk that was in the world then is still here today.
Yes, that is true. There are no new sins, jus the same old sins that we keep commiting over and over again. It is not just the commission of sin that is troubling. It is that these days so many people do not even have a sense of sin anymore. Sin is being glossed over. That is what is really sad. Because without an acknowledgement of sin there is no repentance. Without repentance there is no salvation.
the only thing that has changed is Mans laws, we regulate them, and change them, we set the rules, and we say God does not want this or that, but it is in reality us who does this, just as it was back then, but they used God to blame it all on. I get the chills when I go to the old testement,I cannot see my Lord Jesus, being so full of love and compassion being the same as the Father. If they made him up then that means God never helped his people until Jesus came? Hard to believe. Jesus is love!👍 Can’t anyone figure this out?
The Old testament is so full of God’s love. I never cried so much at prayer as when, during lent, we sang Hosea 11. God’s love is evident in the OT. In the Psalms (example would be 139, 23) In Isiah and so many other passages.
Look at Genesis. What did God do after Adam and Eve sinned? He cursed the serpent and the ground but for Adam and Eve he made clothing because they were ashamed of their nakedness. Instead of just leaving them to die in their sin, He promises a Messiah who will crush the head of the serpent.

The OT is beautiful. Sure there are hard passages, but once you learn to read it in light of salvation history you will be amazed at the tenderness of God’s love that is displayed there.

One time whilst listening to Abraham’s story I thought wow, He chose Abraham, led him that one day I wll be part of His people too.

If the OT is dificult, it is probably because we need to see it through better, fresher, lenses. 🙂
 
The Bible is neither Science nor History, so its contents shouldn’t be interpretted literally, in every instance. It all comes down to a good deal of individual interpretation, within the parameters established by the Church, of course. To me, the story of the Israelite conquest of Canaan is an illustration of God’s will working through his Chosen People. The story is repeated throughout the history of other elect nations, including that of Europe and the Greater West.
 
I take that back, we are going to be the finished product? That one God is working on right? Why did he have to go to extremes to do that? Were these people of old like prehistoric animals? Wild and crazy? Why would he walk with them? I thought he made them intelligent? Didn’t Adam have the same knowledge of God knowing good and evil? Yes If I stuck to only the New Testement, I would proberly be alot better off, but if someone asks me about it what do I tell them? Tom, Did you give up on me? No one said this would be easy. You are Loved Nancy
If the NT is all that you can deal with at the moment that is okay. Take time to read it. But our salvation history is not complete without the OT. We have to remember that God chose to incarnate Himself as a Jew. That is not chance or Him playing eeny, meeny, miny mo with the nations. He first chose the Jews because through this nation He will bring about the salvation of the world. There are no accidents with God. Everything has a purpose.

If you read the Nunc Dimitis (Simeons’ prayer after behold Jesus) he goes: Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel."

If you read the NT you will notice that Christ did not give us the Ten Commandments. The only reason we know it is because of the OT. The NT is a fulfillment of the OT and you will not truly understand the NT without reference to the OT.

That is why our faith is called Judeo Christian.
 
Matt 19: 6-8
6 Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. 7 They say to him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away? 8* He saith to them: Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. *

I always thought this kind of answered a lot of the discrepancies between Old and New Testaments.

The Old Testament (especially Psalms…also Sirach from what I remember) is full of messages about God’s mercy as opposed to His wrath…Him wanting not the death of the sinner but conversion…and so on… Because of what Jesus had said, it seems that those harsh things of the OT are compatible with those merciful things in the OT.

Why would the Church canonize such contradicting scripture if it would discredit itself?? Because they are not really contradictory but paradox.
 
