How could a moral God allow suffering?

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Amandil said:
Tony, you have to be careful. The Church considers the Old Testament to be literal and historical where it is literal and historical; it also considers those parts(more specifically Gen 1-11) which are non-literal historical to be non-literal historical.

This is to say that we in the Church read the Bible literally(according to the mind of the author and what is written on the page), but that we are not literalists(that every word of the Bible is meant word-for-word on its own without taking into account the mind of the author and the time which he lived).

Tomdstone is clearly ripping the Bible out of context(as usual scratch an atheist and you find a fundamentalist), but you have to be careful in that you don’t wind up contradicting the Church.
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The paramount criterion is whether an Old Testament text is consistent with the teaching of Jesus that God is a loving Father who cares for** all **His children. The Church does not claim that the authors of the Old Testament were infallible in their interpretation of events - even if those events were historical…
 
Tomdstone said:
I believe that according to the story related in Exodus 12:29, God did kill the Egyptian firstborn. It is a well know description of the tenth plague intended to release the Jews in Egypt and allow them to go to Palestine. The response to this was that I was reading into Scripture, that I was ripping the Bible out of context as a pretext for my supposed preconceived beliefs and ideas, that I show a remarkable lack of any real concern for textual criticism, and that I am at best a sophist. I don’t see how these uncharitable personal ad hominem remarks are in any way a response to the story of tenth plague as reported in Scripture. This story is one of the best known Bible stories that every pupil of Bible study will recognise.
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Yes, that is what happened. Here’s what else has happened. Every human who has ever lived, is living, or is going to live, will be killed by God since God made us all mortal.

Why not complain about that as well? 🤷

You see the point, don’t you? Our lives are for God to give and God to take.

You don’t get to decide whether God is just or not. God decides that, and deals with us accordingly.

The long history of the slavery of the Jews in Egypt was undone by the Pharaoh relenting. He relented only after God showed the Pharaoh his power to punish evil doers. Having finally gotten the message, the Jews were allowed to leave Egypt and build the house of David, from which came the free man and Savior of the human race, Jesus Christ.

But even God can only save, or be merciful, to those who cooperate with his justice.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Why not complain about that as well? 🤷.
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I wasn’t complaining. I was only responding to an assertion that God does not kill children. I quoted a passage from Exodus to prove my point and was then subject to a series of ad hominem attacks.
 
Tomdstone said:
I wasn’t complaining. I was only responding to an assertion that God does not kill children. I quoted a passage from Exodus to prove my point and was then subject to a series of ad hominem attacks.
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O.K. Let’s leave it at that.

If you are God, you have the right to give and take life at will. God gives all life. God takes all life.

If you are not God, no one has a right to argue with God’s mercy and his justice.

And if anyone does, that is not an *ad hominem *attack. That is an ad Deus attack. 😉
 
tonyrey said:
It is an atrocity to destroy an entire civilisation. It amounts to indiscriminate and unjust punishment.
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Evidently not according to God’s understanding of good/evil. Are you sure you’ve analyzed the situation correctly? There must be something that you’re missing, because God is disagreeing with you (and we can see that in Scripture).
tonyrey said:
Children cannot choose to be evil until they reach the age of reason.
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Agreed. I wasn’t talking about children.
tonyrey said:
There is no such thing as collective evil. We are not responsible for what others do unless we give our consent or cannot prevent them.
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Correct (the last sentence). There is, however, collective evil because everyone can be evil.
tonyrey said:
The Creator is not the Destroyer. He certainly wouldn’t destroy His own children made in His image and likeness.
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Would he destroy the children of Satan?
tonyrey said:
Only Fundamentalists interpret everything in the Old Testament literally.
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So what parts of the Bible do we trust and what parts do we distrust?
tonyrey said:
The interpretation of disasters in the Old Testament is not infallible and it predated the teaching of Jesus that God is a Father who loves all His children - and causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. He did not say God punishes the innocent and guilty with plagues and floods.
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I am aware of those statements by Christ. Let me ask you: have you studied all of Christ’s statements? Because he makes some other statements that sound quite different from the ones you’ve chosen.
 
Suffering affords man a situation in which he can exhibit a higher level of love.
 
Tomdstone said:
Perhaps true for a mature man, but questionable for very young children or infants.
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If it was true for a mature man, why wouldn’t familiarity with suffering from infancy be valuable? Not to mention those mature people who suffer with those children. It takes stronger love to sacrifice one’s life for another’s illness than to flee from it and indulge in some non-difficult enterprise.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
O.K. Let’s leave it at that.

If you are God, you have the right to give and take life at will. God gives all life. God takes all life.

If you are not God, no one has a right to argue with God’s mercy and his justice.

And if anyone does, that is not an *ad hominem *attack. That is an ad Deus attack. 😉
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Or is it ad falsus deus (deus falsus)?
 
Bradski said:
In my not inconsiderable experience of talking to Christians, the parts that you trust are the ones that support your views.
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That is the result of the Reformation when men rejected the authority of the Church founded by Christ.
 
Achilles6129 said:
Evidently not according to God’s understanding of good/evil. Are you sure you’ve analyzed the situation correctly? There must be something that you’re missing, because God is disagreeing with you (and we can see that in Scripture).
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Your interpretation of Scripture is not infallible.
Agreed. I wasn’t talking about children.
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Yet you believe they are destroyed!
Correct (the last sentence). There is, however, collective evil because everyone can be evil.
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“can” is the key word. Not everyone is evil.
Would he destroy the children of Satan?
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Everyone is created in God’s image.
So what parts of the Bible do we trust and what parts do we distrust?
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Those that correspond to the teaching of Christ.
I am aware of those statements by Christ. Let me ask you: have you studied all of Christ’s statements? Because he makes some other statements that sound quite different from the ones you’ve chosen.
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None of Christ’s statements contradict His message of love.
 
tonyrey said:
Those that correspond to the teaching of Christ.
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I can’t recall Him mentioning if His father was allowed to kill children. But wouldn’t it be God’s love for those children that caused their demise? So might Jesus have approved?

Let’s face it…you can spin any story any way you want. And that’s the exactly what everyone does. You can justify anything if you put your mind to it.
 
Bradski said:
I can’t recall Him mentioning if His father was allowed to kill children. But wouldn’t it be God’s love for those children that caused their demise? So might Jesus have approved?
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Bradski, some day you and I are going to die … and Jesus would approve.

When children die, we believe they go straight to heaven.

Where will you and I go?

I hope we both go to where Jesus approves.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Bradski, some day you and I are going to die … and Jesus would approve. When children die, we believe they go straight to heaven.

Where will you and I go? I hope we both go to where Jesus approves.
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So this argument counters what Tony was saying. Or at least, it appeared that Tony was trying to argue that God did not kill the children. That we shouldn’t take the bible at face value unless it reflects what Jesus taught.

Now you are saying that Jesus would have approved. As I said, one can spin the story any way one likes.

Did it happen? No, It didn’t follow the teachings of Jesus.
Did it happen? Yes, Jesus would have approved.
 
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