Hello! I just read Hosea 11, and he states his heart has changed because of his great love and compassion for them, he loved, nurtured them, fed them. If this thread had not been started I would not have given that chapter one thought. Now I wonder how many would do the same? Jesus said If you are not ashamed of me, I will not be ashamed of you before the Father. Can you see with the eyes of our Lord, how much he suffered before he ever died? How much must have been on his mind from the very beginning? How he looked at the world from differnt eyes and he knew just how we looked at it, that must have been sad. We are not under the law. but he wants us to obey that law out of love for him and the Father because he did not change the law either. Why (one more question) did he pick on the very week and humble? Surely there must be a reason for this also? PS it was the Kings who were killing the people not the week and humble. And their reason was God said it. Love of wonderful Christ Nancy
 
Matt 19: 6-8
6 Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. 7 They say to him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away? 8* He saith to them: Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. *

I always thought this kind of answered a lot of the discrepancies between Old and New Testaments.

The Old Testament (especially Psalms…also Sirach from what I remember) is full of messages about God’s mercy as opposed to His wrath…Him wanting not the death of the sinner but conversion…and so on… Because of what Jesus had said, it seems that those harsh things of the OT are compatible with those merciful things in the OT.

Why would the Church canonize such contradicting scripture if it would discredit itself?? Because they are not really contradictory but paradox.
HI, I think the word Paradox is a borderline exprestion and can be taken out of context, but your other comment I came into agreement with, that the OT and it’s harsh way’s are compatible with those that are merciful in the New Test. I do see good in the old test. I was not questoning that, I was questioning the horror and the reason for it. it all stems down to original sin, and the hardening of peoples hearts. Do you know how many people out there , there is that only study the New Test.? Boy if they ever get into the old one their heads will be turned, Why? because it is not taught as much anymore. We are going to RCIA classes and they said they are not teaching the old test. just the new. Now I see people there that are fresh Christians that later on down the line will give up their belief, because they were not taught to interprite the scriptures, all they are going to see is a GOD that they are not farmiler with, and will not be able to relate him to Jesus. This is sad. Love of Christ Nancy
 
The Bible is neither Science nor History,

KING ALFred, The Canon of the Bible

The canon of the Bible refers to the definitive list of the books which are considered to be divine revelation and included therein. A canon distinguishes what is revealed and divine from what is not revealed and human. “Canon” (Greek kanon) means a reed; a straight rod or bar; a measuring stick; something serving to determine, rule, or measure. Because God did not explicitly reveal what books are the inspired books of the Bible, title by title, to anyone, we must look to His guidance in discovering the canon of the Bible.

Jesus has told us that he has not revealed all truths to us.

Jn 16:12-13
I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.
Jesus then told us how he was planning to assist us in knowing other truths.

Jn 14:16-17
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.
Jn 15:26
When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me.
The New Testament writers sensed how they handled truth-bearing under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth.

1 Cor 15:3-4
For I handed on (paredoka) to you as of first importance what I also received …
2 Tim 2:2
And what you heard from me through many witnesses entrust (parathou) to faithful people who will have the ability to teach others as well.
There was a constant history of faithful people from Paul’s time through the Apostolic and Post Apostolic Church.

Melito, bishop of Sardis, an ancient city of Asia Minor (see Rev 3), c. 170 AD produced the first known Christian attempt at an Old Testament canon. His list maintains the Septuagint order of books but contains only the Old Testament protocanonicals minus the Book of Esther.

The Council of Laodicea, c. 360, produced a list of books similar to today’s canon. This was one of the Church’s earliest decisions on a canon.

Pope Damasus, 366-384, in his Decree, listed the books of today’s canon.

The Council of Rome, 382, was the forum which prompted Pope Damasus’ Decree.

Bishop Exuperius of Toulouse wrote to Pope Innocent I in 405 requesting a list of canonical books. Pope Innocent listed the present canon.

The Council of Hippo, a local north Africa council of bishops created the list of the Old and New Testament books in 393 which is the same as the Roman Catholic list today.

The Council of Carthage, a local north Africa council of bishops created the same list of canonical books in 397. This is the council which many Protestant and Evangelical Christians take as the authority for the New Testament canon of books. The Old Testament canon from the same council is identical to Roman Catholic canon today. Another Council of Carthage in 419 offered the same list of canonical books.

Since the Roman Catholic Church does not define truths unless errors abound on the matter, Roman Catholic Christians look to the Council of Florence, an ecumenical council in 1441 for the first definitive list of canonical books.

The final infallible definition of canonical books for Roman Catholic Christians came from the Council of Trent in 1556 in the face of the errors of the Reformers who rejected seven Old Testament books from the canon of scripture to that time.
There was no canon of scripture in the early Church; there was no Bible. The Bible is the book of the Church; she is not the Church of the Bible. It was the Church–her leadership, faithful people–guided by the authority of the Spirit of Truth which discovered the books inspired by God in their writing. The Church did not create the canon; she discerned the canon. Fixed canons of the Old and New Testaments, hence the Bible, were not known much before the end of the 2nd and early 3rd century.

Catholic Christians together with Protestant and Evangelical Christians hold the same canon of the New Testament, 27 books, all having been originally written in the Greek language.

Catholic Christians accept the longer Old Testament canon, 46 books, from the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Alexandrian Canon.

Protestant and Evangelical Christians, from the Reformers onward, accept the shorter Old Testament canon, 39 books, from the Hebrew Palestinian Canon. Jews have the same canon as Protestants.

Canonical books are those books which have been acknowledged as belonging to the list of books the Church considers to be inspired and to contain a rule of faith and morals. Some criteria used to determine canonicity were

special relation to God, i.e., inspiration;
apostolic origin;
used in Church services, i.e., used by the community of believers guided by the Holy Spirit.
Other terms for canonical books should be distinguished: the protocanonical books, deuterocanonical books, and the apocryphal books.

The protocanonical (from the Greek proto meaning first) books are those books of the Bible that were admitted into the canon of the Bible with little or no debate (e.g., the Pentateuch of the Old Testament and the Gospels)

The deuterocanonical (from the Greek deutero meaning second) books are those books of the Bible that were under discussion for a while until doubts about their canonicity were resolved (e.g. Sirach and Baruch of the Old Testament, and the Johannine epistles of the New Testament).

The apocryphal (from the Greek apokryphos meaning hidden) books have multiple meanings:
 
The apocryphal (from the Greek apokryphos meaning hidden) books have multiple meanings:

complimentary meaning - that the sacred books were too exalted for the general public;
pejorative meaning - that the orthodoxy of the books were questioned;
heretical meaning - that the books were forbidden to be read; and lastly
neutral meaning - simply noncanonical books, the meaning the word has today.
Another word, pseudepigrapha (from the Greek meaning false writing) is used for works clearly considered to be false.

They would not have works of the bible in history books, if it was not History and they would not have the old books in museums. The Bible is in fact History!
You are Loved Nancy Check out An Encyclopedia of WORLD HISTORY By William L Langer(Coolidge Professor of History, Harvard University) Good Luck!
 
The question though is whether this is capital punishment?
Well, again, No. Capital punishment is human’s inflicting death on other humans. We (even Government’s) have no right to take another’s life. That right alone belongs to God.
Some of what was said above was very well said, but I will note that it is the Church’s, and so the Lord’s teaching that capital punishment can be inflicted by sovereign government – though properly only in the case of grave crimes. It is in other words, within the God given authority of the government to do it for the sake of temporal justice and punishment.

Not to get side tracked, anyone can check a ‘capital punishment’ thread to see the matter already discussed thoroughly.

Were the above scriptures about capital punishment? They were about capital punishment, punishment during wartime, and punishment for the sake of God’s direct commands as well as His divine laws.

In other words, God can use human means to inflict death on other human beings, when He so chooses to delegate His authority in these matters. In fact, we see in His Providence, that He delegates these matters in all kinds of ways, so that no one’s death is unplanned for.

That is in fact the great comfort we have, on this earth – Every human being, God has provided for, in regards to the time and place they enter into the next life. For those who do not believe in the next life, or those who will face eternal punishment – death is a fearful thing. For those who are in the service for the Lord, it is not fearful, or at least not fearful in the same way.

In these times there is a great deal of lack of association of justice and punishment with goodness, the previous generations do not see the moral goodness in punishment for evil deeds, they only speak about rehabilitation, though this is a partly misdirected and not moral – they do not wish to believe in sin, and so all punishment must be an evil.

The very sacrifice of Christ on the Cross happened because of Divine Justice – God is justice. We have to come to an understanding of His justice to understand Him, and when we come to this understanding we understand why sin is so terrible, and why our love of Him is called to be so perfect.

Our love calls us to understand justice in this way – The greater you love someone, the greater aversion you have to the slightest harm or injustice to that person. When we contemplate the infinite goodness of God with love, we understand more greatly in our hearts the terrible injustice the least sin is to so great a goodness and how just all punishment is – we even eagerly await it in our own selves and pursue it.

Some good works on God’s justice include F.X. Schouppe’s Purgatory, and St. Anselm’s ‘Why God Became Man’.
 
Hello Shin, you have spoken quite well, but you missed the point we know of Gods love and forgiveness, the question is why does God allow so much horror to happen, and to innocent, I said INNOCENT beings? Could you take the life of a baby? or even a pregnant mom? What about if God asked you to? LOL Nancy
 
Hello Shin, you have spoken quite well, but you missed the point we know of Gods love and forgiveness, the question is why does God allow so much horror to happen, and to innocent, I said INNOCENT beings? Could you take the life of a baby? or even a pregnant mom? What about if God asked you to? LOL Nancy
lol. 🙂

I suppose I could think of innocent human beings, in a situation where it was the principle of double effect, but it is hard to contemplate.

Technically, we are born innocent of personal sin, but we are also born not in union with God’s grace – we may suffer because of others’ acts, our parent’s, but that is the power a parent has over his own child. To a degree our parent’s lives determine our sufferings in this life and there’s a great deal to be said about this.

But in the more general sense, books like Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, and Abandonment to Divine Providence, are good for understanding this all and Providence.

It is perfectly true that all that occurs is God’s will, with the sole exception of sin. Some of it is His direct will, some of it is His permissive will. The latter, because of how He designed the universe and destined all our lives for the best, though so many natural evils occur. And without a doubt, His plan is the best plan for us all. We are in good, absolutely perfectly good hands.

As human beings we sometimes (often even) view physical evils as moral evils, but pain suffering and death are not moral evils in and of themselves.

We suffer because we are separated from God, and born children of wrath, literally born of Adam and Eve, and so sharing that separation and punishment because we are still under their dominion, their children by descent. Under their authority, under their power and jurisdiction. Through baptism we regain grace, and the potential to be united with God, but our will still have to make that journey to perfection in all circumstances, to complete unity.

When we do, all suffering is sweet, and we understand why a baby is lost, a pregnancy that fails, a mother, a child, who dies young, even due to tragic accident or even murder, are all in God’s plan and under His care. Even the sins of men, though God does not cause the sin, He still directs the lives of men around the sins, so that even the moral evils happen as best can be planned for.

We suffer, but we bear our sufferings with Him. And so, the closer with Him we are, the more in obedience to suffering, the sweeter it is. It is when we rebel and see suffering as evil morally, when it is only a natural evil, that it actually becomes most painful.

A woman can lose her child and say, ‘Why? Why?’ like Job, but when she is united with God she in time learns to be comforted, because both she and her child are always in God’s hands – While those without God, or against God, go on crying out saying it is an evil morally that He allows all this to go – and so go too far.

Throughout the Old Testament God demonstrates the effects of sin – When men commit particular sin, He visits them with punishments of further sin, to demonstrate what sin leads to – more sin, and sins against the sinners themselves – For the more separated from God, the more we suffer at the hands of other sinners.

We are all united as mankind, and the sins of others always harm us in a sense because of that union of family, however directly unjust it may see, it is just or natural in a more overall general sense because we are all family, and all a more or less separated family from God whose destiny was always linked for good or evil.

If we wish to live our lives in perfect safety, we live sacred, holy lives, in union with God and realize that in the next life, even a young baby’s teething pains or worse, become a prize in Heaven that gives it a higher place in God’s love for the cost that child bore for sin, in union with Christ.
 
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